Aquarium Controller setup question

[mseepman]

Okay, so I've been planning a new build for quite a while now to coincide with a new house we're having built. My question on the controllers is for those of you who have a basement fish room under a tank on a higher floor.

How do you control the items up at the tank with the controller and the items in the fish room at the same time? I have an RK2 on my nano tank and I know it's old so I'm guessing that some of the new controllers have some type of wired remote setup for their power bars?

I would have a sump, frag tank and fuge in the basement but I would have the MH's, the T5's and some pumps in the display.

I've taken a look at various controller sites and no-one really spells the answer out to me on this.

[sphelps]

I've setup and maintain a system which is similar to what you describe. It uses a Profilux controller which is located in the basement with the sump. One power bar is upstairs with the display tank and another power bar is in the basement with the sump. The upstairs power bar is connected to the controller with a 5m extension cable. The tunze power heads are also connected with the same type of cable.

Pretty simple and I imagine most controllers can do the same. If for some reason you can't run a cable you could always look into some type of X10 technology but I would avoid the actual X10 brand since it's really old and the signal is too weak to be 100% reliable.

[mseepman]

Thanks for the description...any other controller owners out there want to describe their setup?

[whatcaneyedo]

The Neptune Apex Aquabus cables are up to 15' long.

[mark]

Have a controller and some stand alone timers for the lights.

Controller is downstairs and runs everything on the basement sump so no problems there. One in-wall basement timer for the MH was easy as the ballasts are downstairs. For the T5s as the ballasts are below the tank just put another timer there.

What the grand plan was, but not going to bother with, was having switched recepticals below the tank and pulling some Romex (proper house wire since routing in wall and joist spaces) back to the basement to connect to the controller.

Never did either yet but since the controller can be on a PC, idea is to run a RS232 cable between the controller and to a desktop upstairs.

[rkelman]

I'm planning a similar setup. I use the neptune apex and will just get another EB8 powerbar and a pc1 to run my clownfish growout system in the basement. Its currently running my display upstairs. They connect with a simple usb cable.

[mseepman]

Is the cable from their site a simple USB cable? I thought it appeared to be but figured that for the price they were charging there must be something special about it.

I am leaning towards the RKE as I've been really happy with my little RK2 for my nano tank. I see they sell cables up to 30' or so, I just didn't realize that powerbars could be hooked up through these cables.

[rkelman]

You can buy longer cables for the Apex as well I think up to 50' ft. They are normal USB cables you can get anywhere. The powerbars communicate through the cable. You still need to plug it into an outlet of course. I picked the Apex over the RKE because I can view / change settings online. It comes standard with network access. Also you can name outlets with the apex. (heater) (chiller) etc. Other that those things they are pretty much the same. The ability to access and control via net was the deal breaker for me. Its supposed to be coming for the RKE but its well overdue...