At first look, Reefdoser EVO 4 closely resembles the generic pumps on the market, all  based on the original design by another German company, GHL, and their Profilux dosing pumps.

But upon further inspection, we see that Aquamedic’s pump is far from carbon copy. The most significant improvement on the standard design is the controller- instead of sitting inside the main body, it has its own cord and can be mounted away from the main body. This clever idea is a welcome change and a strong selling point; anyone who has used a doser will agree that having the display and controls cramped next to the pump’s heads is not ideal. Not only is it unattractive, but having to deal with a spider web of dosing lines just to change the daily dosage is quite frustrating – with this redesign, you can mount the controller with its built-in numeric display away from the dosing pump’s box. The cord is long enough to hang the controller on aquarium stand’s side or even on an adjacent wall.

The doser comes in a nice, “clean” looking retail box, complete with a picture of the unit and some basic information printed in three different languages (French, German and English). Inside, we have:

• Base unit featuring 4 dosing pump heads, some indicator LEDs, a RJ 45 (Ethernet) port to connect the remote controller and a smaller telephone jack for (sold separately) expansion modules
• A remote controller with alphanumeric display, 6-button control, and a 6 foot  (2m) long cable
• Roughly 13 ft of good-quality silicone tubing
• A power brick that (surprisingly) comes with adapters for different power plug standards
• Printed manual
• Some double sided tape for mounting purposes