Anyone familiar with Dr. Aquarium?

[SaltyPugs]

Is anyone familiar with or ever used this package?

http://www.draquarium.com/

It looks pretty cool. I could get most of the functionality of an ACII combined with Aquanotes, including webserver and email alerts...I just wouldn't have ORP control and the savings more than offset the cost of a seperate ORP controller - if I decide to use ozone.

 

[Gordonious]

Did you end up getting it? I've been looking into it and have not found a soul that has one. I guess because of RC the only people who are serious enough about getting something like this end up with an aquacontroller.

 

[drummereef]

It really just looks like a poor man's Aquacontroller. I mean this in the friendliest way possible by the way. The customer care that Neptune Sys offers is second to none. Believe me, Clif at Neptune is worth every penny that the AC Jr I own is. I have no regrets about spending a couple bills on that product.

 

[Gordonious]

I am a poor man. What is the difference between the poor mans aquacontroller and the rich mans aquacontroller? I would say the ability to actually control your system and devices and what you do with the data. (automation)

With the control panel to the rich mans aquacontroller there is only a limited number of options and no real way to really program it is there? The company can send out fixes, but can you play with it yourself?

What I really need is a the raw data. Temp at 20:32:15 is 23.54C. Whatever, just that. So that I can take that text and upload it to my website. Put it in the corner of my website in a table in the font style and color that matches the rest of my site. Send some of the information to a publicly viewable page, but all of the information to a separate page which I can access with a password. The page with a password also has graphical buttons which I can press to disable a pump, or turn on a light so I can see what is going on through my web cam.

I just need the raw data and even if I could get just the raw data from the AC what am I paying for? I am looking for a way to connect probes(pH, temp, DO,....) to a PC. I can control my X10 devices from my PC already, I do not need my probes to do that and don't want them to do that.

I guess when it comes down to it there is no one that has the same needs as I in getting the information on a PC. Everyone wants controllers and that is not what I am looking for.

I'm too tired to talk.

Jon

 

[drummereef]

It's cool man. There's plenty of 'us' out here. Believe me I'm in the same boat as you. I wanted to do the exact same thing as you but decided it was much easier just to buy the controller. Yes it is a controller, but the webserver is a very powerful and interactive feature of the AC jr. I can log in remotely from anywhere and control any part of my system, including the lights if I want to see whats going on in my tank at night via my webcam. Dhoch, a member here, has some scripts to load up all the data you want and more to your website. Check out his website - http://www.danj.com/reef/ As I was researching, many people didn't like the x10 because it wasn't as failsafe as the dc8's are. Believe me, I did my research. A couple hundred bucks is lots o' money to me and I wanted to make the best choice my first choice. Maybe this helps a little???

 

[Gordonious]

What are dc8? Is that the aquacontroller?

My newer thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=926081

 

[drummereef]

The Aquacontroller is actually the 'controller' unit. The dc8 is an 8 outlet module that the Aquacontroller controls. Basically all of the things you want to be controlled like powerheads, lighting, etc get plugged into the dc8. Then the dc8 is connected to the controller. There is also a dc4 which is a 4 outlet module.

 

[Gordonious]

Can anything else control the DC8 or is that proprietary to the Aquacontrollers? I have searched high and low trying to find an x10 surge strip of sorts. Instead of having 8 of these little individual boxes lined up one after the other each taking up a large amount of space on a surge strip.

 

[ReeferAl]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8117131#post8117131 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gordonious
Can anything else control the DC8 or is that proprietary to the Aquacontrollers?

That's a good question. They are controlled by the X-10 signals going directly into them instead of over the power lines. It would seem that they could probably be controlled in the same way by any other system that generates X-10 signals. Anyone have another X-10 controller and a DC8 or DC4 to test it?

Allen