Hi all!

S

Sami

AC Members
Nov 2, 2005
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Hi all. I'm a bit of a newbie to the whole fish world, and have only recently started learning about fish, and looking after them.
I am part of a group of 3rd Year Imperial College (London) Electrical and Electronic Engineering students who are currently planning to design
and build an automated aquarium system that monitors and automatically maintains and controls components of a fish tank. At the moment, we have
some ideas for the product we could make but as part of our market research it is necessary for us to find out what features would prefer in an
automated fish tank system. For this reason I've put together a multiple choice questionnaire that should take no more than a minute or two to
fill in. The questionnaire can be found at http://www.the-creature.co.uk/gp/q.htm. I would really appreciate it if you could spare some time to
fill it in.

Thanks

Sami :)
 
can you give us an estimate of pounds vs. american dollars?
 
Did your survey... Good luck with your project.

Things that aren't there that would be sweet....

* Automated measuring of free ammonia, total ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If any of these it too high (user can define "too high"), it does whichever of the following the user chooses (more than one can be chosen):
* water change
* send alert

Perhaps being able to define different levels and actions (if it gets to this level, send an alert; if it gets to that level, do an x% water change - for example).

(basically, the ability to read every measurement of interest and the ability to set alert levels and take different actions based on which alert level was reached)

Auto-feeding and medicating were there, but how about auto-fertilizing for planted tanks?

I know, you'd probably need an LC or something for the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate readings, but I have to ask, cuz I believe when you're at the start of a project, you should seek out the end users' wildest dreams without regard for cost or possibility and then later prioritize / rule out impossibles...

HTH,

Liz

PS: "Anything's possible given enough time and money" (this is my standard answer when they come and ask me to add a feature to the software I maintain).
 
Thanks guys (and gals), the response so far has been great. Paradox, thanks for your input. Those are good ideas. I'll put them forward to my group later on today. I'll probably be around these forums for a while learning about fish and all, so I'll let you all know how it goes.

As for equipment, do any of you have preferences to certain equipment? Like external filters over internal? Or like combo devices like aerator and heater?

Thanks :D
 
i think that a fully automated tank would be good for those people who just want pretty fish to look at, but dont want to be bothered, or are too busy, to do all those things themselves.

i think what makes having an aquarium fun is tending to all those things yourself. i really enjoy the chemistry involved in caring for a fish tank, not just decorating and looking at the fish, the the chemical reactions involved, and testing the water perameters, etc.

so basically what i'm saying is i would not be interested in an automated tank. i enjoy tending to it myself without the interferance of a computer (they run our lives enough, thank you)
 
Sami said:
As for equipment, do any of you have preferences to certain equipment? Like external filters over internal? Or like combo devices like aerator and heater?
Click to expand...

I had to laugh when I read this! This is like asking 10,000 people to list their favorite car.

You'll see a variety of responses, and from what I can tell, there is no clear favorite for any type of equipment. Some people swear by X, while other people hate X and will only use Y. You can see that in various threads on this forum, as well as others on this site.

Sounds like an interesting project. Good luck!
 
Yes, I know that, but the point is although there are many response that could be given there will still be trends in preferences. It was also more of a suggestive question as to other factors I could consider in the project, but fair enough.

ParadoxLiz, I've put your ideas to the group. Just waiting for a response now. Obviously, some of these things will be too hard to produce but having all the possibilites and ruling out things that just won't work is a good idea.

Cheers,
Sami
 
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