Next reefing innovation?

[RWReefer]

I’m relatively new to this hobby and I know there are quite a few folks here who have been in the game a very long time. Curious to hear opinions and discuss what you feel the next wave of innovation will be in the hobby?

Just from perusing this board you get a feeling for how much technology has entered the hobby over the past 10 years.

 

[Fenral]

Honestly - all these automated chemical tests are just an iteration...

Besides the enhancements to lighting from LEDS, they offer the possibility of replacing much of the chemical reagent testing with spectral absorption tests in the not-too-far-distant future. This does not apply just to our hobby but also to things like blood sugar and other medical applications.

 

[RWReefer]

Honestly - all these automated chemical tests are just an iteration...

Besides the enhancements to lighting from LEDS, they offer the possibility of replacing much of the chemical reagent testing with spectral absorption tests in the not-too-far-distant future. This does not apply just to our hobby but also to things like blood sugar and other medical applications.

That’s a good one. Do you think it’s just an affordability issue (it make it accessible to the masses)? Seems like it would be difficult to scale down to hobby level but I’m just thinking from a IR mass spectroscopy equipment perspective. Don’t know anything about absorption technology.

 

[Fenral]

That’s a good one. Do you think it’s just an affordability issue (it make it accessible to the masses)?

It's not affordable yet - and they are still working out the blood sugar tests. But the LEDs can now emit very controlled tight spectra, and we can pair them off with CCDs that can pick up the differences. They exist in labs now - and it's not like the components aren't cheap in this day and age of mass electronics. It's more about working out the bugs and someone applying the existing tech to our hobby. Affordability is also relative - The Maven is slated to be released in November. And they are asking over 1K for it, so...

 

[RWReefer]

It's not affordable yet - and they are still working out the blood sugar tests. But the LEDs can now emit very controlled tight spectra, and we can pair them off with CCDs that can pick up the differences. They exist in labs now - and it's not like the components aren't cheap in this day and age of mass electronics. It's more about working out the bugs and someone applying the existing tech to our hobby. Affordability is also relative - The Maven is slated to be released in November. And they are asking over 1K for it, so...

Yeah I think there are two products destined to be blockbusters in this hobby. Automatic test system sans reagents and automatic algae scraper that can navigate corners without being visually intrusive.

 

[Treehrtsme]

The automated test systems have actually been around longer than I thought. Was working on someone's statement the other day and say he has two reefbots (both, but definitely one being repair due to being used as a stand for equipment) and was completely baffled looking at all the reagents inside. Honestly though I don't worry much about parameters in my established tanks and can normally guess what it is when something is off from past experience so I generally only test during water changes or if I'm progressively trying to change a parameter. Anything that can't be tested with a probe, except maybe salinity, I don't feel the need to have tested everyday or even more than that. Just hour it's worked for me. The only parameters I hate having to test alk and Ca, but can't skip on those. If I don't change up anything about a system, how I feed, what I feed, or stuff like adding fish and coral, my tanks stay pretty consistent.

I would like to see other automation get simpler and cheaper. I honestly wish there was a system that could do automatic water changes with small reservoirs progressively throughout an entire day so I can be as uninvolved as possible. I'm sure you could potentially automate a tiny mixing station to progressively refill and change 5g every couple of hours but it would be a pain.... And likely expensive.

 

[RWReefer]

The automated test systems have actually been around longer than I thought. Was working on someone's statement the other day and say he has two reefbots (both, but definitely one being repair due to being used as a stand for equipment) and was completely baffled looking at all the reagents inside. Honestly though I don't worry much about parameters in my established tanks and can normally guess what it is when something is off from past experience so I generally only test during water changes or if I'm progressively trying to change a parameter. Anything that can't be tested with a probe, except maybe salinity, I don't feel the need to have tested everyday or even more than that. Just hour it's worked for me. The only parameters I hate having to test alk and Ca, but can't skip on those. If I don't change up anything about a system, how I feed, what I feed, or stuff like adding fish and coral, my tanks stay pretty consistent.

I would like to see other automation get simpler and cheaper. I honestly wish there was a system that could do automatic water changes with small reservoirs progressively throughout an entire day so I can be as uninvolved as possible. I'm sure you could potentially automate a tiny mixing station to progressively refill and change 5g every couple of hours but it would be a pain.... And likely expensive.

Interesting thought. So you’re thinking of an on demand mixing station to tie into low volume daily AWC?

 

[Fenral]

The automated test systems have actually been around longer than I thought. Was working on someone's statement the other day and say he has two reefbots (both, but definitely one being repair due to being used as a stand for equipment) and was completely baffled looking at all the reagents inside. Honestly though I don't worry much about parameters in my established tanks and can normally guess what it is when something is off from past experience so I generally only test during water changes or if I'm progressively trying to change a parameter. Anything that can't be tested with a probe, except maybe salinity, I don't feel the need to have tested everyday or even more than that. Just hour it's worked for me. The only parameters I hate having to test alk and Ca, but can't skip on those. If I don't change up anything about a system, how I feed, what I feed, or stuff like adding fish and coral, my tanks stay pretty consistent.

I would like to see other automation get simpler and cheaper. I honestly wish there was a system that could do automatic water changes with small reservoirs progressively throughout an entire day so I can be as uninvolved as possible. I'm sure you could potentially automate a tiny mixing station to progressively refill and change 5g every couple of hours but it would be a pain.... And likely expensive.

I have Three buckets in my back room (30G); one is filled with a hypersalinity solution, one is auto-filled with RODI, and one is the mixing bucket with an old tunze flow pump. The Hydros controller is doing the rest with a little bit of modification...I've only got to mix the hypersalinity every couple of weeks. As to the water change, except when the system has to pause to mix more, it continuously changes a computed volume and turnover equal to 10 percent of the system volume. Yeh, it would be nice if it was cheaper - but it's also here now.

 

[Fenral]

That’s a good one. Do you think it’s just an affordability issue (it make it accessible to the masses)? Seems like it would be difficult to scale down to hobby level but I’m just thinking from a IR mass spectroscopy equipment perspective. Don’t know anything about absorption technology.

Mass spectroscopy generally involves the same principles (be it using a different detector set with an optical prism... but you usually deal with the vaporized matter, too. With a liquid suspension, you can duck the vaporization part

 

[Treehrtsme]

Interesting thought. So you’re thinking of an on demand mixing station to tie into low volume daily AWC?

Well being low volume or potentially empty it will take time to get enough rodi to change say 40g. If I could set it to mix water on demand up to say 5g and then remove 5g from the sump and put 5g the new mixed water in it would likely take hours. Having it as compact as possible and being able to start a water change remotely would be the key points.

 

[Treehrtsme]

I have Three buckets in my back room (30G); one is filled with a hypersalinity solution, one is auto-filled with RODI, and one is the mixing bucket with an old tunze flow pump. The Hydros controller is doing the rest with a little bit of modification...I've only got to mix the hypersalinity every couple of weeks. As to the water change, except when the system has to pause to mix more, it continuously changes a computed volume and turnover equal to 10 percent of the system volume. Yeh, it would be nice if it was cheaper - but it's also here now.

Exactly, but that is diy I'm thinking more along the lines of something with a small enough footprint to potentially fit under a stand. That and if salinity probes were more affordable and reliable then you could actually change the salinity of you're tank as well as alkalinity based on what solution it mixes with and the knowns of the solution.

 

[vandy]

I'm hoping they miniaturize the lasers they use to zap tuna farm parasites down to the size that we can use them in our aquarium to zap ich lol

 

[Fenral]

Exactly, but that is diy I'm thinking more along the lines of something with a small enough footprint to potentially fit under a stand. That and if salinity probes were more affordable and reliable then you could actually change the salinity of you're tank as well as alkalinity based on what solution it mixes with and the knowns of the solution.

You have the rub there, though not so DIY—launch controller, hydros dosing pumps—and yes, a hacked salinity probe. The control itself doesn't seem to allow dosing control via salinity values, so I have the probe in diagnostic mode and steal the voltage input. I picked 30g cause I'm nuts (and it represents half my display volume in case I need to do an emergency change), but I suppose you could do 2l bottles or a simplicity 5 gallon or 10 or whatever dosing containers, depending on your tank size.

~~~~
But on that thought, perhaps the next innovation (someone, please feel free to steal this and put it into production) - I test every day with a digital refractometer - there is ZERO reason why one cannot be set in an automated manner to pass light through a prism and do a reading - would be a heck of a lot better than the conductivity probes.

 

[Treehrtsme]

You have the rub there, though not so DIY—launch controller, hydros dosing pumps—and yes, a hacked salinity probe. The control itself doesn't seem to allow dosing control via salinity values, so I have the probe in diagnostic mode and steal the voltage input. I picked 30g cause I'm nuts (and it represents half my display volume in case I need to do an emergency change), but I suppose you could do 2l bottles or a simplicity 5 gallon or 10 or whatever dosing containers, depending on your tank size.

~~~~
But on that thought, perhaps the next innovation (someone, please feel free to steal this and put it into production) - I test every day with a digital refractometer - there is ZERO reason why one cannot be set in an automated manner to pass light through a prism and do a reading - would be a heck of a lot better than the conductivity probes.

I got the idea from thinking it through with what hydros can do. It's already possible just far from something intentionally optimized or affordable with current technology. I think even just a simple awc that affordable and more compact then a full on 600g station would be great for newcomers but I can't think up a way to make it simple or affordable in the eyes of someone new. Tech will get cheaper and more accurate over the years though

 

[Fenral]

I got the idea from thinking it through with what hydros can do. It's already possible just far from something intentionally optimized or affordable with current technology. I think even just a simple awc that affordable and more compact then a full on 600g station would be great for newcomers but I can't think up a way to make it simple or affordable in the eyes of someone new. Tech will get cheaper and more accurate over the years though

This should be doable with commodity equipment like a reasonably high-accuracy cooking scale ;) After all, it's just some math - god knows there are enough low-end cpus that can easily handle this, plus some cheap dosing pumps. It just needs someone to venture capital / build it...and a market.

 

[cilyjr]

I honestly wish there was a system that could do automatic water changes with small reservoirs progressively throughout an entire day so I can be as uninvolved as possible. I'm sure you could potentially automate a tiny mixing station to progressively refill and change 5g every couple of hours but it would be a pain.... And likely expensive.

There is already a dialysis machine for aquariums. Just dump in the salt it pulls everything out of the water and replaces it with the new salt.

I think it is around 5 grand.
Look at the ocean creator on this site.

https://seavisions.com/dialyseas/

 

[Gizmoreef]

I have Three buckets in my back room (30G); one is filled with a hypersalinity solution, one is auto-filled with RODI, and one is the mixing bucket with an old tunze flow pump. The Hydros controller is doing the rest with a little bit of modification...I've only got to mix the hypersalinity every couple of weeks. As to the water change, except when the system has to pause to mix more, it continuously changes a computed volume and turnover equal to 10 percent of the system volume. Yeh, it would be nice if it was cheaper - but it's also here now.

I would REALLY love to see this setup explained in more detail. Perhaps create a thread for it? Been looking into a similar idea.

 

[TheLegendaryBarlowe072]

There is already a dialysis machine for aquariums. Just dump in the salt it pulls everything out of the water and replaces it with the new salt.

I think it is around 5 grand.
Look at the ocean creator on this site.

https://seavisions.com/dialyseas/

I had never heard of this. Extremely interesting concept. But after you mentioned it, I went looking and found this very interesting experiment article.

https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/pr/index.php

 

[Paul B]

I feel we focus on technology way to much in this hobby already and less and less on common sense so we can keep everything healthy with no medications and have no need for our interference as the fish already know how to stay healthy as long as we keep out of their way.

I think the next big thing in this hobby is learning how to go about that. Technology is driven by money to be made but your fish don't usually care how much you spend on your tank.

I have been SCUBA diving since 1971 and hardly ever see any electronic devices in the sea unless it is an oil drilling platform and most fish frown on those except they like to live around the base of them. Maybe they like the smell of oil. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

 

[Gizmoreef]

I feel we focus on technology way to much in this hobby already and less and less on common sense so we can keep everything healthy with no medications and have no need for our interference as the fish already know how to stay healthy as long as we keep out of their way.

I think the next big thing in this hobby is learning how to go about that. Technology is driven by money to be made but your fish don't usually care how much you spend on your tank.

I have been SCUBA diving since 1971 and hardly ever see any electronic devices in the sea unless it is an oil drilling platform and most fish frown on those except they like to live around the base of them. Maybe they like the smell of oil. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

I have a vastly different view on this. I don't have a lot of spare time so technology is a way to reduce tank maintenance and chores which leaves me more time to actually enjoy my tank. Fully automated waterchanges for example. What is romantic or fun about dragging buckets around right?