Randy, Care to share your thoughts on this?

CuzzA · May 11, 2015

I've been following this company for a while now on Facebook. My initials thoughts were this is impossible. Monitoring parameters like Alkalinity, Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrate and Phosphates, among others can only be done via traditional tritiation methods.

However, I checked their page yesterday and noticed they are now seeking public assistance for a focus group in Florida and Texas. The fact they are involving the public leads me to believe this may very well become a reality.

My understanding is this product will be around ~$600 and the 12 parameter monitoring discs would be ~$30 and last 4-6 weeks. It will also be Apex compatible.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mind...172032453001343?sk=timeline&ref=page_internal

Thoughts?

JoeIII · May 11, 2015

This is interesting - I was just this weekend wondering why it wasn't possible to monitor those parameters, and figured it was simply not economical for companies to market systems like this.

I am almost out of "part 2" in my Calcium test kit and wondering if I can trust it's results anymore.

redfishbluefish · May 11, 2015

Reminds me of the Seneye....which quite a few users found too expensive to be constantly purchasing the new slides.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 11, 2015

I've been hearing about it for a while, but do not know how it might work for alkalinity and would wait to see what it is actually testing. It might somehow be sensing bicarbonate or carbonate, which would be OK, but they'd need some tricky combination of pH and bicarbonate or carbonate and maybe salinity to to get to alkalinity.

CuzzA · May 11, 2015

This is above me, but they have filed a number of patents. Perhaps you could make more sense of it than me.

http://stks.freshpatents.com/Step-Ahead-Innovations-Inc-nm1.php

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 12, 2015

I only skimmed a couple of the patents, but ran across this sentence:

"Two of the parameters, Calcium Hardness and Alkalinity, are not obtained from sensor readings but rather from test kits and manual entries. "

and

" CF is the Calcium Hardness factor which is not easily determined with a sensor. In that case, the Calcium Hardness can be determined with a test kit and the resulting value manually entered through the panel keyboard on the control unit. AF is the Alkalinity Factor which is also determined with a test kit and entered manually through keyboard entry."

JoeIII · May 12, 2015

Fail. Those were the two I was most interested in this device for.

I'd have been pretty upset had I purchased this then found out I had to test and record those values manually.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 12, 2015

To be fair, it may be an issue that they resolved since that patent application published.

CuzzA · May 12, 2015

Yes. We don't know what kind of breakthroughs they've made. On their FB page they showed a calcium graph being monitored with the device.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...20000.1431449162.&source=42&ref=page_internal

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 12, 2015

FWIW, calcium wouldn't surprise me as that is something that might be measured with a binding dye that changes color on binding calcium. The same cannot be done for alkalinity since it is not a single thing but rather the sum of several different things.

Opus · Jul 15, 2015

Well, it looks like they will be demonstrating it at MACNA. I personally don't like the cloud part. Also, no mention if they are still in the $600 price range.

https://www.reefs.com/blog/2015/07/10/mindstream-aquarium-monitoring-system/

chefjpaul · Jul 15, 2015

I'd try it, but wait until the "kinks of the trade" get proven, accurate and reliable.

Just like a restaurant, wait 6 months to dive in.

Electrobes · Jul 27, 2015

So they announced their Kickstarter today and.. I backed it as a US Beta Tester. While I usually do not do things like this, I am looking forward to the experience. This ought to be interesting.

hart24601 · Jul 27, 2015

I saw the kickstarter page does say it measures alk by using pH and CO2. It would be sweet it really works.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 27, 2015

Yes, one can calculate alk from knowing salinity, pH, CO2, and temperature. Hopefully they use all of them and not just CO2 and pH.

reef_ranch · Jul 28, 2015

Electrobes said:
So they announced their Kickstarter today and.. I backed it as a US Beta Tester. While I usually do not do things like this, I am looking forward to the experience. This ought to be interesting.

I did as well. I'm hoping this lives up to the hype (and that they can find a way to reduce the monthly cost).

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 28, 2015

acesq said:
I did as well. I'm hoping this lives up to the hype (and that they can find a way to reduce the monthly cost).

Do they say when you testers will get products?

Electrobes · Jul 28, 2015

October of this year

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 28, 2015

Thanks.

Big E · Jul 29, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Yes, one can calculate alk from knowing salinity, pH, CO2, and temperature. Hopefully they use all of them and not just CO2 and pH.

Hi Randy,

Is this calculation a simple mathematical formula?