NetMax wrote:
"Zathoros" wrote in message
news:3updf.2274$Mr4.435@trnddc08...

Lighting alone is pretty expensive. Sounds like it would be very
expensive to make a hood with all these features. I could easily see it
costing way more than the tank it would go on. I know I am always
looking for a deal, I doubt I would buy something that was more
expensive than the alternatives. If you're aiming for the high end
crowd, perhaps they use canister filters etc that generally go below
the tank. There appears to be a lot of complicated stuff on your list,
you would need a lot of customer support that your competitors might
not.


True, I've outlined all the things that I could think of. Someone
smarter than me would need to do the market research and business case.
There is a very small % of the population which does not care what
something costs. Given the population of the planet, this tiny group is
actually quite numerous. I would try to launch into that niche, and once
the non-repeatable engineering and manufacturing costs were absorbed, the
unit cost would drop considerably.

There is an element of fantasy in all this. While I am an entrepreneur
and inventor, I'm already far too involved in other ventures to really
look seriously at this for many years, but having been a hobbyist for
over 30 years, the ideas have been percolating for some time (probably
goes a long way to explain my addiction to this hobby).


I would guess you'd make it for larger aquariums, my guess is the
larger you go the more non uniform the sizes of the aquariums will be.
Odd sizes, bow front, hexagon? I know the gap on the aquaclear 70
filter I bought was too small to fit over the rim on my 75 gallon
aquarium. Will aquarium dimensions be consistent enough for you to
market something that works well enough with everything to mass
produce. There's probably about 20 different sizes of aquariums at
petsmart and most of them have a specific canopy. My guess is you'd
have to sell it as a combo with specific aquariums, or get stores to do
so.


YES, this has been the MAJOR stumbling block. When I was in the trade, I
was watching the movement of tank dimension standards, and while some
progress was made (ie: elimination of the 16" deep tank), huge
standardization problems have been introduced with the metric and rimless
tanks, and dimensionally: bowfronts, wavefronts, octagon, stretch
octagon, square and pie shaped tanks.

Accordingly, if I was to proceed today, the mould would be modelled on
something like a 48" x 18" footprint with expansion plates to reach the
tank edges (which might be a few cms or sections to close a gap like a
bowfront).

If the design could be accomodated in that footprint, then I would then
incorporate it into a 60" x 18". Not by coincidence, I have 4 tanks here
which satisfy these dimensions, available for proto-typing stuff ;~).


It seems you have two items devoted to food storage and automated
feeding. I would guess most aquarium owners would enjoy feeding the
fish themselves. And have the fish get excited when they come up to the
tank. I would also rather leave my food in the container it came in
anyway. Though I suppose I do not buy food in bulk.


Having gained familiarity with automatic water change systems and
auto-feeders, I can say that I've found a lot of satisfaction in knowing
that they do their job without my having to think about it. The fish are
fed when I'm away on business or just working late, and they will still
eat whenever I get home (such as when I'm hand feeding them some frozen
treats). In my opinion, it's the sort of device which quickly integrates
itself into your life, after having used it for a while. Perhaps others
here can offer their experience with using auto-feeders. The biggest
problem which I've found with these units is the penetration of moisture
will adversely affect the operation and nutritional value. If these
points were addressed reliably, there wouldn't be much resistance, even
if you only used it to do the morning feeding when you are work-bound in
traffic.


What are the reasons heaters and filters are not integrated today? It
seems like a good idea, do heater elements burn out much more quickly
than the lifespan of your typical filter. Why not make a hob filter
with space for a heater component if that's the obstacle.


Eheim has long had integrated heaters in some canister filter models.
I've generally not heard bad things about them, other than being slightly
underpowered in some applications. If the heater uses a thermocouple and
solid state relays (no bimetal point contacts to arc), then the primary
component subject to wear is the heating element, from the thermal
expansion/contraction. It would not be very difficult to modify the ac
signal used to energise these elements so that they would not be subject
to the harsh extreme heat/cool cycle currently used. Electric stoves
already use this technology, by truncating the ac waveform going to the
elements. This makes lots of sense when working with 30A 230Vac into a
major household appliance, but as you can see from a stove's long MTBF,
the same could easily be applied to an aquarium heater. Imagine your
heaters working as long as your house stove (20-30 years?). The
technology has been around for decades.


I didn't see an air pump on your list.


Nope. An air pump is:
a source of vibration (complicating the canopy design tremendously to
prevent resonant frequencies from occurring)
a source of heat (which would need to be vented, but not allowing noise
to leave)
a source of moving parts (moving parts are much more prone to failure)
a source of exposed electronics (electrical hazard on a device which has
limitations on how well it can be electrically sealed)
a source of exposed metals known to corrode (now in a high humidity
application, recycling humid air through it)
Nope nope nope nope.

I suppose if the consumer demand was there, an air pump could be designed
to meet the requirements. Perhaps something like a Wankel rotary engine
type reciprocating piston made of UHMW parts. Don't get me started on
more designs though ;~).

Thanks for the feedback.
You are doing good business reserch right here and If you were to make a
business out of it i would sugest making a few proto types for difrent
common tank sizes and distribuit it out to diffrent main contributers to
the UG that you frequint ang let them give you your coments then you
cand eather sell it to companies like hegen or eheim or even market it
your self just don't forget to eather patent or copywright all your
notes so you don't get fu$%ed.