The more moving parts, the more opportunity for failure. I personally don't want smart tech in my aquarium, things go wrong far too often for me to be comfortable with that.

I love my smart timer. It automatically resets the next day to its schedule if the power goes out. Also tells me if the power or internet goes out anywhere in the world.

I had a couple of power outages last weekend. My Fluval 3.0 just didn't come back on until I went back to the app and just clicked on it. It instantly came back on and remembered where it was supposed to be.

I was using pin timers but they kept drifting and losing the ability to switch on and off properly.

Now that I have used the full sized Fluval plant 3.0 and know that it has physical buttons and can be controlled by a smart plug if you app dies i don't have many issues with it until recently I had only used the Fluval nano plant that can only be controlled by the app so I had assumed the full ones were the same. thanks Bentley I probably wouldn't have looked any further into them without you talking about them being your favorite ( Would still prefer to have full physical controls and a app ) great video as always

I'm very likely in the more extreme end of a bias towards "smart" or automated aquarium equipment. I find many aspects like monitoring devices, testing probes, and notifications to be of extreme value. But, it comes at a cost. Both the monetary value, and time spent maintaining that equipment such as re-pairing a device to the network or calibrating probes and dosing heads. Automating an aquarium doesn't remove good maintenance, it shifts that workload to other tasks. Use something like an auto-water-change and it greatly extends the duration between manual water changes in a safe and effective way. However, you now have to maintain the dosing system or pumps executing it, and ensure you have a clean water source when your not there. And it's no substitute for regular testing. But I'd rather maintain a pump, than carry buckets... And while you may be thinking "that's just more things that can break". It's only partly true. If you embrace automation, you can add redundancy which adds resiliency to the aquarium. Such as using probes to monitor and continually test the tank. Some of which can be configured to turn devices on and off, if desired. Or, simply alert you via text or email when something is wrong, so the user can act. Would you rather know your heater is stuck-on 10 minutes into it failing, or would you prefer to walk in and learn the hard way hours or days later? In this case, your trading minor additional maintenance for peace of mind and additional awareness. Finally, it's ideal for performing tasks when you're simply not there. Things like auto-feeders, lighting schedules, and dosing regimes can be detrimental if used improperly or misunderstood. But, if used well, they can add a level of consistency beyond a typical aquarist. Something as simple as a timer takes a mediocre aquarist, and makes that action very reliable. However, it's something that only make sense for hobbyists who want to invest resources into there aquarium. The more expensive an aquarium set-up becomes, the more attractive automation looks. And the fewer aquariums (or combined volumes of water) a hobbyist has, the more feasible the cost and set-up of such automation. Scaling automation on a connected (plumbed together) system is easy. But, scaling it on dozens of individual tanks is cost prohibitive. Personally, I don't have multiple tanks. I learned a long time ago, I have the personal motivation to take care of one aquarium very well. Or, I tend to care for multiple tanks mediocre or poorly. So, I've happily traded putting money into one modestly large aquarium, rather than dozens of smaller ones. In my scenario, automation makes perfect sense. It's safeguarding my only aquarium system, spreading out the overall maintenance on the system into more manageable bites, and I only have to purchase one set of equipment instead of trying to figure out how to cover multiple tanks with redundant purchases. In my case, I very much appreciate having multiple layers of automation through both Apps and an aquarium controller.

It's not the heat that's hard in hot climate it's the humidity that is the real fun part.

27:11 hey man I've worked in factories in the US long enough to know that American Made means nothing and sometimes scares me haha. It is the higher ups mostly tho. A lot of times especially when they get busy it's just as long as you can get parts out the door, ship them. A few people I have talked to have said they have seen quality go down dramatically in the past 10 years and mostly in the past 5. But that could just be the companies that are going to go down soon too.

Great video, thank you. You should remove that dirty tank that is hanging off the edge of that stand. It takes away from your professionalism and doesn't look great in your video background.

36:25 but if you aren't breeding heavily or have fish that will eat each other quickly then they definitely don't need fed every day and could probably go well with 1 feeding a week with how much most people feed. Question?? Do you think most people in the hobby casually/for enjoyment feed too much and/or too often??

I have been in this hobby for a ..... shall we say a very long time so I don't date myself, and have tried pretty much all the angles. In the end what I learned is that you don't need all that smart crap at all. In fact it just creates way way more headaches, the only smart device I ever consider using now is a timer that can tell time with an on and an off. I don't even use heaters, I just control room temp. Don't need smart lights, smart heaters, smart dossers, smart feeders, smart pumps or even smart fish. My tanks are all thriving and are all dumb as shit. Save your money people! If you get a smart piece of equipment just know it's because you want too and not because you need too, If you think you need it then you don't know what your doing. The word smart on packaging is nothing more than a marketing tactic by corporations to get even more money from your pocket to theirs. Edit: If you want to do smart on your tanks then do plants. Plants are smart and do a lot of work totally automatically, you just have to provide food they will do the rest fully automatic.