The ARKA Vida GT doser is quite simply the most ambitious dosing pump system that has yet been conceived for the home aquarium. The Vertex Libra pushed the envelope a decent amount with stepper motors, high quality dosing heads and a touch screen interface with built in stoichiometry smarts. But the ARKA has unique programming and hardware of its own.
The ARKA Vida GT comes in a four channel master and a four channel slave module, both of which have built-in magnetic stirrers for keeping all manner of additives, solutions and bacterial promoters well homogenized before the liquid is added to the aquarium. Better yet, it is even possible to program the ARKA to uses its peristaltic pumps to operate in both directions, allowing the fluid in the dosing lines to be returned to the dosing bottle, especially important when used with probiotic solutions.
The units of the ARKA Vida GT doser on display at Global Pet Expo were early prototypes which forewent the use of either a metal or plastic enclosure in favor of an attractive mix of metal and acrylic. In very European fashion the ARKA Vida also does without much of a graphical user interface and instead employs a small legion of hardware buttons for adjusting flow rates and times for each of the master and slave channels.
Although the ARKA Vida was being displayed by Microbe Lift, it is unclear when or if this innovative liquid doser will be distributed in North America. Apparently Microbe Lift’s parent company is unaware of how hot dosing pumps and dosing systems have become for the reef aquarium hobby, but Microbe Lift offers products for a wide range of different industries including ponds and horticulture. If Microbe Lift does end up distributing its own dosing pump, however, it would be a great way to spread awareness of their reef additive dosing line which is one of the more obscure in the North American market.
This rich of a feature set in a dosing pump must see the light of day for our reef tanks, especially for the probiotic crowd. While it is still uncertain when the ARKA Vida may grace the marine aquarium of North American reefers, innovations like those found in the ARKA Vida cannot be stopped and we strongly expect one distributor to pick it up sooner or later.
