Mindstream Aquarium Monitor

[Kaba]

There's a video on the kickstarter taken 2 days ago, talking about biofouling and such. It's only part 1 as well.
Main points:

Disk is always moving to stop snails from taking rides and always wiping optical sensors.
Fluorescent disk may last longer than a month, but 1 month was what they felt comfortable with saying, you'll have to experiment.
Each optical sensor has 4 LEDs measuring from different angles, and if they don't add up right it'll let you know something is up.
Disk and sensors are cleanable. Nothing abrasive though, DI or just saltwater and a sponge or your finger.
Alkalinity calculation is based off of oceanography calculations, which are very accurate in normal seawater. If you're making homebrew salt with extra borate it might throw it off.

I think that was about it.

 

[DaveMorris]

Fluorescent disk may last longer than a month, but 1 month was what they felt comfortable with saying, you'll have to experiment.

That is problematic. I would think that the sensitivities would age differently with the different parameters so if you are going to start testing at 30 days to see if the disk is still accurate, what do you test for? And wouldn't that force you to still do at least monthly testing with a titration kit? With all of the research going into this thing I would want the company to have a much better idea of how long these things are going to remain accurate. Operating cost just keeps going up.

 

[Kaba]

Well every tank is different, so there is no way to give a really good answer. An ULN SPS tank is very different from a predator tank. 30 days is the time length they have figured out that they will last in the vast majority of system, after it becomes too variable with so many different tank types. The sensor discs themselves, in a pristine environment, would easily last several months, the only degradation being the fluorescence disc due to light.
And if you test every month and find out, in your system, that a disc lasts for months, now you only would have to check maybe every 3 months, so you upkeep just got cut by 2/3. And if you rely on this monitor and have nothing else as a backup for testing, well that's rather silly. Automation is not without its shortfalls, and anything that can fail will fail.
Did you check out the video or just going off my little synopsis?

 

[Greenstreet.1]

Where is the new video at would like to take a look. Looked on the site but could not find it

 

[Kaba]

http://www.reefnation.com/mindstream-video-demo-part-1/

 

[Shep]

Don't know if anyone has posted this yet
http://reefbuilders.com/2015/08/07/10-innovations-mindstream-aquarium-monitor/

 

[143MPCo]

Rhodium plated electrodes... well Rhodium is about as nonreactive as gold and they're using it in measuring temperature, not cheap!

 

[DaveMorris]

Did you check out the video or just going off my little synopsis?

I am going off of the company's own statements about disc life. Most of the concerns that people are voicing have to do with the ongoing cost of these discs.

 

[lexinverts]

I am going off of the company's own statements about disc life. Most of the concerns that people are voicing have to do with the ongoing cost of these discs.

I see that. I'm a bit surprised by this, given how much people will spend on other high end reefing products and on livestock. I spend more than $30-50 per month on frags alone, and if they all perish in a tank crash the replacement cost is quite significant.

Anyway, I'll bet that dipping the discs in RO water like they discuss in the video will help extend the life of the disc and thus make it more affordable. It seems that the lifespan of the disc due to degradation of the fluorescent properties of the "emitter" is much longer than 30 days (perhaps this is in the range of their original estimate of 90 days). It's the biofouling of the disc in your tank that could shorten this timeframe, so it seems that a little regular maintenance to reduce growth on the disc could make this thing more affordable.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I was contacted by the Mindstream folks yesterday, or rather, I should say, recontacted. I had completely forgotten that they contacted me in early 2014 to see if I wanted to be involved in some way (I declined because at the time I was too busy as the CTO of a new startup pharmaceutical company).

They reiterated the 4 data points used to get alkalinity and described exactly which constants from the published scientific literature they will use in the equations, which all seem appropriate.

I don't want to go over all of the things we discussed as some of it is confidential (at least for now), but I described my concerns mentioned earlier in this thread about CO2 when organic carbon dosing and described what experiments would eliminate my concern. Bacteria have also been part of the many experiments they have run, and is part of the reason to drop to 30 days for the disks.

 

[Amoo]

I was contacted by the Mindstream folks yesterday, or rather, I should say, recontacted. I had completely forgotten that they contacted me in early 2014 to see if I wanted to be involved in some way (I declined because at the time I was too busy as the CTO of a new startup pharmaceutical company).

They reiterated the 4 data points used to get alkalinity and described exactly which constants from the published scientific literature they will use in the equations, which all seem appropriate.

I don't want to go over all of the things we discussed as some of it is confidential (at least for now), but I described my concerns mentioned earlier in this thread about CO2 when organic carbon dosing and described what experiments would eliminate my concern. Bacteria have also been part of the many experiments they have run, and is part of the reason to drop to 30 days for the disks.

Bacteria caused specifically by dosing organics or just bacteria in general?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Bacteria caused specifically by dosing organics or just bacteria in general?

In general.

 

[evolved]

In general.

Oh, interesting. Implies disk life could be variable for each tank.

 

[Amoo]

In general.

Oh, interesting. Implies disk life could be variable for each tank.

Thank you this confirms the suspicions I already had. Leads me to believe they know the product works, just can't account for every single variable in every single tank. I may not be well published in the field, but I like to think I can hold my own with degrees in one way or another in Nuclear Engineering, Business and Electricity. If there is one thing we should all be able to agree on it's that my tank is different then Randy's, and different then evolved and different then Rev's and different then random test tanks in a lab....etc.

As I mentioned earlier Randy, and I want to reiterate this again, because I don't want this to come across the wrong way, I have no issue with them contacting you or others directly to help with products. I just feel it's a dangerous and slippery slope when it basically becomes a requirement to get the blessing of certain people to get "the masses" to believe in your product.

 

[sonnus]

I think an important thing to consider with this monitor is that we don't even know how to use it yet. Here are a few points for all of the naysayers. I'm assuming that the monitor will work as promised, there really is no point debating the monitors accuracy until we actually get a chance to test it.

- Alkalinity monitoring is huge! Every time my calcium reactor runs out of CO2 before I notice it my alkalinity crash. On my system I've seen 4-5 dKH drops in alkalinity in just a single day and this is a constant dread with monitoring the reactor. I'm also thrilled at the though of tuning in new reactors/dosers with the constant monitoring. The alkalinity monitoring alone justifies the price for me and this would have paid for the monitor dozens of times over in alkalinity crash preventions.

- Ammonia, initially I was really bummed out that this was one of the parameter. I must have a dozen expired ammonia kits in a box somewhere that were simply used for cycling new tanks. After thinking about this for a bit I started to really think this might be a game changer. The obvious benefit is detecting a recently deceased tank inhabitant or monitoring ammonia levels on new fish additions to ensure we are not adding fish too soon or quickly to our tanks. But, if the ammonia monitoring is as accurate as Mindstream says I think this might be a game changer in itself. I think it might be possible to monitor the "health" of our tank continuously detecting, not only death, but the health of our tank inhabitants. Neptune Systems already promotes their ORP monitoring as a "health" gauge already (rather than for ozone dosing) and I think accurate, real-time ammonia monitoring is going to be a huge step forward.

- Potassium is a vital macronutrient for our tanks and it is possible that we might end up discovering an ideal NPK ratio for our tanks (it certainly is important for agriculture). If an ideal NPK ratio does turn out to be beneficial then an accurate and easy potassium test will be key to maintaining this. Also, low potassium levels have been known to stunt growth of corals for many decades now so why don't we regularly check this? I don't think continuous potassium monitoring is necessary but an easier, and more importantly, accurate way to measure it might be a big deal.

- Oxygen is obviously an important parameter but I think we might gain some valuable insight on it's usefulness once we start monitoring it regularly.

I guess I sound like a salesman for the Mindstream but I don't think anyone realizes where this will take us 5 years from now.

 

[sonnus]

Here's a recent video from Reef Nation with one of the Mindstream inventors. It's a long video but there's a lot of information about the accuracy of the device and they go into quite a bit of depth about how the monitor works. This is by far the most informative video I've seen. The mindstream seems to have a lot of redundancy and self checking built into it.

 

[jolt]

Nice discussion of how the unit can detect bio-fouling and inform the user, starts around 12:45

 

[Kaba]

...But I want THAT interface!

 

[PaulKreider]

Sounds like an awesome product if they can pull it off, out of my price range unfortunately, but definitely interesting.

 

[whatchamacallit]

I backed this for a December delivery, but unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to make it :/ I think they are missing some big selling points by not engaging with the potential buyers in forums and such