Automated Self-Maintaning fresh water aquarium

its not so much the idea of not being able to clean the tank I like the idea of the
tank never being forgotten and this would be good incase you were going on vacation, but the uniqueness of tanks are lost, when I go to my friends house, I love looking at his tank, since its so much different than mine, its why I hang out at pet stores even after i have my fish. Same reason we share and look at each others fish, if this tank was made, thered probably be series of it, and you could no exactly what kind of tank someone else would have by the model number. Im not saying the idea is bad, im saying it cant be done, and i dont want it to be done. thats my opinion, everyone is entitled to there own.

Maybe Aquabot should have made one of those polls in his topic, it wouldve made things far more interesting.
 
An opinion is great, and your right you are entitled to it. BUT you keep saying it CANT be done, which is wrong. It has already been done. It is **** expensive and it isnt 100% self-sufficient but it has already been done and its pretty close to 100% self-sufficient.
 
All you people that keep saying that you don't want a completely automated system, read aquabot's first and second reply. You can clearly see he does not want to make a system that will be fully automated, but one to help you out. And Yo_Loach, you are looking at this the wrong way, no one said that you cannot choose your own fish or the type of biome you want. If you could create something that will keep pH at a constant level that you set it to, such 6.8, or 8, and also hardness, that would be great itself (maybe this has already been done, but I mean it should be integrated in the larger monitoring system). Things would be much easier for african cichlid keepers, or breeders that require those certain conditions. Maybe you can add a tablet or something to the machine, and the sensor would release a little of the substance, or mix it in with a filter to keep pH constant. No one ever said anything about fully automated, so please read the proposed idea COMPLETELY, and then make your judgements.
 
I understand that. I would like a machine that would do that, it would save you on test kits and stuff too. I didnt say you cant choose your fish, but if its self sustaining, than introducing a new fish later on would be like importing a new species to a different country do youknow what I mean?

It can be done iif it jsut fixes the chemical things, and that.

but I'm saying it can't be if your gonna buy this thing, put it on your fish tank, and never have to do anything with your tank other than look at it. get it?
 
How do you figure it would be like introducing the fish to a different country.
Its no different than how we keep the parameters of our tank constant now. except the machine will do it for us. You can choose what parameters the machine will maintain. It doesnt choose them for you.
If you want to add fish that require different parameters, you just adjust the stiings and the machine will change the parameters to what you want and maintain it there.

As for saying it cant if it all you want to do is stand back and watch the tank and never have to do anything. Yes, it can. It would be very expensive and alot of work to install into your home. But it could happen. You would have to route in plumbing and such and would have to refill the chemical storages and food storages etc. So technically would never be 100% self-sufficient, but it could be done. HOWEVER, he never said that was what his machine would do. He said it is to HELP people with maintaining thier tank. Not to do everything for you. You seem to not be understanding the meaning of self-sufficient, It doesnt necessarily mean everything is done auto-matically it just means more things are done automatically. Its like an automatic transmission in a car, just cause its called automatic doesnt mean it does everything itself, you still have to shift from park to drive and into reverse etc. It just makes it easier and does more things itself.
 
The idea isn't actually all that far-fetched IMO.

A system that monitors water parameters - doesn't such a thing already exist? I'd be surprised if it doesn't. Such a device designed for home aquarium use would be too expensive for the average hobbyist I believe, but there would likely be a market.

As far as the "self-maintaining" part, it doesn't need to be overly complicated. Technology can't improve on nature.The goal here would be to duplicate nature. A well-planted tank with a wide enough variety of organisms to duplicate a natural ecosystem would be basically self-sustaining. A system that would constantly remove/replace water, or else do automatic water changes periodically would complete the setup.
 
We already discussed, this can and has already been done. However a system that will automatically change ph/hardness is pretty far fetched, the amount of money you'd need to spend on ph altering chemicals for the machine in the end would be minute compared to the actual cost of the whole unit.

I'm not saying this isn't a good idea, I'm just saying it's not possible without the help of robotics which would be REALLY pricey.
 
If I was this guy, I would be more and more motivated every time one of you people said it couldn't be done. How many people in history do you think heard this time and time again yet proceeded with their idea and prevailed?

I myself think this is a fantastic idea. While I absolutely love setting up fish tanks and love all kinds of fish, there are many many more things I'd rather do than maintenance. I'm sure I'll catch hell for sayin that, but it's true. I have a full time job, a girlfriend (those things need a lot of time and maintenance too :D ), and several other hobbies. I'm also colorblind.....how fun do you think it is for people like me to sit there and try to figure out water parameters on a color strip? Talk about frustrating. Consider also the number of people that would like to have fish tanks, but simply won't because they don't wanna put the work necessary into it. I know several myself. Price was another issue. Everything new that comes out is expensive. With time, tweaking, competitors, etc.....the price will always drop. Remember how expensive DVD players were when they first came out? Now they're a dime a dozen.

Bottom line is, don't discourage people with new, and even "far out" ideas. It's people like that that keep making life better for everyone day after day. And for all you people that get off on rushin home from work so you can sit and stare/check/tweak your fish tank all night....that's fantastic, more power to ya. But don't bash on people that maybe have a tank in their house simply because they like fish and how a beautiful tank looks in their home. You are NO better than them (and I guarantee there's a lot more of them than you). Besides, posting in someones thread jsut to tell them their idea is crap is just rude and irritating. But these are all just my humble opinions. Good luck on your project man. Sorry for the long post.
 
I'm sure it could be done and probably has been done more than once. I've seen DIY plans to automate an awful lot of tasks.

I'm skeptical that it could be done well (safely) for less than several thousands of dollars. Kind of heading towards the price of a small car.

I'm still perplexed by the idea of a maintenance free machine. Probes need calibration and cleaning, reservoirs need filling, and tanks with or without automatic water changers still need to be cleaned. At the end of the day is it easier than a 50% water change with a Python? See HappyChem's recent thread on water changes and chemical stability as well as Tom Barr's piece on estimative indexing.

Those little glass orbs with the shrimp and the algae that are a self contained ecosystem still have a little magnetic scrubber in them so that they can be cleaned.

It reminds me of Wallace and Gromit where the ambitious inventor designs a machine to help him put his pants on. Interesting yes, but practical? Not so much.
 
Agreed, as cool as it would be to see this happen only public aquariums and large chain petstores would be able to afford it. The hobbyist couldn't even come close to paying the sums of money for it. a G5 computer is 2500$ and it doesn't even come close to housing the kind of technology you'd need for this project. The materials alone would pricey, a single hobbyist would have the need for something this complex.
 
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