Aquarium's Evolution

Liz wrote:
Any use of the word "program" in my message should be taken as
"configure" - e.g. UPS software generally has a bunch of options like
this - just enter the phone number or the email address or tell it to
launch a program which does the emailing/calling.

Marine batteries as backup power for your aquarium equipment seems
reasonable if it's worth the expense to you.

Liz


It's not so much the problem of power failure that I would be looking at
monitoring. I've had two bad experiences with "mechanical" failure - one
with a stuck heater and one with my failed Fluval. If I had the warning
system that I am thinking of in place I could have received an SMS to my
mobile alerting me that the pump was no longer working while I was on
holiday - a quick phone call home to get it restarted and monitored and
I could have saved my fish. With the stuck heater I would have received
an alert that the temperature was rising and again taken remedial action
quickly to prevent fish losses.

The actual monitoring and messaging side of it won't be too much of an
issue as that is the field that my hubby already works in - and as Liz
says the configuring of something like a UPS to send messages is not a
new idea. A lot of large companies spend an absolute fortune in
monitoring their IT systems as part of preventitive maintenance and use
alerts - either text messages, emails, phone calls, beepers etc. - again
it is nothing particulary new (used to work for a software company who
provided just such a product). Obviously there will need to be some
software in it but the main idea is to make it very simple to install
with no need for me (or the tank owner) to be technical (although I am),
or in fact even own a computer. What I need to research is what
monitoring stuff is already out there (either domestic or commercial)
and what sort of stuff it would be useful to know.

None of this would remove the need for preventitive maintenance - filter
cleaning, gravel vacs, water changes etc. but it would let me know of
potential problems before they become a crisis so that I can take
remedial action, hopefully before losing fish.

Gill

NetMax wrote:
"Liz" wrote in message
oups.com...

I think the temperature stuff would be no problem - electronic controls
are already available specifically for fish tanks and I would think one
of them will plug into your computer for the text messaging part of
things. I'm sure there's also non-fish-specific equipment that will do
this.

I've seen electronic pH meters as well.

For lighting, I'd bet there's something, but the easiest would be to
have something which senses a loss of power.... But then, how's it
gonna send you a message with no power? Perhaps program the UPS
software on your computer to send the text message when the UPS kicks
in (and again when it starts up again) - then you'd know your house
lost power. (This would require an "always on" internet connection -
make sure you've got good firewalls and anti-virus software in place.)

Don't look for stuff made for aquariums - it's not all gonna exist -
it's too expensive - look for stuff made for labs, plants and similar
industrial application - then pretty much everything will exist (for a
price). If you have specific questions, I'd be willing to run a few
past our metrology department (I work in a non-clinical testing lab -
in IT).

IMO, knowing if the power goes out, having redundant filters and
redundant heating would take care of the biggest concerns.

Liz

PS: Will post a separate reply to NetMax's idea later...



Typically (system backup design), ac power is used to hold a relay on a
dc circuit in an open state. During a municipal power loss, the relay
coil is de-energized and closes a dc path, which provides 12Vdc from a
marine/motorcycle battery to a dc powerhead (commonly sold as bilge
pumps) which is always in line with your filtration system.
Additionally, 12V airpumps are sold for this purpose as well. This
requires no controller IO access or special programming. It is logic
with pedals ;~).

Communicating the problem to your office phone or cell phone will usually
not be difficult if an auto-dialer is triggered on a landline. The call
is typically routed to a telco phone switch which utilizes banks of 48Vdc
batteries to provide loop current to phones (why some phones work during
a power failure). If there is a repeater in the path, or your office is
also having a power failure, then the reliability of the call is suspect.
Many office PBXs have partial service on their analog lines. ymmv, but
again, no controller IO access or special programming would be needed.

hth
I am tring to find a way to automate my tanks through a embedded
computer. I will share my reserch to you netmax my idea is to have
temp/waterlevel/fedding automated and other itemes displayed on a small
lcd whole unit will be aprox 1' x 1" x 4" without feeding and other
additives just the box.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


"NetMax" wrote in message
...
I'm going to make a prediction that the next major leap in aquarium design
will be the canopy. I've watched technologies evolve, filters, filter
media, heaters, lighting technologies, feeding systems and water parameter
related equipment. Occasionally some of these technologies have imbedded
themselves into the canopy. For example, 8 years ago, an Italian aquarium
manufacturer had an auto-feeder built into a canopy with T6 fluorescent
lighting. They were a little ahead of their time. Marineland has a line
of tanks with their filters built into the canopy, and the design has
persisted, even with many drawbacks.

The canopy of the future will resemble what we have today, but will be
much bigger, possibly 8 to 12" thick. It will incorporate things like:

1. Filter system
- integrated biowheel, and sponge media which would be serviced through a
hatch in the canopy.
- backwash capability into overflows (see para. 7. below)

2. Storage
- nets, test kits etc

3. Heater
- why use precious aquarium real-estate for an unsightly heater

4. Food storage
- empty/mix all your dried fish foods, pellets, flakes, freeze-dried etc
into a compartment which is sealed when the hatch is closed.
- there is a screw-type feeder with rubber blades (to keep humidity away
from the food) operated/programmed from a keypad (integrated into the
canopy)
- level indicator (proximity switch) provides visual indicator of low food
levels (ie: by reversing light operation to get your attention)
- filters would automatically turn off for 10 minutes during feeding

5. Light System
- staged lighting, programmed from same keypad
- dawn/dusk lights, small halogen making a spot light effect, with ripples
shadowing the substrate, used to transition to/from nightfall and daylight
main lighting
- main lights (two CF groups, morning 1/2 on, mid-day all on, and evening
1/2 on again)
- programmed variability (cloudy periods) to reduce algae (currently done
with timers set to 1 hour off)
- twilight lighting (typically red or actinic) not programmed, set
manually, for those bottle of wine by the fire late evenings.

6. Ventilation & Cooling
- all that lighting will require that the ballasts are in a separate
vented area (separate from the air under the canopy)
- stainless steel tubing (with cooling fins) replaces conventional hoses,
allowing atmospheric cooling using a small fan triggered by a
thermocouple.

7. Water/Atmospheric control
- pH regulated through CO2 injected inside canopy (or skip to next item)
- low pH amber/tannic appearance through black-water concentrate pellets,
or processed/compressed leaf pellets
- kH regulated through baking soda pellets
- continuous monitoring of conductivity (TDS control)
- plumbed directly into home's DWV and cold water supply line (for
continuous water changes through a drip system)
- thermocouple (replaces thermometer), to activate dynamic cooling
(para.6) and reduce lighting to cool as required. (heater's thermocouple
would be a separate unit in-line with heating elements).
- backwash cycle which would pulse water in through the gravel, trapping
mulm in screens located near overflow pipes

8. Power distribution
- plug the canopy in and all peripherals connect to canopy's integrated
GFI protected power bar.

9. Water Purification option
- clear plastic bell fits on top of canopy (semi-integrated), housing
various bog/terrestrial plants whose roots would strip out any remaining
NO3 from non-planted tanks (silk plants would make a come back, but some
people will always want real plants).

10. Live Food option
- habitat section in canopy for growing small creatures (ie: white worms
in earth, feeding off decay from mechanical filtration stage, or mysis
shrimp hatchery etc). Hatchery occupants will randomly 'escape' into main
tank to be eaten.


Did I miss anything? Today, this equipment & electronics exist
separately, much of it in high volume consumer goods, except for:
a) the canopy itself (fairly straightforward mould with several options
and expansion panels to include odd sized aquarium dimensions).
b) the canopy horizontal filter (plastic moulds) utilizing twin
(redundancy) generic powerheads
c) the controller and fairly straightforward programming
d) integration of all the components

Alone, I could prototype this in about 6 years (it is that easy), so a
group of people could probably get one into pre-production testing in 12
months, and into production, 6 months after that.

The question is, would it sell. Would you buy one? Is it complete,
anything missing?
--
www.NetMax.tk

"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.
--
www.NetMax.tk

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.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:35:36 -0500, NetMax wrote:


The question is, would it sell. Would you buy one? Is it complete,
anything missing?

Well, some of it, like the changing lighting, sounds nice, but the whole
thing reminds me of computerizing a model railroad - takes all the fun out
of operating it :-).

And with the number of heaters I've had die on me, I'd be really leery of
building one into the canopy unless it was easily replaceable. In fact,
that would apply to most of the components you've imagineered.

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:35:36 -0500, NetMax wrote:


The question is, would it sell. Would you buy one? Is it complete,
anything missing?

Well, some of it, like the changing lighting, sounds nice, but the
whole
thing reminds me of computerizing a model railroad - takes all the fun
out
of operating it :-).

That's very true. So automate the bad and keep the good, but that
balance differs by everyone's definition of good or bad. I'm perfectly
happy to never clean filters or do the daily feeding, as long as I get to
give the frozen food treats. Gravel vacuuming holds no interest, but I
don't mind cleaning a bit of algae and pruning live plants.

And with the number of heaters I've had die on me, I'd be really leery
of
building one into the canopy unless it was easily replaceable. In
fact,
that would apply to most of the components you've imagineered.

I'm also a big fan of redundancy and the use of commonly available
components. I imagine someone could make a fortune selling proprietary
heaters to fit this canopy, but a proper design would be to have 2
cavities where standard submersible heaters were installed. A small LED
indicator on the canopy could be optionally used to indicate operation (I
like very visual indicators), and the heater's current usage (amperage)
could be monitored (through the GFI circuit) so a no-current condition
(heater failure) could be flagged to the user.

thanks for the feedback
--
www.NetMax.tk

NetMax,

I like your thinking. Here are some random thoughts:

You mention the Eclipse tanks that have everything in the hood (in and
under is more accurate as the filter is just under the hood, not
actually a part of it). I have a 6g of these and I have to say, the
fact that the hood as a unit doesn't have a hinge at the back so that I
can open it up and get at the water (there's a trap door for the filter
which also works well for feeding) is a royal pain! If I want to do a
water change or need to trim a plant or something, I have to get my
husband to come and hold the hood. (There's a power cord coming out of
it, and a clever little cable router, which keeps me from taking the
hood entirely off and putting it elsewhere. Likely I'll pull the hood
power wire out of the cable organizer eventually so I can do things
without my husband holding the hood for me!)

In other words, I think things should be designed such that one person
can do things without needing four hands! And I think it's important
to be able to get the lid off - whether it's for adding/removing a
fish, moving decorations around, or whatever.

I also agree with what's been said about price - you're gonna be
hitting the high-end market - at least initially. A lot of goodies get
left at the store by those who can afford the necessaries, but not the
conveniences. Unless the hood (or system, I don't know that it all has
to be in/under the hood) is modular (as was already suggested) so that
folks could get the part(s) they wanted and not pay for what they don't
want / can't afford, the price is gonna be pretty high.

I recently answered a survey and made comments to a group of college
students who, for an engineering project, were trying to automate
absolutely everything that could be automated around a tank. (I don't
think they're gonna go for my idea of having the system automatically
monitor (accurately, not those visual color indicators) ammonia,
nitrite and nitrate - cuz I think the system would have to include a
GC/LC/MS (or something) for that. g)

Here's a link to the thread:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums...ad.php?t=60324

(I'm ParadoxLiz over there.)

I like the concept - automate all the work - let machines do it and
when they run into a problem they can't fix, let them call you. But
there are a lot of people who like to get under the hood (home auto
mechanics analogy seems appropriate, or people who build their own
computers from scratch rather than buying it already put together) and
do everything themselves - modular might get them to buy some stuff
anyway. I also wonder if a system like this wouldn't actually turn the
users off toward fishies over time - kinda like having someone else
feed, water, walk, pick up after the dog - what's left after that?
You've got no time and emotion invested in your little fishies, so why
would you care about them - you may as well go down to the Chinese
place and watch their fishies for a while... g

Anywho, I think there's a market, I'm not sure how big it is, I'd like
something that does all the tedious stuff for me (but that would have
to include testing the water, which I find the biggest pain (last night
I was on Fisher Scientific's web site pricing multi-channel pipetters
and looking for one that would measure milliliters instead of
microliters... g)). I also think there are some concerns, issues,
whatever you call thems that should be carefully considered.

FWIW,

Liz

"Liz" wrote in message
oups.com...
NetMax,

I like your thinking. Here are some random thoughts:

Now there's a scary thought, someone who likes my thinking ;~).

You mention the Eclipse tanks that have everything in the hood (in and
under is more accurate as the filter is just under the hood, not
actually a part of it). I have a 6g of these and I have to say, the
fact that the hood as a unit doesn't have a hinge at the back so that I
can open it up and get at the water (there's a trap door for the filter
which also works well for feeding) is a royal pain! If I want to do a
water change or need to trim a plant or something, I have to get my
husband to come and hold the hood. (There's a power cord coming out of
it, and a clever little cable router, which keeps me from taking the
hood entirely off and putting it elsewhere. Likely I'll pull the hood
power wire out of the cable organizer eventually so I can do things
without my husband holding the hood for me!)

This Italian tank I mentioned had a plastic hinge along the back and the
entire canopy lifted backwards and was held in place with a rod (just
like the hood of a car, when they stopped using springs). I don't know
if I could do the same thing, as there are portions which could not be
angled, but I'm very conscious of obstructions to working on my tank. I
like to build large full length structures for my tanks and even a
crossbrace is a nuisance. I'm currently building a removable stainless
steel crossbrace for my 120g.

In other words, I think things should be designed such that one person
can do things without needing four hands! And I think it's important
to be able to get the lid off - whether it's for adding/removing a
fish, moving decorations around, or whatever.

Agreed. I'm independant the same way. Something wrong if it takes more
than 2 hands to do it.

I also agree with what's been said about price - you're gonna be
hitting the high-end market - at least initially. A lot of goodies get
left at the store by those who can afford the necessaries, but not the
conveniences. Unless the hood (or system, I don't know that it all has
to be in/under the hood) is modular (as was already suggested) so that
folks could get the part(s) they wanted and not pay for what they don't
want / can't afford, the price is gonna be pretty high.

I don't have a profit motive right now. If I could cover my costs, I
would be very happy. Of course if the income from other projects dries
up, that will change everything, but I don't see this as generating much
profit, so if I get poor, I'll be doing something else in my retirement
years anyways.

I recently answered a survey and made comments to a group of college
students who, for an engineering project, were trying to automate
absolutely everything that could be automated around a tank. (I don't
think they're gonna go for my idea of having the system automatically
monitor (accurately, not those visual color indicators) ammonia,
nitrite and nitrate - cuz I think the system would have to include a
GC/LC/MS (or something) for that. g)

Here's a link to the thread:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums...ad.php?t=60324

(I'm ParadoxLiz over there.)

I'm NetMax there, at least if I stop lurking ;~). Actually I have to
limit where I post or I will really need a life (probably too late
anyways). It's actually a quite regular occurance, that an engineering
class gets assigned a project like automating some aspect of aquaria
(convenient fixed environment to play with), but the designs are all
rooted in engineering capabilities instead of animal husbandry.

For example, they would find a way to detect NH levels rather than build
a system which would make NH detection superfulous, such as a a thin
layer of water above the lights acting as an algae scrubber. It would be
very difficult to ever have NH in a system which had an order of
magnitude more NH processing power than your bioload could generate.
Root cause analysis would result in a solution to prevent the problem
while the engineers were interfacing the NH detection circuitry to a
sending unit to do something ;~).

I like the concept - automate all the work - let machines do it and
when they run into a problem they can't fix, let them call you. But
there are a lot of people who like to get under the hood (home auto
mechanics analogy seems appropriate, or people who build their own
computers from scratch rather than buying it already put together) and
do everything themselves - modular might get them to buy some stuff
anyway. I also wonder if a system like this wouldn't actually turn the
users off toward fishies over time - kinda like having someone else
feed, water, walk, pick up after the dog - what's left after that?
You've got no time and emotion invested in your little fishies, so why
would you care about them - you may as well go down to the Chinese
place and watch their fishies for a while... g

While I would not argue this point, it's the magnitude which is affected,
and the way your efforts get re-directed. I watch my 66g as much as
always, but lights, feeders and much of the maintenance is automated. I
find that my energy gets redirected, admitedly sometimes to non-aquaria,
but also to wanting to learn more about some aspect, or making further
improvements. If I compare this to my other hobby (motorcycles), there
was a feeling that the true nature of the sport was being ruined by
fairings, stereo systems, heated seats and handlegrips, tent trailers,
floorboards, cruise control, volume control, self-adjusting shock
absorbers and electric starters (no more kickstarter). The sport is
still alive, albeit somewhat changed, and consumers have the option as to
what level of convenience and comfort they want to dial in when they make
their purchase.

When I worked in the trade, I'd approach prospective customers who would
be gawking at the tanks, and ask if they needed help. Frequently I was
told, that they would love to have a tank, "but they are too much work".
Aquariums will never be effortless (no matter what we automate), but I
think we have a good way to go before a better balance is achieved.

Anywho, I think there's a market, I'm not sure how big it is, I'd like
something that does all the tedious stuff for me (but that would have
to include testing the water, which I find the biggest pain (last night
I was on Fisher Scientific's web site pricing multi-channel pipetters
and looking for one that would measure milliliters instead of
microliters... g)). I also think there are some concerns, issues,
whatever you call thems that should be carefully considered.

The requirement to test a water parameter is directly related to that
water parameter changing or being expected to change. It's quite
possible to effortlessly manage a home aquarium for many years without
having to do any water tests. Do you have a situation where the water
parameters must be monitored?

FWIW,

Liz

Thanks for the feedback!
--
www.NetMax.tk

Do you have a situation where the water parameters must be monitored?

Yes, I'm a newbie who made the mistake of doing what the people at the
fish store told me, and so I've got to keep an eye on things daily
until the cycle is done (ammonia just hit 0 today! hooray! Nitrite
will follow soon, I'm sure (I added Bio-Spira on Monday, after learning
about it and how to properly apply it)).

But you're right, of course - I'm looking at it backwards, reactively
instead of proactively. It's quite clear that you've got a lot of
experience - to which I gratefully yield.

I'll resist temptations to buy an 8-channel pipetter (shouldn't be hard
at $300+) and continue reading 'til I don't feel the need for one. :-)

Thanks,

Liz