Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Let's talk recirculating biopellet reactors!

Avast Marine · 07/17/2014, 02:25 PM

OK, so since we have had a little discussion on design goals and objectives when designing new products in the feeder thread herehttp://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2372944 I want to open up a discussion about a product that has a much, much closer release date

So I am going to outline the design goals again and let you know where we are on a few things and open it up for discussion.

1. Does it solve the problem?

Yes. We have a design that allows a full 1 liter of biopellets to be fluidized very hard while limiting the through flow to the ideal range in a standard MR5 reactor. What is the ideal range and how did we come up with it? I will address that in a separate post but for now, lets just say it solves the problem.

2. Is it reliable?

Yes. It actually reduces maintenence of filter screens and clogging. We have chosen to use a very reliable Sicce Silence pump for the re-circulation.

3. Is it easy to use?

Yes, it is plug and play. It can even be sold as a retrofit to existing customers who already have a media reactor from us, this was it's own separate design goal btw. It may be able to be used as a retrofit on some other manufactures media reactors (more on that later). We have not decided if we are going to offer a part kit or not for this. If we do it, will probably be several months after we release the AVAST built version. We do this so we can learn how to build and assemble them really, really well. It makes writing instruction manuals and troubleshooting much easier down the road when we do offer things in kit form.

4. Does it look good?

Hard plumbing, integrated valves, painstaking effort taken to color match with our existing product line. Sexy.

5. How much is it going to cost?

Less than anything that is currently on the market that actually works. More savings can be had with pairing the recirc kit to a diy reactor or using existing reactor. We are hesitant to decouple the pump from the kit though because there is such a wide variety of fittings used and configurations of all the different pump manufactures and we have chosen what we feel is the best out of the box solution for this application.

6. Is there a market for it?

I think so. There is nothing comparable on the market although there are a few recirc biopellet reactors. It is hard to gauge how big the market is but you tell us!

7. How much investment does it require to bring to market?

Medium. We have to order a pretty substantial amount of inventory to meet MOQ's on some of the parts and others we will order more than we need to get better price breaks, this will lead to the lowest possible cost for our customers. There are a few custom fittings we need that don't exist as a commodity item, so those need to be manufactured. There are 3 sizes of reactors we make so we will probably limit initial tooling and ordering to the MR5 size which will be good for a 200g tank (most of the market and our best selling size). Plus eventually we would like to have some sort of universal kit that attaches to other manufactures media reactors although that is a lower priority.

So now that's out there, but the product release date is still not decided. We are in the long term testing phase of the units and are getting ready to move forward with production since testing has been fantastic. We still have plenty of opportunity and time to consider any ideas or concerns anyone has though or just talk about the hows/whys etc of running biopellets in a recirculating reactor rather than a single pass.

07/17/2014, 02:25 PM	#1
Avast Marine RC Sponsor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern VA Posts: 2,446	Let's talk recirculating biopellet reactors! OK, so since we have had a little discussion on design goals and objectives when designing new products in the feeder thread herehttp://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2372944 I want to open up a discussion about a product that has a much, much closer release date So I am going to outline the design goals again and let you know where we are on a few things and open it up for discussion. 1. Does it solve the problem? Yes. We have a design that allows a full 1 liter of biopellets to be fluidized very hard while limiting the through flow to the ideal range in a standard MR5 reactor. What is the ideal range and how did we come up with it? I will address that in a separate post but for now, lets just say it solves the problem. 2. Is it reliable? Yes. It actually reduces maintenence of filter screens and clogging. We have chosen to use a very reliable Sicce Silence pump for the re-circulation. 3. Is it easy to use? Yes, it is plug and play. It can even be sold as a retrofit to existing customers who already have a media reactor from us, this was it's own separate design goal btw. It may be able to be used as a retrofit on some other manufactures media reactors (more on that later). We have not decided if we are going to offer a part kit or not for this. If we do it, will probably be several months after we release the AVAST built version. We do this so we can learn how to build and assemble them really, really well. It makes writing instruction manuals and troubleshooting much easier down the road when we do offer things in kit form. 4. Does it look good? Hard plumbing, integrated valves, painstaking effort taken to color match with our existing product line. Sexy. 5. How much is it going to cost? Less than anything that is currently on the market that actually works. More savings can be had with pairing the recirc kit to a diy reactor or using existing reactor. We are hesitant to decouple the pump from the kit though because there is such a wide variety of fittings used and configurations of all the different pump manufactures and we have chosen what we feel is the best out of the box solution for this application. 6. Is there a market for it? I think so. There is nothing comparable on the market although there are a few recirc biopellet reactors. It is hard to gauge how big the market is but you tell us! 7. How much investment does it require to bring to market? Medium. We have to order a pretty substantial amount of inventory to meet MOQ's on some of the parts and others we will order more than we need to get better price breaks, this will lead to the lowest possible cost for our customers. There are a few custom fittings we need that don't exist as a commodity item, so those need to be manufactured. There are 3 sizes of reactors we make so we will probably limit initial tooling and ordering to the MR5 size which will be good for a 200g tank (most of the market and our best selling size). Plus eventually we would like to have some sort of universal kit that attaches to other manufactures media reactors although that is a lower priority. So now that's out there, but the product release date is still not decided. We are in the long term testing phase of the units and are getting ready to move forward with production since testing has been fantastic. We still have plenty of opportunity and time to consider any ideas or concerns anyone has though or just talk about the hows/whys etc of running biopellets in a recirculating reactor rather than a single pass. __________________ Dan Don't rush art, you get bad art.