Auto Testers: What's your take? Yay or Nay?

[gbroadbridge]

Seems like a lot of cash for something that may break after a year or two. I have a dosing routine with weekly testing that works fine for me. No need to fix what already works.

It'll definitely need replacement parts after a year or so, that's just the cost of simplifying life.

Bet your car needs parts every year or so too.

 

[Spieg]

It'll definitely need replacement parts after a year or so, that's just the cost of simplifying life.

Bet your car needs parts every year or so too.

LOL... I drive a 1984 Jeep CJ... runs like a top.

 

[Polyp Punk]

Honestly I’m very disappointed where we are with technology in todays reefing. It’s 2022 and we barely have any auto testing/probes for faster convenient and more efficient water testing. We are so far behind. And on top of that any auto tester we have is extremely expensive which most people can’t afford (apex) cough cough. Need a quick calcium/mag/alk check? just dunk the probe in in the water and boom get your values in seconds. That’s where we should be it’s 2022 for god sake. No expensive devices or reagents to keep us broke. It’s nice to dream. I don’t even trust the auto testers on the market today I’ll deff be sticking to manual testing for a while. We are so far behind in tech it’s sad.

 

[Johnny_Reefer]

Huge advantage at keeping stability. Still has to be managed...

 

[maroun.c]

Huge advantage, the frequency of daily testing and ability to detect issues before they have an effect on the system is a huge advantage over manual weekly testing.

 

[reefsaver]

Be great if these Ion detectors were cheap though

 

[vlangel]

Never say never but I don't use automation of most types with this hobby, ( the exception being a heater and LED lights). I am very old school and like to just observe my tank daily for changes. I also am a proponent of consistent smallish 5-10% weekly water changes to keep parameters in check. I will, however test if something looks off.

I like softies,( anemones, leathers, palys, mushrooms, gorgs and macro algae), and fish and inverts are my first love. It's quite possible to keep this sort of reef with minimal testing and I have been doing it for a lot of years now. That is why I said that I have not used any auto testing and probably will not in the future.

 

[lefkonj]

Just like any other automated tank system this doesn't mean less time, it should result in more precise time. I have an AWC system, that doesn't mean I spend less time with my tank, it is that I don't spent part of that time doing water changes.

 

[Cool tangs]

I can't say I have used any reefing automation. The closest to automatic readings I have is hanna, although requires some manual handling The concept of automatic readings is the same.

I can definitely see a benefit for those that work away or some peice of mind when away on a holiday. Also to log trends with a automatic graph.

Now on the other hand working in the tech industry myself I can safely say machines are much more reliable and accurate then humans. Theres a caveat that I can see being a issue. Generally when machine become more complex there's more potential failure. I definitely would be keeping automation very simple and refined when it comes to being a form of life support to our systems. Tech can last a very long time and can be very reliable as long as there's some for of safety measures or redundancy. I don't know how I feel about the same system automatically changing my dosing rates. Especially if a pump head gets stuck in on mode like my kamoer doser did and dumped half a bottle of alk in mu sump! This was from a poor app design and they could of had some trigger to say turn of pump after ex seconds due to failure at least. Lucky I was in front and saved my tank but danm all I did was push the manual feed button on the app and it got stuck on.

It can and will be the future but companies need to take the environment that we are caring for as hobbyists as seriously as we do instead of cash grabs and think how can we make a reefers life easier whilst also protecting there precious asset at the same time from machine failures.

As always happy reefing this is just my 2cents I've seen tech fail hard because client expectations are too unrealistic and too much complexity leads to more potential to fail, this is why we have redundancy methods for system and environmental failures

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I just added this video to the first post. I think Mark does a good job at pointing out some of the additional benefits to auto testers beyond just the saved work:

 

[Yodeling]

If auto testers were dependable and reliable, I would use them. As it is now, they require too much maintenance, troubleshooting, and calls to tech support. Might as well just test manually and save myself the headache.

 

[Starganderfish]

I can probably afford it, I mean technically, but I'm not that serious about this hobby to drop that kind of cash.

I want to here from these people:

I don't think this has been a step forward.​

What kind of curmudgeons do we have here?

Lol. This hobby seems to be equal parts “reckless cutting edge experimenters” and “stick in the mud technophobes”. For every person sinking thousands into every new fangled contraption no matter how weird or seemingly pointless it is, there’s a grumpy sod blasting automation for interfering with the quasi-mystical bond they’ve convinced themselves they have with their tank.
I totally understand complaints about cost, I get complaints about “I don’t need it” and to some extent I kind of see why some may worry too much automation might cause an occasional person to overestimate their tanks. It’s not a super-popular opinion among some folks here, but as soon as I see people ranting against something that makes the hobby easier and more approachable I snort in derision.
This isn’t “A Canticle for Liebowitz” and we don’t need to wrap basic science and tech in a veneer of mystical obscurity.
Automation is awesome and providing reefers with more precise, detailed and continuous measurements of their tanks parameters is a win. If some folks don’t know how to deal with the advantages of the technology, that’s not a flaw in the tech, that’s a flaw in the user.
As for automated testing and me? I waver on the edge constantly. The cost is the only limiting factor really. If it was more affordable and the testing more comprehensive, I’d be all over it. For now, I’m saving up some money and watching the tech evolve.

 

[jda]

Anybody who thinks that what we have in the hobby is so mature that they are beyond reproach really has no idea what real, solid, reliable machines and solutions really are.

I wrote my own controller on a Mac Mini in j2ee, ruby and bash, had it back it's self up to AWS, had best 2 of 3 probes and testers. In the end, it was a waste. I could still not trust it to make any decisions because the probes and counters (probes just count things) were not reliable enough and I still had to test by hand. This unit would crush the reliability of an Apex or trident, but I took it down because I just caused more butts for me to wipe without any gain. I am anything but tech adverse.

It is plenty reasonable for people to question the reliability and accuracy of what is on the market now and not be called technophobes. It is also OK if a manufacturer wanted to deliver a better product to the market... or for a hobbyist to expect to pay way more for it. Like $5k could be a real starting point for an entry level enterprise class automated test to do some of this that you could trust, but if the cost hit $10k plus routine sensor and part replacement, I would not be shocked.

The group that I worked with that did solid, reliable stuff like this were several hundred dollars an hour per person and the hardware that they requested was often in the millions of dollars. An actually reliable, as in to make decisions, temp probe alone was like $2500 for industrial application. In the end, a unit like a Triton for this price point is never going to be awesome... it is just not possible. It can be used as a tool as part of a kit, but not a solution... they are just not good enough, and that is OK.

Lastly, who knows how reliable these things really are. Anybody know the longevity and when the eyes and whatever start to fail? Even if you are humming along just fine, you want your hobby-grade machine making a decision to add more calcium to your tank in a year or two when the reading start to drift? We don't know what is going to happen. Are there serviceable parts on these things that have lifespans? If not, then they are not beyond hobby grade.

These are probably the first step, which is good for the next step.

For a real solution based tech person, these things are like a pedal car was to Enzo Ferrari.

 

[54Dutchman]

The question was for automated testing; not controllers and monitors. Controllers and monitors rely on automated testing. I am for automated testing; any testing that removes human error, can be calibrated and has the correct resolution/accuracy for the intended purpose; hands down beats human/manual testing.

 

[elcapitan1993]

I feel the reason so many people have issues with their tanks is because of automation.

With automation, a disconnect is created between the hobbyist and their tank. "Set it and forget it" doesn't work in this hobby.

But without automation, a brief, daily, eyes on inspection of your tank will keep you on top of things, identifying small problems before they become big ones.

This is extremely untrue, for sure over half of the problems I see and have been seeing have absolutely nothing to do with a tank being automated or not, yes it can cause problems hence why you don’t 100% automate it but as long as you are paying attention like you should be then you can foresee many tank disasters because of automation, I have heard countless stories on how tank automation has saved someone tank from crashing, so I completely disagree with your statement

 

[BiCoastal]

I have returned to the hobby after a rather long gap. Last time around, my whole setup was manual, and I loved it, enjoyed it, and then wrapped it up - not enough time.
I still don’t have that much time for the hobby but after years of “wanting to” I have gotten back, and plan to automate as much stuff as I can. I think it’s really about what fits one’s lifestyle. If the choice is between doing everything myself and creating THAT bond with the tank OR having a tank then I will chose having the tank and get every ounce of help I can get
None of these automated tester or controllers are accurate of fool proof but neither are the hobby grade test kits, so it’s all about convenience and consistency and machines win that one hands down. Of course, within one’s resources.
My two cents.
P.S. just in case, I am all for more automated testers, more automation and more tech for my tank

 

[Sean Clark]

Automation is great... when it works... and when it is still within the rather loose margins of error for a standard hobby test kit.

There is a cost associated with this convince.

Looking at my history, I have maintained a 0.18 DKH deviation in my tank over the last 7 days.

The ALK low was 8.1 and high was 8.28 with an average of 8.21 over the last 7 days. My target DKH is set to 8.2. I consider this extremely stable and thus good for the tank overall.

I could not do this without automation.

How much does this play into the success of the tank? I don't know. Does this matter? I don't know. Does this extreme 0.18 deviation frustrate me? Absolutely, to no end. One day I will get it dialed in.

 

[scardall]

Any chance you can explain this like I'm five? I just got my first Hanna checker and the first thing I thought was "There has to be a better way to do this?" when I opened the reagent package. I just cut the top off, squeezed it so it was open, bent one side to a "v" and dumped it in the vial. I may be describing what you are with different terms, but if there's a better way, then I'm all ears.

there is: Buy a metal funnel that is used to add perfume into a bottle similar to hanna's and no more accidental spilling of powder. fits perfectly in the bottle neck only. metal funnel

 

[elcapitan1993]

Automation is great... when it works... and when it is still within the rather loose margins of error for a standard hobby test kit.

There is a cost associated with this convince.

Looking at my history, I have maintained a 0.18 DKH deviation in my tank over the last 7 days.

The ALK low was 8.1 and high was 8.28 with an average of 8.21 over the last 7 days. My target DKH is set to 8.2. I consider this extremely stable and thus good for the tank overall.

I could not do this without automation.

How much does this play into the success of the tank? I don't know. Does this matter? I don't know. Does this extreme 0.18 deviation frustrate me? Absolutely, to no end. One day I will get it dialed in.

I completely understand!!!! I have been trying to use my alk testers to get my alkalinity 100% stable that way for every test it reads exactly the same every time every test (within the error margin of the machine at least) and it’s so frustrating because it seems almost impossible even with me having it test every single hour

 

[Sean Clark]

I completely understand!!!! I have been trying to use my alk testers to get my alkalinity 100% stable that way for every test it reads exactly the same every time every test (within the error margin of the machine at least) and it’s so frustrating because it seems almost impossible even with me having it test every single hour

I would add that Photosynthesis and pH both play a roll in the results here, among other factors, which are difficult to control. I only test ALK every four hours as evident in the graph. I am not sure that 100% stability is possible but that is a good goal.