What doesn't exist for reefing yet but you really, really wish it did?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Wheelman76

There is something like that out there already , hopefully they release it soon.

https://reefbuilders.com/2015/07/27/...e-kickstarter/

Yeah it's like never coming out....

But yeah, if you could live monitor or even hourly monitor cal and alk even just those two would be immensely helpful.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

An auto feeder that dispenses frozen food. I've seen a few interesting DIY jobs involving mini fridges but nothing even remotely compact.

Plasma lighting in the 14K spectrum.

I'll put my hand up too for the Alkalinity monitor.

Ya, I've pondered trying my hand at a frozen feeder as well and have some ideas that'd make it really compact. The trick is the cooling system. If you're OK with big, then standard refrigeration works (but there is somewhat of a lower limit in how small you can make it for a reasonable price). Thermoelectric is also a possibility but can be finicky. There is one other way of doing it that gets rid of the refrigeration all together but I'd have to look into the cost. If it's affordable, it'd be very simple to implement.

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

There are commercial probes for exactly this and they last quite a while... but they ain't cheap ($250+) and seawater can cause them issues. I used to have 5 or 6 of them in my lab (we specialized in electrochemistry) and tried them at home a few times with relative success. I believe Pinpoint Monitoring actually makes a somewhat affordable unit and, if I remember correctly, was reviewed by Randy Holmes-Farley in one of the reefing magazines.

The kicker with these units though is that to get accurate measurements they sometimes need to be paired with a pH probe. The potential (i.e. voltage) of an electrode shifts 0.059V per decade (meaning one pH unit, such as if the pH shifts from 7 to 8). Doesn't sound like much but once that error gets factored in, your measurement could swing wildly with pH shifts throughout the day, talk additions, etc.

So, it can be done but it hit always going to be cheap.

Because Calk/Alk probes seem to be pretty popular I've been thinking this over quite a bit today. I experimented making some ion-selective solid state probes a few years back that were very cheap to make. I think I can adopt this to work with calcium without too much issue and, if I'm lucky, I might even be able to do the same with all as well.

Originally Posted by Animal-Chin

A fitration system that takes in your dirty tank water and spits out water as clean as the day you made it. The filter would remove all bad items but leave the salt and all trace elements. A true sea water purification system that is easy to use.

It would remove all algae, nitrate, phosphate, pests (ich) and just return water that only had the good stuff left in it.

And that, good sir, is a tall order Technically possible but very, very, very.... very cost prohibitive

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by brotherd

A rare earth magnet no more than a 1/4 inch thick sealed with a super hard plastic that can be used like a magfloat to remove coraline in very tight spots.

This can be done pretty quick and easy. The only limiting factor is how fast I could get an injection mold made. If there is enough demand for this that I could pay back the cost of the mold in a reasonable amount of time I'd consider doing this.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

Because Calk/Alk probes seem to be pretty popular I've been thinking this over quite a bit today. I experimented making some ion-selective solid state probes a few years back that were very cheap to make. I think I can adopt this to work with calcium without too much issue and, if I'm lucky, I might even be able to do the same with all as well.

Alk is the tricky one, but you should know that.

Mindstream claims to have it figured out, but they are lacking funding badly since a serious failure in their Kickstarter program.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by Myka

Alk is the tricky one, but you should know that.

Mindstream claims to have it figured out, but they are lacking funding badly since a serious failure in their Kickstarter program.

They're doing theirs through spectral analysis of a reactant test... never made sense to me to do it that way. Too complicated. Too many things to go wrong. No wonder they are struggling!

I was doing some reading tonight and it seems it should be fairly straight forward to make a carbonate selective electrode (provided I can synthesize a molecular tweezer ). In fact, I think I could put pH, Calc, Alk and Nitrate all on the same electrode.

[Etaloche]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

They're doing theirs through spectral analysis of a reactant test... never made sense to me to do it that way. Too complicated. Too many things to go wrong. No wonder they are struggling!

I was doing some reading tonight and it seems it should be fairly straight forward to make a carbonate selective electrode (provided I can synthesize a molecular tweezer ). In fact, I think I could put pH, Calc, Alk and Nitrate all on the same electrode.

[ScubaSteve]

What kind of precision would people want for calc/alk measurements? Most test kits only give you 5% precision (i.e. 400 ppm ± 20 ppm), Elos is a bit better around 2.5%. Is that good enough? Is there a need or want to go better than that?

[Etaloche]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

What kind of precision would people want for calc/alk measurements? Most test kits only give you 5% precision (i.e. 400 ppm ± 20 ppm), Elos is a bit better around 2.5%. Is that good enough? Is there a need or want to go better than that?

I'm sure most people would want as much accuracy as possible unless it significantly increased price. If that's the case 2.5% should more than suffice for most hobbyist.

[ponokareefer]

100% effective aiptasia remover.

[WarDog]

Originally Posted by ponokareefer

100% effective aiptasia remover.

I've had 100% success rate with Peppermint Shrimp.