Aquatronica
- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
- Status
jamesdawson
New member
Hey Ron,
After playing with Function Keys menu I wonder if the timer option within Function Keys is supposed to be the Feed Timer that Aquatronica said would be part of the last update?
I tried to program the timer option but ran into the following difficulties:
#1 When you program from your PC, the timer option shows a possibility of up to 59m59s, but when you program from the controller keypad, the timer option is maxed out at only 15m.
This discrepency between the 2 ways to program could be a problem inasmuch as I (and many others) like to shut down their main (return) pump for an extended period of much more than 15 minutes when feeding for filter feeders. The 1 hour option is much preferred for me.
#2 I have my main pump plugged in to the powerbar and set to manual (with the hand symbol showing) so as to always be on. I would like the option of hitting a button and turning it off for a set amount of time with it turning itself back on when that time has elapsed, in other words a feedtimer!
However, I can not get the timer option from the Function Key menu to actually shut down my main pump. I suspect it is because the manual state of the plug, according to Aquatronica on page 7 of their online help on the PC, "...have priority over all other timer programs set..."
Can you check with Aquatronica and report back if the timer option within the Function Keys can be used as a feed timer and if it can indeed be set for 59m59s the PC shows instead of the miserly 15m on the controller, and how to generally make it work please or to tell us when a feed timer program will happen please?
Thanks in advance--James
Psyire
Premium Member
The Function Timer problem of 15mins has been detected and brought to their attention.
For your pump situation, I would run it on a timer instead of 'manual'. (As RobbyG suggested) That way you can change the state of it, with the function programming. Just remember that whatever you program first takes priority.
For your pump situation, I would run it on a timer instead of 'manual'. (As RobbyG suggested) That way you can change the state of it, with the function programming. Just remember that whatever you program first takes priority.
speedingredline
New member
I figured out my problem, my router must be blocking the port that the update program is trying to use. I have to email tech support and find out which port number and allow it on my router.
Zaphod
New member
Download ethereal on your computer and record traffic when you are trying to run the update. You can find the port number that way. The NAT (PAT) should take care of it though.
http://www.ethereal.com/
they even have it for linux what do you know.
http://www.ethereal.com/
they even have it for linux what do you know.
speedingredline
New member
i forgot about that utility, will have to give it a try
Yea firewalls are bad if you don't have it set up to allow sites you trust.
The timer is ment to be for 15mins max.
if you want to play with your program timer you can set up to 30 diffrent programs for one plug. If you want to spend that time try setting them up to simulate auto feed.
The timer is ment to be for 15mins max.
if you want to play with your program timer you can set up to 30 diffrent programs for one plug. If you want to spend that time try setting them up to simulate auto feed.
Here's a good question concerning multiple powerbars. I have powerbar A, B, and C. If A is the 'main' powerbar that has the keypad/display hooked to it, should B & C each connect to A, or can you daisychain C to B, then B to A?
The reason I ask is, the whole setup has been very moody with more than 2 powerbars. Usually what happens is when the thrid one is hooked in, the other 2 disconnect. Even when you get all 3 finally recognized, something as simple as plugging in a probe is enough to make one disconnect.
The reason I ask is, the whole setup has been very moody with more than 2 powerbars. Usually what happens is when the thrid one is hooked in, the other 2 disconnect. Even when you get all 3 finally recognized, something as simple as plugging in a probe is enough to make one disconnect.
RobbyG
Active member
Just got in some new pH calibration fluid (Pinpoint brand) and decided it was time to do a major cleaning and recalibration of all probes, it has been about 5 weeks so they where all overdue.
I cleaned down all the probes and gave the Ph and ORP probe a final 1 hour bath in Red Sea Cleaning fluid, after that I soaked them in some Ro water for another hour and proceeded to do my Calibrations.
The Ph probe calibrated like a charm and now reads 8.23 I also retested my Coral Life fluid and found that the 7.0 read 7.35 and then 10.0 read 10.55 so this confirmed they are just totally inaccurate just as Ron had stated.
The ORP probe read 449mv in the 450mv solution! I was shocked to find the probe had maintained this level of accuracy after 5 weeks, hats off to AQ on that one.
Now the Bad News! The Salinity probe has been reading between 1024.4 to 1024.6 on almost a consistent basis for the last 5 weeks except for some spurious readings that happen when my RO injects water into the sump, I felt very confident of this probes reading just like Pysire had stated in another post, it is very stable. Well so I thought!
I opened the cover cleaned the usual small amount of rust off the probe and soaked the probe in some RO water, then proceeded to calibrate it with 53ms Solution, to my surprise the probe read 52ms and I thought WOW this probe also holds it's calibration just like the ORP. Well when I put the probe back in my Tank, the water now read 1044.2!! I thought to myself Crap must have done something wrong, so I stuck it back in the 53ms solution and to my surprise it read 53ms!
At this point I decided to recalibrate and try again. After another cleaning and Calibration I checked the probe in some Ro water and it read 999 (as expected) so I put it back in the 53ms solution and tried again, it read 53ms on the nose, so I put it back in the Tank and it still read 1044 !! Now I started to panick! I quickly dusted of my cheapo plastic float meter which I have not used in months and did a reading, I was shocked to find the reading was above 1032 the highest reading on the meter!
At this point I looked back into the AQ logs and saw an ALMOST straight line salinity of 1024.5 for the last week, yet my salinity had evidently been rising for at least a month and I got no indication.
At this point I can only guess of one reason as to what happened. Maybe the AQ software just got stuck in some sort of mathematical averaging and that made it give me an almost consant reading. By recalibrating the probe I must have cleaned out that Data and the probe started to display the real data. Keep in mind that my probe was almost perfectly calibrated (52ms) even before I did the calibration.
What I need at this point is for someone with a Salinity probe that has NOT been calibrated for at least a couple of weeks to try and see if this is a global problem or just an unlucky fluke. If it is a global problem we need to let AQ know about it.
BTW I should have seen this coming, some signs of the problem where showing, my Condalacti Anemone had gotten really big in the last 2 weeks and some of my SPS corals where showing signs of bleaching, I just thought that the water needed a bigger change so I did 2 water changes last month. I never ever suspected that the probe was giving false readings and now I am very suspicious of it's readings.
I am in the process of lowering the Salinity but this is going to take a few days. I am Surprised and Happy that nothing Died, I never knew that they could take that kind of Salinity level and live.
If anybody else has had a major change in salinity reading after doing a calibration please let me know. If you have not been checking your salinity Manually I suggest you do so right away.
I cleaned down all the probes and gave the Ph and ORP probe a final 1 hour bath in Red Sea Cleaning fluid, after that I soaked them in some Ro water for another hour and proceeded to do my Calibrations.
The Ph probe calibrated like a charm and now reads 8.23 I also retested my Coral Life fluid and found that the 7.0 read 7.35 and then 10.0 read 10.55 so this confirmed they are just totally inaccurate just as Ron had stated.
The ORP probe read 449mv in the 450mv solution! I was shocked to find the probe had maintained this level of accuracy after 5 weeks, hats off to AQ on that one.
Now the Bad News! The Salinity probe has been reading between 1024.4 to 1024.6 on almost a consistent basis for the last 5 weeks except for some spurious readings that happen when my RO injects water into the sump, I felt very confident of this probes reading just like Pysire had stated in another post, it is very stable. Well so I thought!
I opened the cover cleaned the usual small amount of rust off the probe and soaked the probe in some RO water, then proceeded to calibrate it with 53ms Solution, to my surprise the probe read 52ms and I thought WOW this probe also holds it's calibration just like the ORP. Well when I put the probe back in my Tank, the water now read 1044.2!! I thought to myself Crap must have done something wrong, so I stuck it back in the 53ms solution and to my surprise it read 53ms!
At this point I decided to recalibrate and try again. After another cleaning and Calibration I checked the probe in some Ro water and it read 999 (as expected) so I put it back in the 53ms solution and tried again, it read 53ms on the nose, so I put it back in the Tank and it still read 1044 !! Now I started to panick! I quickly dusted of my cheapo plastic float meter which I have not used in months and did a reading, I was shocked to find the reading was above 1032 the highest reading on the meter!
At this point I looked back into the AQ logs and saw an ALMOST straight line salinity of 1024.5 for the last week, yet my salinity had evidently been rising for at least a month and I got no indication.
At this point I can only guess of one reason as to what happened. Maybe the AQ software just got stuck in some sort of mathematical averaging and that made it give me an almost consant reading. By recalibrating the probe I must have cleaned out that Data and the probe started to display the real data. Keep in mind that my probe was almost perfectly calibrated (52ms) even before I did the calibration.
What I need at this point is for someone with a Salinity probe that has NOT been calibrated for at least a couple of weeks to try and see if this is a global problem or just an unlucky fluke. If it is a global problem we need to let AQ know about it.
BTW I should have seen this coming, some signs of the problem where showing, my Condalacti Anemone had gotten really big in the last 2 weeks and some of my SPS corals where showing signs of bleaching, I just thought that the water needed a bigger change so I did 2 water changes last month. I never ever suspected that the probe was giving false readings and now I am very suspicious of it's readings.
I am in the process of lowering the Salinity but this is going to take a few days. I am Surprised and Happy that nothing Died, I never knew that they could take that kind of Salinity level and live.
If anybody else has had a major change in salinity reading after doing a calibration please let me know. If you have not been checking your salinity Manually I suggest you do so right away.
TheMoneyPit
Premium Member
You must be kidding, 5 weeks is not that long. My pinpoints would maintain accurate readings for over a year. The fact that your shocked is shocking. You must have really low expectations to be happy with those kind of results. And don't get me started on the "rust removers" they call salinity probes. My advice to AQ would be make a salinity interface with a BNC plug so users can buy other probes. The ones they offer are worthless for everything other then "removing rust" from your aquarium.:lol:
Robby any chance of seeing a picture of your tank?
jamesdawson
New member
I'm kind of lost here Ron.
Can you please give an explanation of what an "autofeed" is and step by step instructions here in the thread (or by p.m., if necessary)
Also, is Aquatronica going to eventually put in a dedicated feed timer program --one where you hit a button and it turns off the outlet that powers your main pump for a user-specified amount of time before automatically turning it back on?
Like I said earlier, 15 minutes is not going to cut it for me or any one else trying to maintain large amounts of filter feeders like sponges or feather worms if Aquatronica meant for the timer option within the Function Keys to be the feed timer.
Please don't take this as a criticism of AO or Aquatronica--I'm just suggesting an important improvement that should be easily doable by Aquatronica since it only necessitates some programing on their part. Thats the beauty of an updatable controller!
James
RobbyG
Active member
Update
After 3 hours the pH reading rose to 8.34 so I put the probe back in the 7.0 solution and sure enough it was reading 7.13 so I figured the second calibration was needed. Well guess what! I got the good old "Unable to calibrate" message. So I decided to try Rons multi step method and still had no luck, I then decided to get out of the calibration mode and put the probe into the 10.0 and let it settle down for 15 minutes then go into Cal Mode and set the 10.0 immediately then go into 7.0 and let that settle for 4 min. This worked but I am not happy with the length of time on the 7.0 I don't think it settled down. When I tried for more than 4 minutes I get Unable to Calibrate message, so now my pH module is starting to act up so I guess I need to get it replaced like the rest of you did .
_______
Untamed12 I dont think the Salinity probe is the problem, it looks more like the Software in the module or the AQ CPU just stopped reading the Probe data. If it is the probe the Ironic part is that I just sent back a brand new duplicate probe to AO on Tuesday. Arggg.
____________
Moneypit is that Pinpoint probe in constant use of just dipped in for a quick reading? If it's a quick dip then yes I would expect the calibration to last for a year.
BTW I agree about the BNC plug but I dont think it would work, BNC is a 2 wire solution and the salinity probe uses 4 or 5 wires.
This
After 3 hours the pH reading rose to 8.34 so I put the probe back in the 7.0 solution and sure enough it was reading 7.13 so I figured the second calibration was needed. Well guess what! I got the good old "Unable to calibrate" message. So I decided to try Rons multi step method and still had no luck, I then decided to get out of the calibration mode and put the probe into the 10.0 and let it settle down for 15 minutes then go into Cal Mode and set the 10.0 immediately then go into 7.0 and let that settle for 4 min. This worked but I am not happy with the length of time on the 7.0 I don't think it settled down. When I tried for more than 4 minutes I get Unable to Calibrate message, so now my pH module is starting to act up so I guess I need to get it replaced like the rest of you did .
_______
Untamed12 I dont think the Salinity probe is the problem, it looks more like the Software in the module or the AQ CPU just stopped reading the Probe data. If it is the probe the Ironic part is that I just sent back a brand new duplicate probe to AO on Tuesday. Arggg.
____________
Moneypit is that Pinpoint probe in constant use of just dipped in for a quick reading? If it's a quick dip then yes I would expect the calibration to last for a year.
BTW I agree about the BNC plug but I dont think it would work, BNC is a 2 wire solution and the salinity probe uses 4 or 5 wires.
This
TheMoneyPit
Premium Member
It's constantly on. Even when I was using the Aquatronica I ran a Pinpoint salinity monitor and pH monitor just to make sure I was getting correct readings from my Aquatronica, which I wasn't. I guess I've come to expect expensive aquarium electronics to work for more then 5 weeks without constant maintenance. Imagine if every piece of equipment you owned needed the same amount of attention, keeping a reef would be a full time job.
As far as BNC not working here's a picture of Elos' salinity probe.
As far as BNC not working here's a picture of Elos' salinity probe.
- Status
