What’s next from Apex? (After Trident)

[Cabinetman]

I’d really like to see more probes to monitor my tanks parameters and see them improve the salinity probe and... get me my trident! Lol

Funny I was just reading over threads about Neptune coming up with nitrate and phosphate testing and found my old comment. I got my trident and love it. Now we need the nitrate and phosphate Terrance!!

 

[User1]

Funny I was just reading over threads about Neptune coming up with nitrate and phosphate testing and found my old comment. I got my trident and love it. Now we need the nitrate and phosphate Terrance!!

Somewhat unrelated but related kind of sort of but did you see how Hanna's is running their Nitrate test? Seems like a bit more work involved compared to the basic visual eyeball kit from Nyos. Just wondering if this is why we haven't seen something yet or how the test fits in the overall water testing level of importance for most reef keepers.

 

[Cabinetman]

Jeez you’d think they must be working on it. Nitrate and phosphate auto testing or probes would be top priority to develop if I was Neptune. Imagine if they came out with probes to monitor those parameters!! Be nice to see them come up with probes to monitor the big 3 as well to get rid of reagent testing. Come on Neptune! I know they’ve been really quiet. Hopefully it’s a sign something big is coming

 

[Devaji]

I know they’ve been really quiet. Hopefully it’s a sign something big is coming

I have heard roomers it's a light fixture. not sure we need yet another light fixture on the market but hopefully IF that is true they will bring some new and worth while to the market.

IMHO if I was them i would make the stuff they have better like the salinity probes the WAV pumps the controller it self plastic ugly junk....but i still have one even tho when they came out with the new model I said I would not get it.
not to long and they will be making tank to. guess everyone is trying to get the complete pkg I dont like that, I say its best if companies do a few things really good and let other do the same. but what do I know...haha

 

[Cabinetman]

I have heard roomers it's a light fixture. not sure we need yet another light fixture on the market but hopefully IF that is true they will bring some new and worth while to the market.

IMHO if I was them i would make the stuff they have better like the salinity probes the WAV pumps the controller it self plastic ugly junk....but i still have one even tho when they came out with the new model I said I would not get it.
not to long and they will be making tank to. guess everyone is trying to get the complete pkg I dont like that, I say its best if companies do a few things really good and let other do the same. but what do I know...haha

Jeez I hope it’s not a light. That would be just stupid...there’s a million lights out there but no one does auto testing on things and it’s the future. I can’t see them being that dumb to chase after a little slice of the lighting part when they could have dam near the whole pie when it comes to cutting edge stuff like reliable auto testing

 

[Terence]

Somewhat unrelated but related kind of sort of but did you see how Hanna's is running their Nitrate test? Seems like a bit more work involved compared to the basic visual eyeball kit from Nyos. Just wondering if this is why we haven't seen something yet or how the test fits in the overall water testing level of importance for most reef keepers.

You should watch the instructional video. If a company with as much resources as hanna has an electronic nitrate test kit that takes that many steps, think about how difficult it would be to automate such a thing - and get results that are precise - while at the same time be reliable, easy for the customer to use, and at a price point (unit and consumables) they would be happy with. This is not a trivial task to hit all of those points.

 

[scdigby]

1). Nitrate probe (I’ve seen this on another system)
2.) Phosphate Probe (never have seen this)

i would like to see both of these!

 

[Devaji]

You should watch the instructional video. If a company with as much resources as hanna has an electronic nitrate test kit that takes that many steps, think about how difficult it would be to automate such a thing - and get results that are precise - while at the same time be reliable, easy for the customer to use, and at a price point (unit and consumables) they would be happy with. This is not a trivial task to hit all of those points.

I was thinking the same. sure I would Love LOVE and LOVE this but man I dont think we are there yet sad hopefully some day soon.

 

[GK3]

I was thinking the same. sure I would Love LOVE and LOVE this but man I dont think we are there yet sad hopefully some day soon.

I work in the automation industry. Anything that has multiple and precise steps is better automated than it is to ask a person to do it. I haven’t read the Hannah nitrate instructions, but I assume it’s just a lot of measuring and mixing, correct?

 

[MnFish1]

I think you are asking for waaaay too much from a car battery. I’d be happy with a module that would let me specify which things turn on during a power outage. I’ve never seen a DC heater and honestly, you’d loose a lot in the DC to AC conversion to run it. Right now my tank runs for 48hrs with no power and all I keep running is an MP10. Most things are going to make it without the heater for a good amount of time. Apex heart beat tells you when power is out so i don’t see the need for cellular.

I think this might be true if you live in an area where the temp stays in the 70's year around. Certainly a tank can go 48 hours without light. I had a couple powerhead going - the power went out 12 hours - lost nearly everything (at least everything expensive). It all depends on what you have in your tank. I would recommend that anyone that has a high level SPS tank - or expensive fish - invest in a generator - that automatically turns on - when the power goes off - I am not sure an Apex will solve this either way.

 

[MnFish1]

Wouldn't this be something. I would be all over this, and yes I'm sure it would be expensive.

Curious - not a critique - why an automatic frozen food feeder? Seems like it would waste electricity - have plenty of failure points - is it really that important to have frozen food every day? and lastly - I like feeding my fish - its part of the 'fun' (for me)

 

[Drendo]

I would like to see them develop a robot to carry 5 gallon buckets up the stairs and clean my tank!

If that’s too much, I would like to see a better salinity probe and an improved Trident, which is more stable and includes a nitrate on phosphate probe. That would be a game changer and I wouldn’t hesitate to be a buyer.

 

[MnFish1]

It is often finicky to calibrate, tends to accumulate air bubbles which can dramatically throw off the reading, and the cable is highly susceptible to interference from other cables and cords running alongside it back to the controller. That said, I'm personally ok with the design, it works well enough if you know its limitations. Would probably want something better with the Apex Mil Spec, though.

I stopped using mine - and the ORP - but the salinity - what is going to change it - rapidly - I mean I suppose if an ATO malfunctions - but - minute by minute - I don't get it - (and mine never worked properly - I constantly got alerts - which were false - and usually when I was not home.

 

[ca1ore]

I'm frankly hard pressed to think of anything I'm really missing in terms of tank automation .... perhaps that simply reveals a lack of imagination on my part. Phosphate levels just don't change quickly so some kind of repetitive measuring is mostly pointless. I suppose nitrate would be nice, but again there are so many ways to manage nitrate levels that the folks who would likely be the addressable market for such a thing are already doing them (thus very low levels).

Gotta say I actually like being able to monitor salinity, even if chez moi most alerts are falsies also. I did have an ATO problem in 2018 that the salinity probe caught .... even though said ATO has THREE redundant switches. There is always a point of vulnerability you haven't thought of ..... always!

 

[Terence]

I was thinking the same. sure I would Love LOVE and LOVE this but man I dont think we are there yet sad hopefully some day soon.

Honestly, speaking only as an avid reefkeeper, it is interesting to me but probably on the order of 1/10th getting a regular alkalinity reading - at best. Why? because I do not need to know this on a frequent basis (I have tested nitrate and phosphate once in six months) and even if I did test more regularly, and did see some rise, there really is no proven, and widely accepted prescription (like additing sodium bicarbonate) to automate its adjustment. So, at this point it becomes kind of a one trick pony that relieves me of the infrequent testing of these parameters and gives me a reading say once a week instead of me doing it with my API or hanna LRP test. Will there be some out there that will respond to this that they do a test every day and that they do X or Y religiously when it goes up/down? Absolutely. But for the masses, this is not reall a thing to the extent something like the big 3 are and the numbers of these people will be far less than those who find the big benefits the Trident gives. There is no such thing as a free lunch - the cost of any unit I have seen claiming that it will do this, and/or its consumables, will be quite significant and from what I can tell outside the reach of most hobbyists - and it still may come with significant overhead of care and configuration as well making it, like the Hanna Nitrate test, possibly more hassle than just doing the old fashioned test. I am, however, open minded and willing to be proven wrong.

 

[rkpetersen]

I've already pre-ordered the nitrate checker, and I'll probably use it, at least for awhile, but I'm not impressed with the number of steps or the overall time it takes to do just one test. As mentioned, there's a reason that we don't have inexpensive 'probes' for parameters like nitrate and phosphate.

 

[GK3]

Honestly, speaking only as an avid reefkeeper, it is interesting to me but probably on the order of 1/10th getting a regular alkalinity reading - at best. Why? because I do not need to know this on a frequent basis (I have tested nitrate and phosphate once in six months) and even if I did test more regularly, and did see some rise, there really is no proven, and widely accepted prescription (like additing sodium bicarbonate) to automate its adjustment. So, at this point it becomes kind of a one trick pony that relieves me of the infrequent testing of these parameters and gives me a reading say once a week instead of me doing it with my API or hanna LRP test. Will there be some out there that will respond to this that they do a test every day and that they do X or Y religiously when it goes up/down? Absolutely. But for the masses, this is not reall a thing to the extent something like the big 3 are and the numbers of these people will be far less than those who find the big benefits the Trident gives. There is no such thing as a free lunch - the cost of any unit I have seen claiming that it will do this, and/or its consumables, will be quite significant and from what I can tell outside the reach of most hobbyists - and it still may come with significant overhead of care and configuration as well making it, like the Hanna Nitrate test, possibly more hassle than just doing the old fashioned test. I am, however, open minded and willing to be proven wrong.

you make a 100% valid point in terms of how often do I really need to test phosphate and nitrates, I hear you. However, I constantly bottom our nitrates and phosphates in my tank. I think people would like a nitrate test so that they could run filtration and dose back in nitrates as needed. I also truly believe that anything built in terms of an “automated” tester is going to be way more accurate than anything a person has to put drops or powders into. People just inherently introduce inaccuracies. No offense humans.

For me personally, I work in automation so my wants always outweigh the logical, simply cause I think it’s cool. I started in saltwater with a 2.5 gallon aquarium that I only touched once a month because of an arduino I programmed. Quite frankly, if I couldn’t automate my reef keeping, I probably wouldn’t even have a tank. So the more I can control or see about my tank through the apex, sign me up.

 

[Cabinetman]

I have a 560 gallon and I’m struggling to keep
My phosphate down so I regularly use lanthanum chloride. I have to test phosphate a lot to know where my levels are. Having a probe or auto tester would save so much time and make things more stable. I’d think a good percentage of the sps keepers also test a lot to keep their nitrates and phosphate in the sweet spot. I’ll bet it’ mainly this group that bought the trident too.

 

[Velcro]

Am I the only one that doesn't check nitrates/phosphates? 1% daily water changes and bury my head in the sand.

 

[Reefer Reboot]

What I'd like to see next is simple, the ability to manually scale both y-axis of the comparison charts. It would make it easier to see trends while looking back using the top slider for previous dates.