With a bit of math and some Kamoer pumps, you can set up as many dosing pumps as you want and control them with Hydros.
How do you figure that. The Maven only has 2 drive ports if you want more it will require another controller to get the ports needed. The Hydro simple dosers that run off the drive ports are made by Kamoer but the Hydros controls them buy applying power or not. So if power is applied the pump runs if there is no power the pump does not run. That is the only way Hydros controls a simple doser. The smart dosers are a part of a controller either the X10 or the Minnow.
The Hydros controllers do not control any wifi dosers via wifi. The only ones it can control are ones you can set to run when powered at a specific flow rate. So you would need a source of power and the Maven only has the 2 drive ports for power. The other alternative would be the controllers Hydros has with dosing pumps built into them and that would no longer be stand alone but would still work.
Those plug into an AC outlet so you can control them by adding an XP8 to the Maven and creating a collective. The XP8 has 8 AC outlets for the ports on the controller. So you could control 8 of those pumps easily like that but technically that would not be stand alone any longer but is easy enough to implement if you need more dosing pumps to control other than the 2 from the drive ports.
I agree that adding more of the ports needed is quite easy but it is not actually stand alone when they are added. I actually used the X10 with iV as stand alone for quite a while after getting one and I was dynamically dosing a KH buffer and All For Reef with it using the alkalinity test values. I did add it to my collective now but still only dose the All For Reef and a little KH buffer based on the alkalinity readings but I have plenty of ports I could use if I needed to dose something else.
Actually the wifi power strips would still be considered stand alone since they are actually used as dumb outputs since they have to have a command from the controller to turn on and also a command from the controller to turn off. That is also the reason I would not use them for dosing, ATO or AWC since once on they need a command to turn back off. If something were to happen to wifi communication while one of the pumps were on it will stay on until it gets a turn off command no matter how long that takes. With the XP8 or other controllers like the XD they have the ability to set the output to default to on or off if the controlling input is lost or stale. The controller can still do this with a wifi device but only if communication between the controller and wifi device is still good.
I disconnected my wifi strips because of this and just got a second XP8. More peace of mind this way.
The wifi strips are good for some things. I don't use them for ATO, AWC or dosing. I have used them in the past for heater control but the heaters themselves were used as a backup sine they have built in thermostats but I would have a backup for heaters regardless of XP8 or wifi strip. Also the backup also works off of a different temp sensor so that is backed up also as far as heaters are concerned.
If push came to shove I'd put the carbon dosing back on the wifi strips. It's a closed circuit so no fear of anything bad happening. Just that I got a second XP8 and decided to clear up some space in the tank area.
I actually use one of mine for a non aquarium related task. My wife had several of these ornamental lights that I had it turning on at a specific time in the afternoon and go off at our normal bedtime. They are around our TV in the living room. Then CoralVue added the alert output type I decided to use them for what I had them doing but add alert to them also. So now if the are all on or all off that is normal operation. I split the into 4 groups. I have light houses on left, light houses on right, globes and jelly fish crystals. If the Light houses left is off and other lights are on then there is an active alert. If it is just the jelly fish on then it is a yellow alert, if it is jelly fish and globes it is an orange alert and if it is jelly fish, globes and right light houses it is a red alert. So just sitting in the living room I can tell when there is an issue with the tank. The tank is in a different room so that does help. It took the original outputs and the alert outputs and a few combiner outputs to get it working. I use one for testing things and another for a sign, power to my KH Carer and power to a camera that is positioned were I can see the tank .
Fairly new reefer just barely getting into the techs side of things. Naturally controllers are next and the Hydros Maven has really caught my eye. Just now announced $1199 USD/$1650CAD. For those that have experience with either systems as a whole what are some of your pros and cons? I’m leaning toward peers jumping into the Hydros ecosystem myself. Helps that there’s a local shop that’s one of hteir “hubs” sort of speak.
