Would I benefit from a reef controller of some kind? Or not so much...

[shifty51008]

i guess that would work. do they make an enegy bar that would reach 10-12 feet from the controller? I would rather have 1 extension cord running to the energy bar than 5 cords running to the basement.

[E Rosewater]

They sell 15' aquabus cables that would work to connect the outlet to the controller, and you can connect outets to other outlets. So you can just run one cable and chain different components together.

[shifty51008]

perfect. now I may have to look into one. I use ranco's, timmers ect to control my tank and it has been working great for years this way, but the thought of being able to check my phone to see how my tank is doing is the plus side.

[rachelcb80]

I know a lot of people in the hobby have a controller, and wouldn't do without and at one point I thought the same way. Unfortunately the only disaster I've had with a tank was because of my Neptune ACIII. The temp probe went bad on it and was registering the wrong temp. Made my heater run too much to try and get to the "correct" temp and ended up with a 95 degree tank. Like other posters have stated, I now like having items on their own so a fail with one item, a controller, doesn't take everything with it.

I have a Bubble Magnus doser for Ca and Alk. An auto top off system with dual float valve, and a reservoir that holds enough for a couple days but not enough that if it happened to dump all in the sump would cause serious problems. My light is a Maxspect Razor with built in timer. The Vortech is on it's own controller for feed mode, and my return pump flow is light enough that I leave it going while feeding. My heater has a controller but it's the last item I've given serious consideration to putting another check on, just to be really safe.

To each their own certainly but for me a controller is something I'm happy to live without.

[E Rosewater]

I see a lot of people have issues with their heater on a controller. I use my apex as a backup only, my heater runs, if temp gets too high outlet shuts down and sends me a text. I like the idea of it being a redundant back up.

[worm5406]

An apex uses a USB cord, not in the PC/computer world aspect of USB that we are all familiar with. It uses the cable but pushes power/data down it differently (hense the aspect of NEVER plugging your computer/phone/ipod in it to charge or it will overheat and kill it)

You take the brain (CPU) and plug it into an outlet via usb. Then you can take another usb cable and run it to other power bars. Now... this gives you the ability to cross connect the power bars, or other modules, together.

A regular USB will only go so far, but the apex power/setup is different so you can run it MUCH further.

With the brain in the basement by the sump (or vice versa) you can put another power bar by the tank and control pumps/lights/probes as needed. There is a limit on the length ta cable can be, it is listed in the documentation. So in a multi level tank setup you can connect all the devices together. You can even have multiple display units so you can see the parameters at a glance up or down stairs.

I am an android guy also, had one since it came out. I now have a family of android phones and I have an android pad.

The ease of use and the ability to program as much as I needed sold me on the apex. I am still keen on the RA with the way it is programed, but wanted something a bit more plug and play.

I may switch one day as new technologies come out, but I am satisfied, for now.

[Breadman03]

Worm, do you have experience with the RA? It seems a little bit cheaper, but I'm curious if the overall quality of the product including customer support reflect that.

Is there a practical difference in the abilities of the two?

I wouldn't ask here, but it seems like it is in line with the OP's intent.

[oscarinw]

My ReefAngel + wifi does this for me:

1. Shuts what I want down in case of overheat (I set the overheat point)
2. Doses my 2 part (I refill smaller bottles in case it goes haywire on me, although never happened)
3. Dims my led lights on and off
4. Sends me phone alerts that I create (PH, temp, lights, etc.)
5. Gives me feeding and water change modes from my phone. No need to unplug one single cable
6. Gives me random power at random intervals on day vs night smoothly transitioning cycles on a Jebao WP40 and a random on/off to a Koralia evo. My flow rocks thanks to my ReefAngel! (It can make it do tons more)
7. Powers my fuge light on and off.
8. Powers my chiller and heater and also both have their own thermostats so its a double fail safe system, and triple if you count the fact you can make it power things down in case of temperature going out of whack...
9. I don't use the ATO function but it can
10. Monitors my PH 24/7
11. In case of power loss, it makes the skimmer and the chiller pump come in with a custom delay (it just works for my setup and avoids me pulling too much power from the wall all at once)
12. I am trying now to learn to make it control an Eheim feeder... yes one of my forum gurus controls and powers his Eheim auto feeder with it.

This is my first controller and let me tell you... it's omeeeeei-zing! I am going on my first 2-week vacation next week for the first time since I am in this hobby circa 2005. Yes my fish will miss their frozen food for a while but they won't starve and I am nervous as heck... But I am leaving a 20 gallon RO top off reservoir next to my tank and my keys to a friend in case something goes wrong.... but other than that, I should survive. Will tell you on July 15th or so...

I have never programmed in my life either and I don't work for them either although I'd love to!

Good luck with things and let us know what you decide to do!

[Dapg8gt]

To the Op if you haven't checked out the reef angel forum I suggest you do so ..

And as for heater malfunctions I have my RA wired to 2 different temp probes all redundant.. That's the beauty of the RA you can literally have it do whatever failsafe/safeguard you can think of and incorporate any piece of equipment you wish . not just what the company offers. Having the dual temp probes rules out the heater and having a battery back up running on my ecotech covers flow during power outage and I haven't yet looked into how to get it to recognize a power failure and send me a notification of it like apex does as my modem is also on battery backup.. All things I believe the apex can do also but I personally like the reef angel I think in a few years a lot of others are going to feel the same.. Plus it is a local to me company so I'm supporting local small business at the same time..

I use the android app for everything on it and just ordered a cheap 7" tablet that gonna be my head unit next to the tank to have a slick looking touch screen head unit ..

[worm5406]

Originally Posted by Breadman03

Worm, do you have experience with the RA? It seems a little bit cheaper, but I'm curious if the overall quality of the product including customer support reflect that.

Is there a practical difference in the abilities of the two?

I wouldn't ask here, but it seems like it is in line with the OP's intent.

I do not. I researched it quite a bit. Forums, websites, even went and saw one.

Over the years I have done programing from cobalt, basic, fortran, and a few others, to include basic web programing to playing with some ajax. So I figured it was going to be a breeze with setting it up. For some odd reason I decided not to. The logical forward thinking/programing with the Apex suited what I wanted, it and I, to do.

If I had to do it again, I would rethink them even more.... Most likely I would have gone with the RA.

Now that is easily said now, but if I had, I would have probably said the Apex...

Not trying to straddle the fence and not give a straight answer. Just saying the grass always looks different from the other side of the fence.

I have a friend that has an RA. I might go over there and see how it is. I don't want to break it or anything, so I would have to be careful.

I wish there was a virtual interface where you could do a set point (temp/ph/water(float switch)/time) and see how it would react in all the programing for all the controllers. I have asked a few vendors if they have one for trouble shooting. I would love to pull someone's programming in and do a quick trouble shoot on it.

At work I have a virtual blackberry for testing and setup. A BB is much more intense than a controller we would use.

[Dapg8gt]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I do not. I researched it quite a bit. Forums, websites, even went and saw one.

Over the years I have done programing from cobalt, basic, fortran, and a few others, to include basic web programing to playing with some ajax. So I figured it was going to be a breeze with setting it up. For some odd reason I decided not to. The logical forward thinking/programing with the Apex suited what I wanted, it and I, to do.

If I had to do it again, I would rethink them even more.... Most likely I would have gone with the RA.

Now that is easily said now, but if I had, I would have probably said the Apex...

Not trying to straddle the fence and not give a straight answer. Just saying the grass always looks different from the other side of the fence.

I have a friend that has an RA. I might go over there and see how it is. I don't want to break it or anything, so I would have to be careful.

I wish there was a virtual interface where you could do a set point (temp/ph/water(float switch)/time) and see how it would react in all the programing for all the controllers. I have asked a few vendors if they have one for trouble shooting. I would love to pull someone's programming in and do a quick trouble shoot on it.

At work I have a virtual blackberry for testing and setup. A BB is much more intense than a controller we would use.

I don't know if it pertains to what you want to do but you can do exactly that with the RA . If you have one or not You can download the whole shooting match and write your own code for parameters or go over the libraries that are already in use and it has a test function that will let you know if it works or not and give you an error code. I don't think that is exactly what your looking for as it only covers reef angel but you have free access to it all.. If you just plug in your parameters into the wizard it will display it all to you.

I'm sure you've already seen that though but thought it would be good to others who didn't know about it and were wondering.. It's easy to do on a mac or PC just download the software, open up the wizard and fill in the blanks. Or if you know coding already just write your functions and customize them to whatever you want to do..

Are you talking about testing code for all controller language?

[worm5406]

Well yea... I did not know that part had come out, for RA at least.

It would be nice to be able to add modules and test programing against it all.

I will have to d/l it and see how it works out.

They are all different so there is no way testing all controllers would work, nicely.

[alton]

My original RKL cost me $115 shipped and everytime my AC has gone out over the years it shut my metal halides off saving my tank. The only thing I have had to replace was the temp probe a couple years ago. I never could understand the firmware updates? It works perfectly, so why do I need a firmware upgrade. Every so often I pull the temp probe out and put it in a cup of warmer water and my lights shut off when the temp gets above 79.

[Ron Reefman]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, reef controllers are like cars with a GPS. For a hundred years people got from point A to point B without a GPS. But they do make life a bit easier and they keep getting cheaper. Soon every new car will have one. Does that mean you NEED it? No. And like the Reef Controller, the GPS can be feed bad info or fail on it's own and get you lost... slim odds, but it does happen. Reef controllers are just the same. I don't NEED one and the only big thing it would do for me at this point is act as an alarm system to my phone. I'd like that, but not for $300 dollars on a system that will be obsolete in a couple of years. Or for $550 for an Apex Neptune with lots of controls I don't need. When they get a bit cheaper... maybe. I said that about led lighting for 4 years before I switched. But in those 4 years leds got WAY better. And 6-8 months ago some good quality fixtures came out and are much less expensive. I'm hoping reef controllers will eventually do the same thing. I know of 2 Chinese companies that are already working on it. If they don't, no great loss. My system is pretty self controlled and independent.

[Drae]

Controllers are a must imo. But that's just my experience and opinion.

[D-Nak]

BRS has a good video discussing controllers.

Regarding price -- all companies now have entry level controllers for a reasonable price, and many can be upgraded if the need arises.

Regarding overheating a tank -- this should NEVER happen. The controller serves as a fail-safe should the heater thermostat fail. Sounds like people are setting up their controllers incorrectly. If the heater's thermostat and temp. probe both fail, maybe it's a sign that you should find another hobby. Kidding. You'll know a temp. probe isn't working properly since you already have another thermometer to compare the temperature (cheap stick on one, or cheaper one with the fake mercury stuff). Right???