Question for all of you that have or SELL controller's

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by Coleus

Everyone is doing well except my tank. Thanks for asking :-)

You are having some issues as well? Everything in my tank seems to be doing ok except for my clams and I have been so busy the last month that the tank needs some TLC.

[Coleus]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

You are having some issues as well? Everything in my tank seems to be doing ok except for my clams and I have been so busy the last month that the tank needs some TLC.

No issues, just that i sold most of my corals because of angels I have so ... you know, plus don't have much time to proper care for the tank

[The Grizz]

I hear you there on the time issue. No clams in your tank that you want to sell??

So far the DA is about $200 cheaper for the same things

[kien]

I have all the probes for my controller, temp, salinity, ORP, pH. The only probe I find useful is the temp probe. It controls the aquarium temp with the heaters and fans.

The other probes, completely useless and a waste of money for me.

ORP - I know what it is measuring but I have no idea what it means I never pay attention to it.
pH - kinda neat to see but for the price of the probe it really does not add anything useful to me. Been watching my daily pH go from 7.7 to 8.3 for over a year now. I have never done anything with my pH and I don't even notice it anymore.
Salinity - again, neat to see but hardly ever changes plus, with my probe I have to clean and calibrate it often to get an accurate reading. And by often I mean every 3 days. At that rate of maintenance I'm better off just using the refractometer. I used to use it to control my salinity until it failed. Once it got too dirty or miscalibrated it would read a bad (false low) salinity value and try to dump too much salt water to compensate. Thankfully it wasn't a disaster but it was annoying. Even this probe I ignore now because I can't be bothered to clean it as often as it seems to need to be cleaned.

Sorry there may have been a bit of ranting there LOL. Seriously tho if my controller died tomorrow I would get a basic controller (apex or reefkeeper) with a temp probe and network add on and call it a day.

[The Grizz]

Thanks for the rant I mean info on your controller Kien every little bit helps.

[lastlight]

Yeah I've never seen the point in probes for all that either. Maybe if I needed ph probe for a reactor but I dose. So my Ranco could in theory replace Kien's profilux only he'd have no networking and it would look ghetto lol.

Kien if all the controller is really doing/relying on is temp probe...what can you even do over the network that's of use? Shut lights off if temp is too high? Of course you can see the current temp which is nice too but for the cost I'm not sure.

[kien]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Yeah I've never seen the point in probes for all that either. Maybe if I needed ph probe for a reactor but I dose. So my Ranco could in theory replace Kien's profilux only he'd have no networking and it would look ghetto lol.

Kien if all the controller is really doing/relying on is temp probe...what can you even do over the network that's of use? Shut lights off if temp is too high? Of course you can see the current temp which is nice too but for the cost I'm not sure.

Network access has been handy to remotely monitor and control temp, lights, powerheads, doser . Also you need the net module to get email alerts which is nice. Can I live without it, yea. Of all the "needless" add ins tho that one is the most "useful".

The nice feature about my controller has nothing to do with any of the probes. My controller is used to interface with my lights (halides, actinics, moon), powerheads (programable tunzes), and doser. All of these things need to be programmed and controlled so it is nice to do all of that in one place. The alternative would be separate controller/timer for lights, dedicated tunze pump controller, stand alone doser or timers for dosing pumps. Being able to control any power socket is handy too. I can remotely cut power to any component (skimmer, return pump, reactors, etc).


I would assume the big 3 controllers can all do those things as well. Not 100% on that tho, might want to research if any of those extra controlling features are useful to you.

[Coleus]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Kien if all the controller is really doing/relying on is temp probe...what can you even do over the network that's of use? Shut lights off if temp is too high? Of course you can see the current temp which is nice too but for the cost I'm not sure.

You can program so that the light auto shut off if temp is too high. Thing that i like to do over network is

1) Feed and watch my fish when i am away. I have a camera in front of my tank and i can control my feeder :-)

2) If i forgot to turn off something when i left the house, i can still do it when i am away from home

3) It works like a TV remote control. I can control the outlets without has to go near the tank, I can use the Apex display but I found iphone UI app is much easier to use

4) Also, not happen to me yet but what if one day you are out of town and get a phone call from your wife saying" water is on the floor" because a snail got into the return line . I would want to able to shut off just the return pump remotely and leave powerhead on. I am sure most of our wives would not know which power to unplug :-)

[PoonTang]

I chose the Apex because of the support out there and the fact that I could monitor and control my tank from anywhere either by phone or Internet. The Apex also allows you to receive alerts both by text messages to your cell and emails. Another reason that I went with the Apex was they already had stuff built into their controllers that DA had been promising for a year and still not delivered.

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by PoonTang

I chose the Apex because of the support out there and the fact that I could monitor and control my tank from anywhere either by phone or Internet. The Apex also allows you to receive alerts both by text messages to your cell and emails. Another reason that I went with the Apex was they already had stuff built into their controllers that DA had been promising for a year and still not delivered.

The RFE has a module called NET that does the same thing and now comes with both the RKE and the RKL packages.