Hi guys
I was asked to Join the forum to help with any problems or questions people may have about the Aquatronica controller systems.
A little background.
First of all I do not work for Aquatronica neither do I get paid by them or anything else. I am an Electronic and software Engineer for a large company and hence I got very interested in controllers from the days of the first units and various pH testers came on the market.
I have owned SW aquariums for 36 Years, but got seriously involved around 30 years ago when magazines started to appear and articles by guys like Julian Sprung and Delbeek started to give me real insight.
My Brother also got involved in SW Aquariums at the same time as me and he ended up building a installation and servicing business in the Caribbean. He dealt mainly with large hotels and Dived and collected most of the Stock and imported others from Miami that were needed to make the Tanks look spectacular. Unfortunately what was known back then only scratches the surface of what is known today, so things like RODI water were considered a luxury item of questionable value and generally we used Tap water mixed with De-chlorination tablets to top off the tanks.
While we could just gather natural SW for water changes the build up of other chemicals was unknown to us as was the need for Ca and Mg and we were always puzzled as to why the Tanks always seemed to fail after 18-24 months.
I have owned and setup several brands of controllers over the years, including the Reefkeeper, ELOS, Apex and of course Aquatronica.
My current setup is a 90 Gallon Oceanic Bowfront tank. With a 30 gallon Sump and a (Full Aquatronica LED system, Touch controller, 3 Plugbars, SMS module, 6 Float switches, 2x Leak Detectors, Two Temp Probes, Aquatronica Dosing Pump, pH, ORP, Salinity, Oxygen Probes) I also use a Reeflo Dart Pump and Echotech MP40s and Korallin 1502 Calc Reactor, along with a Sulphur Denitrator and Phosban reactors. ASM G3 Skimmer and Ozotech Ozone Generator and round out the equipment with a Chiller. And lastly a Honda EU3000si Generator modified to kick in during power outages.
I am highly into automation of aquarium systems but like anything else it does have it's limitations. When my Tank was at the height of beauty and growth I had lots of SPS corals and softies and at least 12 fish that had all been doing well for 6+ years, My in sump DSB and Cheato was keeping thing under control and all my Tank required was Glass cleaning and a monthly service Job on the Probes and detritus removal.
Then as what happens to almost every tank owner at some point happened to me. The guy who had every form of redundancy and alerts was struck by disaster because my system lacked a "Stupidity Sensor" and so from the least expected place I got hit.
I had a cleaning lady over and I had noticed some Ants running on the Kitchen counter so I asked her to check out where they were coming from and spray the location. I came home 10 hours later and found the house had a distinct odor of pesticide. I opened up some windows and took a casual look at my tank and noticed everything was well. The next day I took up the spray can to put it away and noticed that the can was almost empty, but I still thought nothing of it until that night when my 4 year old Powder Blue Tang Died. At this point I started to connect the dots but everything else looked fine so I still figured that it must just have been that the Powder Blue was overly sensitive to the spray.
The next day I saw the cleaning Lady and asked her what happened and she said that she had decided to spray out the whole house
Panic set in, I had no idea she had moved from the kitchen to the rest of the house with the spray. Well I flicked the Tank lights on and noticed some corals looking bad and several fish missing. I had to go to work, so I packed in all my carbon and hoped for the best. By time I got home it was a complete disaster, the only thing alive was a 6 line wrasse. My 4 year old Mandarin fish was belly up, my 8 year old Flame angel and bi-color dead. Yellow and Hippo dead, A pair of Clown fish that I had for 6 years and that spawned monthly Dead. All Corals bleaching or turning to jelly. It was a disaster scene!
Anyway I cleaned out the Tank and literally wept as I pulled out fist sized corals that had grown from Frags and Fish that each had names. After about 3 months I restocked the tank with 4 fish but lost interest in it completely. For 2 1/2 Years the Tank kept on running, sometimes I wished the fish would just die so I would have a reason to pack it all in but the Aquatronica controller and all the Automation and redundancy systems I had in place just kept the thing running smoothly. I did no water changes, sometime the Algae on the front Glass was so thick that you could see nothing inside but I had no hair Algae or Red Slime Algae, so I would just drop in some pellet food every other day and try not to remember.
Then about 3 years ago my Wife said to me that she was fed up and it was time to scrap the Tank or fix it back to the way it was. I opted for scraping it, but every time I looked at my new Bicolor and my Hippo and yellow Tang and Clown fish I just could not do it, so I decided it was time to rebuild and I went to work cleaning, fixing and changing out old parts, monitoring AlK, Ca and Mg again along with Nitrates and phosphates. In several months I had water parameters starting to look pretty good.
It's been a couple of more years and at this point I have upgraded my Lights and my controller to the Aquatronica Touch. I have added in a Sulfur DeNitrator because I want to have my cake and eat it to. The fish count is reaching the Max and corals are doing good, so I am happy again. Now I just wish Aquatronica would come out with that Probe for Stupidity detection so that incidents like the one I suffered never happen again.
Anyway guys if you have any questions about Aquatronica equipment let me know. I have spent many many hours learning most things about the new system and I was one of the first to own the old one.
RobbyG