I took a 4 year break. I'm BACK! What did I miss?

smartwater101 · Dec 16, 2023

Due to Covid/job changes and general life stuff, I never got around to setting up my new tank after tearing down my old one. I've had an unfinished stand sitting in my living-room taunting me ever since. BUT I'M BACK!

What's new in the world of marine aquariums? Any new gadgets I should check out? Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be a lot of auto-testers on the market. I was expecting that space to have blown up! GHLs Ion Director still isn't out... o_0 (I was looking forward to buying that.)

Anyway, I mainly just wanted to say hi! I'm excited to get back into the hobby!

MantisShrimpMan · Dec 16, 2023

They got wings now . Just joking, glad to see a hobbyist return!

I’ve only been in the hobby a little over a year but I’ve had friends and family members involved for decades. So you’ll have to forgive me if I mistake the timeline relevancy on certain things.

Metal halide and T5 are pretty dead, I wouldn’t say extinct but you’d be an oddball if you were to START using them assuming they’re not already on your tanks.

With that said, the interesting change I’ve observed is that LED fixtures seem to be transitioning from point source lighting to larger diffused form factors.

Also, there are plenty of auto testers, they just don’t all pop up on an immediate search. Off the top of my head, I can think of the trident, reefbot lab, KH director, KH carer, KH guardian, alkatronic/mastertronic, the reef factory smart tester, and I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that DaStaCo (might have the name wrong, it’s the calcium reactor company) is in the process of making their own