Scottiemac
Active Member
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.
Hydros Maven or Neptune?
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
The only Kamoer device the Hydro can get data from is the KH Carer and that is through the Kamoer cloud and not directly from the KH Carer. Kamoer has not opened it up to any of the dosing pumps.
braaap
Valuable Member
Sure enough. I thought these were WiFi. https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/hydros-2ml-min-dosing-pump-coralvue.html
I’ve even seen in one of their diagrams somewhere it shown as one of their WiFi devices which I thought was cool. These dosers are a waste lol
1112-425XL
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I have a simple Hydros set-up, Control XP8 and X3. I Dose manually.
I can control all of my equipment, monitor PH and Temp with probes and get warnings or alarms if there's any problems. I do have the ability to add to the system if I choose but I'm extremely satisfied, confident and content with what I have.
I can control all of my equipment, monitor PH and Temp with probes and get warnings or alarms if there's any problems. I do have the ability to add to the system if I choose but I'm extremely satisfied, confident and content with what I have.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
Scottiemac
Active Member
Sorry - as someone with a full Hydros setup I didn't accurately read your statement. Yes, with only the Maven you can only have two dosers.
What I was referring to was having the XP8 or a couple of Hydros WiFi strips and running the pump through there. A lot of people get too hung up on everything having to be directly compatible with Hydros. They think if they want to dose through Hydros they can only use the drive ports or the dosers on the X10 or Minnow.
For my part, I dose with a Kamoer pump that's set to run at 60ml/m. Then I schedule it to run in Hydros at 1 second for every ml I want.
Again - sorry for misreading your statement.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
Scottiemac
Active Member
I disconnected my wifi strips because of this and just got a second XP8. More peace of mind this way.
When I was running them, I had my carbon dosers on it. They're almost always on, and if an issue occurs it's not the end of the world if they're on or off for a while until I figure it out. I also had one heater on there, but it had its own controller as backup so was pretty safe.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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.
Scottiemac
Active Member
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.
n2585722
2500 Club Member
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 .
josgraha
New Member
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.
Short answer the Maven is the best product out there (when it lands) for the money because it's both a controller and an automated tester. Additionally the quality of apex products does not look so great to me, being a techie and hydros kills it with superior engineering on every little detail. Maybe GHL is the best but that's a way different price point. You can't run the NP without an Apex or Apex Jr. Also it only tests PO4 and NO3.
I am fairly new about 1.5 years in and I have a 40 gallon AIO as my primary DT. I have way too much automation at the moment and I kinda cry a bit when I see a tank that's smaller, been running for less time and looks 10x better than mine without hardly any tech whatsoever (small water changes, maybe dose 1 thing). I'm dosing all4reef, bacto-balance and kalk (from a slurry).
OTOH I like being able to leave or go offline for a few days or maybe even a week without having to fuss with it. The thing I hate doing is testing. Controlling alk makes a lot of sense and the option to control nutrients with feeding or dosing is also impressive. However for me the big win is the testing, I can already automate any dosing I want with 5 dosing heads so I want to be in control of that given you have time to reach to nutrients but not so much Alk given how much it can swing.
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