Cali Kid Corals

Mindstream monitor seems to be available

I’m a little glad that my system is still in the design phase. I’ve got some time to let the dust settle a bit with all these new offerings.

One of the biggest things I’d be waiting for with mindstream is apex integration. It’s great to have all this data, but if I have to make all the adjustments manually based off that data then it’s still a bit of a hassle. I’d want to be able to use that data for automation.

I like that it has ph, and salinity like I’ll already have with apex for redundancy though. Especially since the salinity is notoriously bad.
 
I’m a little glad that my system is still in the design phase. I’ve got some time to let the dust settle a bit with all these new offerings.

One of the biggest things I’d be waiting for with mindstream is apex integration. It’s great to have all this data, but if I have to make all the adjustments manually based off that data then it’s still a bit of a hassle. I’d want to be able to use that data for automation.

I like that it has ph, and salinity like I’ll already have with apex for redundancy though. Especially since the salinity is notoriously bad.
They did say they are working on onboarding support for equipments like dosers and pumps. The hardware seems to be equipped with wireless support for future planning.
I think doser amd pumps companies will jump on this if the device deemed successful.
 
Based on their prior choices, I am doubtful Neptune will play nice with MindStream and allow integration since they have a competing offering. I hope they do though, history is littered with failed once-dominant companies that tried to shut out competition by artificially restricting interoperability.
 
I agree that solid-state testing like MS should be far superior to reagent-based testing, if it works reliably.

I really don’t understand the draw for ReefBot, which basically just has a robotic mechanism do old-school mediocre tests that were designed to be done by humans. Then the human goes and empties waste and refills reagents on a less frequent regular basis, (with likely additional troubleshooting occasionally), instead of just doing the tests on a regular basis. It seems like building a robot to use an abacus to do math calculations and write the answers on paper, instead of just letting the computer do the calculations directly and output the answers digitally.

It all depends on what "problem" you are trying to fix.

I don't see the old-school mediocre tests as a problem. They are plenty accurate for our uses.

The PROBLEM for many tanks - is the busy / lazy / forgetful / procrastinating human who owns it - like me.
I simply don't test enough. ReefBot fixes that for me.

Is MS "better" at testing? Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell.
But I would argue that part does not matter.
 
I placed my order last week, the subscription cost 40$ monthly or 35$ annual. This will include disks sent to your address monthly as well as data viewing and storage via their tool.
 
I placed my order last week, the subscription cost 40$ monthly or 35$ annual. This will include disks sent to your address monthly as well as data viewing and storage via their tool.
I’m getting worried because they’re now setting Max. Order per person to 3, yet haven’t updated their anticipated lead time (still 6-8 weeks) and I’m at the 8 week mark. Just emailed their customer support to see if I can get an updated delivery window. If I can’t reach someone there in a couple weeks I will cancel my order...
 
I’m getting worried because they’re now setting Max. Order per person to 3, yet haven’t updated their anticipated lead time (still 6-8 weeks) and I’m at the 8 week mark. Just emailed their customer support to see if I can get an updated delivery window. If I can’t reach someone there in a couple weeks I will cancel my order...
Yeh hopefully they fulfill orders on time. There seems to be an influx in interst in the product. Let's see if they can scale ad fast ad the demand...
Hope you get your unit soon and share with is your experince.
 
Ok all...I am going to help fill in the holes in this conversation. I am at MACNA and spoke with the Mindstream folks, and saw the unit, for about 45 minutes. I also own a ReefBot.

The size of this unit is about 20% larger than a baseball in diameter...about the size of a softball. It has two parts, the part that is in the tank or sump and the part that is on the outside. The outside part has to be dry and will connect to your wifi. The disk kind of looks like the old film viewers we all used to play with as kids (if you are over 50 LOL). The paper round disk you put in a viewer, looked through it and then pushed down on the lever to go to the next slide. It slowly spins.

On the inside, there are a few lenses that are used to read the results. They are about the size of of pencil erasure. The disk is covered by a plate so the disk can spin freely without any hitchhikers. In earlier designs, I was told by one of the engineers that a snail caused the reading to be out of wack due to the imbalance and weight as the disk was spinning. Wonder how long that took to happen and then find :). There is a small brush that on the disk to keep the lenses clean as it spins.

The inside and outside clamp together with a magnet for up to a 3/4" thickness material. It is like a powerhead sort of clamping.

The tests are sent to the cloud every 15 minutes. The tests include KH, Ca, Mg, Salinity, Temp, Oxygen, Potassium, Ph, C02, Ammonia. They hope to be adding Phosphate down the road. Nitrate won't be happening any time soon and may not happen. Nitrate is apparently very hard to measure in saltwater with this sort of technology.

The long term plan is to hopefully have this device connect to other devices and/or controllers. This device does not control anything. It is only a monitor. It will capture the results and you can look at the graphs of each element on your phone app or on a browser on your PC.

As for a comparison to the ReefBot, it is similar but different. I have a ReefBot and have been using it for about 3 months now. The Reefbot depends on liquid based, off the shelf test kits. You have to get tank water and RO for testing and then the robot automates the testing process using the test kits. It then dumps the tank water and rinsing water in to a waste container or drain. The results are sent to the cloud for view on the phone app or web browser. The ReefBot does not make a test kit more accurate in of itself, it only makes the test kit as accurate as the test kit is capable. There is one test that the Reefbot can test for that is not on the Mindstream now - phosphate. Hopefully there will be other test kits down the road that will be compatible to test other elements...like strontium, iron, copper etc...that are liquid only based.

Reef Kinetics launched two new products at MACNA...a testing system for stores as well as opened their API for integration with other systems. This means programmers can now access the test results and program controllers to do other functions...like dosing. Also, Reef Kinetics showed a new doser that will be coming out later this year or next.

There is a limitation of the # of tests with the ReefBot due to the vial size...20ml. However, they will be announcing a 40ml and a 10ml bottle. Some tests use very little reagent while others use a lot. These other bottles will give them more flexibility. Also, it only holds 8 vials. Some tests use 1 or 2 vials and others need 3. Therefore you are limited in the number of tests capable with the Reefbot without changing out the vials.

Finally, there is the newer technology around ion based testing with probes. These products are the ION Director (GHL), and the Xepta aBex from Spain to be sold by CoralVue. These new technologies use a probe that will need to be calibrated on every test using special saltwater that has a certain ion concentration. While there is no "reagent" so to speak, you will need to have a place to store the calibration fluids. The Xepta will require both the KH tester (using a Ph probe and reagant) and the other probe box...you can't separate them. The other probe box has a large probe holder that holds multiple probes, at the same time, that is testing all elements at the same time. The aBex system will test for KH, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium and Nitrates. GHL has not announced much yet on the ION Director...but they are supposed to do a showing at ReefAPalooza in Chicago in October.

They are selling the Mindstream for a big discount at MACNA and I am personally on the fence on putting the money down. I have a few days to decide to take advantage of the $300 savings :).
 
Ok all...I am going to help fill in the holes in this conversation. I am at MACNA and spoke with the Mindstream folks, and saw the unit, for about 45 minutes. I also own a ReefBot.

The size of this unit is about 20% larger than a baseball in diameter...about the size of a softball. It has two parts, the part that is in the tank or sump and the part that is on the outside. The outside part has to be dry and will connect to your wifi. The disk kind of looks like the old film viewers we all used to play with as kids (if you are over 50 LOL). The paper round disk you put in a viewer, looked through it and then pushed down on the lever to go to the next slide. It slowly spins.

On the inside, there are a few lenses that are used to read the results. They are about the size of of pencil erasure. The disk is covered by a plate so the disk can spin freely without any hitchhikers. In earlier designs, I was told by one of the engineers that a snail caused the reading to be out of wack due to the imbalance and weight as the disk was spinning. Wonder how long that took to happen and then find :). There is a small brush that on the disk to keep the lenses clean as it spins.

The inside and outside clamp together with a magnet for up to a 3/4" thickness material. It is like a powerhead sort of clamping.

The tests are sent to the cloud every 15 minutes. The tests include KH, Ca, Mg, Salinity, Temp, Oxygen, Potassium, Ph, C02, Ammonia. They hope to be adding Phosphate down the road. Nitrate won't be happening any time soon and may not happen. Nitrate is apparently very hard to measure in saltwater with this sort of technology.

The long term plan is to hopefully have this device connect to other devices and/or controllers. This device does not control anything. It is only a monitor. It will capture the results and you can look at the graphs of each element on your phone app or on a browser on your PC.

As for a comparison to the ReefBot, it is similar but different. I have a ReefBot and have been using it for about 3 months now. The Reefbot depends on liquid based, off the shelf test kits. You have to get tank water and RO for testing and then the robot automates the testing process using the test kits. It then dumps the tank water and rinsing water in to a waste container or drain. The results are sent to the cloud for view on the phone app or web browser. The ReefBot does not make a test kit more accurate in of itself, it only makes the test kit as accurate as the test kit is capable. There is one test that the Reefbot can test for that is not on the Mindstream now - phosphate. Hopefully there will be other test kits down the road that will be compatible to test other elements...like strontium, iron, copper etc...that are liquid only based.

Reef Kinetics launched two new products at MACNA...a testing system for stores as well as opened their API for integration with other systems. This means programmers can now access the test results and program controllers to do other functions...like dosing. Also, Reef Kinetics showed a new doser that will be coming out later this year or next.

There is a limitation of the # of tests with the ReefBot due to the vial size...20ml. However, they will be announcing a 40ml and a 10ml bottle. Some tests use very little reagent while others use a lot. These other bottles will give them more flexibility. Also, it only holds 8 vials. Some tests use 1 or 2 vials and others need 3. Therefore you are limited in the number of tests capable with the Reefbot without changing out the vials.

Finally, there is the newer technology around ion based testing with probes. These products are the ION Director (GHL), and the Xepta aBex from Spain to be sold by CoralVue. These new technologies use a probe that will need to be calibrated on every test using special saltwater that has a certain ion concentration. While there is no "reagent" so to speak, you will need to have a place to store the calibration fluids. The Xepta will require both the KH tester (using a Ph probe and reagant) and the other probe box...you can't separate them. The other probe box has a large probe holder that holds multiple probes, at the same time, that is testing all elements at the same time. The aBex system will test for KH, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium and Nitrates. GHL has not announced much yet on the ION Director...but they are supposed to do a showing at ReefAPalooza in Chicago in October.

They are selling the Mindstream for a big discount at MACNA and I am personally on the fence on putting the money down. I have a few days to decide to take advantage of the $300 savings :).
Thanks for sharing scott. Great write up. Am glad I got one. Up until last month I was waiting for ghl ion director cause I like ghl products alot since I switched to their P4..but mindstream just looked like a better package all in all compared to what's in the market.
Inly thing ghl ion director will have that I might itch for is the po4 and i think no3.

I do believe the new ion based and solid state based tests are the new evolution of aquarium testing and will be more future proof.

Thanks again for sharing
 
FYI Mindstream’s customer service replied with a boiler-plate email,

“Like any other young startup, we are still working to fine tune our production capacity to match customer demand, and that can be a particularly complex process with a product as highly specialized as the MindStream Monitor. While we are working hard to scale at the same rate as our orders, we have fallen a few weeks behind our initial anticipated fulfillment timeline, and we will now be shipping the next round of monitors out next week with the anticipation of fulfilling your order as soon as possible.

We see that your order is still in process and will be affected by this delay, so please enjoy a 10% discount off of your order as a thank you for your patience. The discount will be automatically applied to your order upon shipment.”

Maybe I’ll wait two more weeks before cancelling... I only have 3 weeks left before my credit card customer protection would expire. [emoji51]
 
FYI Mindstream’s customer service replied with a boiler-plate email,

“Like any other young startup, we are still working to fine tune our production capacity to match customer demand, and that can be a particularly complex process with a product as highly specialized as the MindStream Monitor. While we are working hard to scale at the same rate as our orders, we have fallen a few weeks behind our initial anticipated fulfillment timeline, and we will now be shipping the next round of monitors out next week with the anticipation of fulfilling your order as soon as possible.

We see that your order is still in process and will be affected by this delay, so please enjoy a 10% discount off of your order as a thank you for your patience. The discount will be automatically applied to your order upon shipment.”

Maybe I’ll wait two more weeks before cancelling... I only have 3 weeks left before my credit card customer protection would expire. [emoji51]
The way I see it if you like the mindstream as a device its worth cutting them some slack with delays.
As a matter of fact them admitting it and giving you 10% discount is really amazing, compare this to Neptune trident delays and the quality of the feedbacks people got when they complain about it.....
Still worth the wait for me.
 
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