ReefLink and Vortech Pumps

[gregzz4]

I've got my new ReefLink setup with my Vortechs and I gotta tell you all I love it

I wasn't aware until recently that I could control the pumps throughout the whole 24hr period, but once I learned that I bought a RL right away !!

It took me an afternoon or so to set up the pumps, then an evening of reverting back to my settings as I didn't have time to program everything.
Then another night of re-programming the pumps and setting up the schedules via EcoSmartLive.
I'll warn you right now ... if you want to program your pumps with EcoSmart Live be prepared to spend a few hours.
You need to, beyond syncing your pumps, program them online.

It is worth the trouble, but takes time when you don't know what you're doing as their software is a bit troublesome to navigate.

The biggest problems I had were figuring out how to drag and drop the modes into the schedule as I don't have a widescreen PC monitor. And the modes near midnight are difficult to drop onto.
Save your settings as your go (on your PC) in case you make a mistake.
If you don't, your setting errors will be saved online and you can't go back
And don't forget to save each pump separately as they are individually setup in a way that you understand; ie file names.
Pump one SavedVorTechSchedule2015-02-18 (1).evg
Pump two SavedVorTechSchedule2015-02-18 (2).evg
Or something you like.
Otherwise you'll not know which one is which.
If you upload the file from 1 to 2 you'll not like the results as it will mess up all your settings for the pump you're working on.

If you've never used it yet you can PM me with questions ... but be prepared to program your pumps online once you have them synced with EcoSmart Live. You can't revert to your own settings, or even control them manually , without resetting them manually and then they need to be removed from your EcoSmart account or you can't control them
I found this out the hard way and it took me hours to figure out how to remove them from my account.
So don't set them up online until you are prepared to spend hours playing with the programming

About Nutrient Transport Mode and our saved waves;
I spoke with an EcoTech rep a couple days ago ...
They don't have the 'saved wave' programmed yet for NTM but are working on it and he told me they would have it available in the next month or so.
In the meantime, I've just setup a short pulse wave followed by a Constant Flow to flush the system near the same as NTM does.
If you look below at my schedule, you'll see I run a Short Pulse from 7pm to 9pm, and the the green section after that is a Constant Flow, followed by a Transition that runs from the max flow of the Constant Flow down to the minimum flow rate of the next setting. The next setting in my case is 10pm to 6am on Lagoon @ 50%.
So the Transition runs from 9:30 to 10PM and goes from 91%(my Constant Flow setting) down to 50% (my overnight Lagoon setting)

Don't forget to save your settings on your PC while you're making adjustments as the ones saved online can't be reverted from, but you can Export your settings, then make changes and if you make a mistake you can Import your file to correct your boo-boos.
Trust me, this is a must

Something that's kool about this is, and I'm sure it's the same with the Radions, we can share settings files so if you want to try out my settings you can ask me to e-mail them to you

This is my current setup

[gregzz4]

Gotta love how ReefLink kept up with Daylight Savings
Pumps never skipped a beat

I'm sure all you Radion users are happy too

[lockrookie]

I live in sask nothing changes

[mike31154]

That's very cool, thanks for the review.... but the first post pretty well spooked me off! Seems like a lot of hassle to set up. I have 3 MP40s running in TSM as a synced group using the wireless controllers that come with the pumps. Not sure I see the need to control them to the level provided by the reef link? My tank's been running this way for years & everything looks good. Maybe if I had some radions?

[gregzz4]

It was a hassle to setup Mike
But now that its done, its awesome
So no more 'one setting all day long', and no more manually changing it

[gregzz4]

I've had a request to share my settings so, through the magic of Dropbox ...

Here's a link to my files

Lights run from 12pm to 10pm
Lunch is @ 1pm and dinner @ 8pm
You'll see all this reflected in the pump settings
You'll also see there are 2 different files for the QT. Full is for corals and Half is for new fish.

If you've never messed with Import/Export of your Ecotech files before, never fear.
Export your current file to your PC or other device. Name it something you'll remember if you want to put it back using the Import feature.
Now Import one of my files to view it in your Ecosmartlive Daily Schedule.
It'll only be applied to your pump(s) if you click Program Aquarium so you can mess around all you like without upsetting your current settings.