What ever happened to the Vertex Cerebra?

[Bj’s Reef]

I heard the same thing from a friend of Adam that he wasn’t doing well. Also that he put his heart into this project, however it just didn’t work out, and he ran out of money and has lost everything. I do feel sorry for him in a way. As he has lost much more than the three hundred or so dollars I lost. Tobe it’s good to hear from you.

 

[ca1ore]

My understanding from some discussions with Jason and Flavio that they only anticipated about 10% of the Cerebra revenue to come from the aquarium hobby. Apparently they were planning on cross marketing to the hydroponics industry and hobbyists. That seems like a MUCH bigger market, but it’s all dust in the wind now.

I'm always sorry to see reefing companies go under. There is a mostly false narrative amongst some hobbyists that reef equipment is overpriced and that the companies that sell it are making money hand over fist. Vertex is a good example of why this is likely not true.

 

[DCReefer]

Would anyone that has a Cerbera be willing to take some photos of what you still have and email them to me so I can see what we may have to work with?

I have 2 brand new units. Never sent mine in.

 

[AquariaUSA]

Would anyone that has a Cerbera be willing to take some photos of what you still have and email them to me so I can see what we may have to work with?

I believe I still have two NIB

 

[jwilliams860]

Is he asking about V1 or the 2nd version?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Unfortunately they are not worth much and no software available to do updates, etc
I trashed mine and got rid of most everything Vertex
About the shadiest company I’ve encountered in this industry

 

[Cherub]

Unfortunately they are not worth much and no software available to do updates, etc
I trashed mine and got rid of most everything Vertex
About the shadiest company I’ve encountered in this industry

they went out of business, that doesn't make them shady. They put out really nice skimmers, I still use one. They went bankrupt making this controller.

 

[BZOFIQ]

I had high hopes for this controller. Ryan @ BRS made some interesting points about the struggle the owner had (with himself) re this product. Too bad all was lost after getting so far. Should have released it sooner in Beta and then address the issue per feedback. Germans always strive for perfection and my guess is that while the product was really ready it was never perfect enough for the owner. It suffered the same fate that certain highly awarded LED brand did for the same reason recently. I own many of their oil-filled LED bulbs around the house and find them superior.

 

[jwilliams860]

The vertex owner I believe was from Canada.

The only german affiliation they had was early on when Royal Exclusiv built some Alpha skimmers.

 

[BZOFIQ]

The vertex owner I believe was from Canada.

The only german affiliation they had was early on when Royal Exclusiv built some Alpha skimmers.

Perhaps my assumption was wrong then - unless he had roots in DE.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Reef Builders had an article summing Vertex here.

The Rise and Fall of Vertex Aquaristik | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

There was a time in the early 2010s when Vertex Aquaristik had an outsize influence on the reef aquarium hobby – their skimmers, reactors and a growing catalog of other reef aquarium goods were the…

reefbuilders.com

The few pieces of equipment I came across or possessed were always of very high quality. The hobby lost a great player.

 

[vetteguy53081]

they went out of business, that doesn't make them shady. They put out really nice skimmers, I still use one. They went bankrupt making this controller.

Shady is when you close the doors and cut off communication without respect of any notice or forewarning to your customers and not having the decency to tell your customers that you are struggling with this but instead telling them seven times that you need to send in control board and a new perfected unit is on its way when there was none

 

[vetteguy53081]

they went out of business, that doesn't make them shady. They put out really nice skimmers, I still use one. They went bankrupt making this controller.

I have their calcium reactor and quality superb. They never left a return pump replacement to be seen so when pump goes, time for a new unit
I was a full line pet retailer and know exactly what they did to their customers at the end

 

[robbyg]

I am interested in a complete V7 kit if it is working.
I am not sure what the difference is between the V2 and V7 but I assume the V7 was the latest hardware and software upgrade.

 

[Elder1945 Verified Sponsor]

I would have bought Vertex as is. This was no secret to Jason and I was interested in the brand until just recently when a friend talked me out of chasing it.

Talking to Jason the hope and the vision was absolutely amazing. This all died however with Jason and even now I still wonder what could have been.

There was no saving Vertex as the damage was done. However, the line of products would and could be saved including the Cerebra.

Without Jason however, Adaptive Reef and a few other companies would have never made it off the ground.

Jason believed in people in this industry way before anyone else. Jason was not perfect but for me, he was a guiding light.

His enthusiasm and drive were over the top and I miss our conversations about the future.

He also burned a lot of people including me and the damage will always be there.

 

[BZOFIQ]

I would have bought Vertex as is. This was no secret to Jason and I was interested in the brand until just recently when a friend talked me out of chasing it.

Talking to Jason the hope and the vision was absolutely amazing. This all died however with Jason and even now I still wonder what could have been.

There was no saving Vertex as the damage was done. However, the line of products would and could be saved including the Cerebra.

Without Jason however, Adaptive Reef and a few other companies would have never made it off the ground.

Jason believed in people in this industry way before anyone else. Jason was not perfect but for me, he was a guiding light.

His enthusiasm and drive were over the top and I miss our conversations about the future.

He also burned a lot of people including me and the damage will always be there.

Thank you for sharing.

This is both Interesting & sad. There is probably more on a personal level that caused him to just drop everything and walk away. Perhaps one day we'll know or maybe he'll re-appear and try to make amends.

 

[DCReefer]

I am interested in a complete V7 kit if it is working.
I am not sure what the difference is between the V2 and V7 but I assume the V7 was the latest hardware and software upgrade.

I did not know there was a V7 ? Are there any reefers out there running this controller now ? What about programmers ?

 

[robbyg]

I did not know there was a V7 ? Are there any reefers out there running this controller now ? What about programmers ?

Yes there are several V7 out there. I think the software was so bad that there was even problems saving simple outlet programs. I am not 100% sure but most of what I read made it sound like the unit was not even usable for basic stuff.

In order to salvage a unit one would first have to know for sure that the hardware is properly designed and then you would have to write new software from scratch. This is not worth while for a single unit and if someone had an idea of making cloned versions of the hardware, the IP still belongs to somebody and the cloner might run into legal issues. Without the source code the units are pretty much museum pieces as no fixes can be done with just the firmware and no source code to work with.

Even if you had the source code it would be a monumental task to decipher what they were doing and why it was not working. The only hope for this is if someone buys the IP and decides to continue looking for that Oak Island treasure. ;Greedy

 

[christian18011992]

Anyone have the cerebra v1 updates that can I share with me?

thank you