If you have been keeping aquariums as long as I have, then you may think back to the way things were years ago. While a lot has changed, the truth is that we had nice reef tanks ten years ago and most of the equipment doesn’t perform that much better than it did years ago.

So what is the biggest innovation of the last decade? It is actually how affordable some of the equipment that used to be extremely expensive has become. Here are three of our favorite products that demonstrate how once-expensive gear has become available to everyone.

IceCap ATO EZ
When I started in the aquarium hobby, I didn’t know anyone using an ATO of any kind. Soon the Tunze Osmolator came out and I thought of it as some unrealistic luxury item that was ridiculously expensive. At the time it was over $150 which is well over $200 adjusted for inflation. We are now at a point where I haven’t set up a single tank without an ATO in years. The ATO makes it much easier to leave the tank for a few days, or to make sure that the water level doesn’t drop ridiculously low between cleanings. The IceCap ATO has a price of just $89.99. Any aquarist will benefit from an ATO, and now for less than $100 you can get an ATO with 3 electronic sensors that include a pump, tubing, and a magnetic sensor mount.

Kamoer F1 Dosing Pump
The first dosing pumps I remember were the ones from Two Little Fishies that you controlled by using a small eyeglass screwdriver to turn a speed control knob. You had to plug the unit in and let the pump fill a beaker for one minute and then do the math to figure out how much it would add if you ran it all day. Then you used the screwdriver to adjust the speed until you got your dosage right. These were nearly $200 dosing pumps. I then remember the SpectraPure Liter Meter that gave you a single head completely controllable dosing pump for only $250 and each additional head was only about $120 more. Needless to say, if you had a dosing pump you were one of those fancy reef keepers living in luxury. The Kamore F1 dosing pump is a fully programable dosing pump with an app that connects to your phone with Bluetooth or WiFi all for just the price of $89.99. Aquarists who use dosing pumps don’t forget to dose and have fewer overdosing mistakes. Affordable dosing pumps also make automating dosing on your tanks during times you might be away (e.g. on vacation, or at work) far easier.

Hydros Control XS Starter Pack
I put off buying an aquarium controller for many years. I always thought they were cool but never thought I really needed one. I, then, had an incident with my home tank where the GFCI tripped for some reason, my pumps lost power and all of my fish suffocated from lack of oxygen. I lost at least $700 in fish overnight. What was worse was that I was in the house and just didn’t walk into the room. If I had just known that the tank was without power, I could have reset the GFCI and saved the fish. After this event, I bought my first aquarium controller for nearly $600. 10 years ago I was willing to spend $600 to get power outage notifications sent to my phone, but now you can buy a Hydros Control XS starter pack for just $199, which includes temperature and power outage notifications as well as four programable outlets for any standard plug-in unit in your system. It also has ports to add water level sensors and leak sensors that could have saved me a lot of time mopping up from floods. These entry-level controllers are easy to use which has made it more accessible for the average aquarist. Adding a controller to your tank, so that you can monitor your tank activity, sensor levels, or other emergencies will add extra peace of mind for you, your floors, and your wallet.