As some of you might have noted, I purchased an AquaController III Pro to automate much of the system. It seems like a decent device. It has a wide range of functionality and experience reports reflect a good record of reliability.
I also purchased the software (AquaNotes) that Neptune Systems sells as a PC based "controller utility" for the AC-III. It does a decent job but is a little cumbersome for my taste. I had always planned to have a PC available in the fishroom to handle various tasks. As I managed to familiarize myself a little with the AC-III, I noticed that it wouldn't be too difficult to throw together a small PC based utility application to provide the functions I need in a more (to me, anyway) convenient form. Here's what I came up with (the beginning, anyway):
You'll notice in the pic above that the basic status values are displayed at the top of the app's window. They include temperature, pH, ORP, and conductivity. At the bottom of the window the internal AC-III date is shown, along with the current system status.
The first function - what I call Device State - is shown above. It displays the current ON/OFF status for each attached device and , in addition, allows turning each device on and off.
The pic below shows the "Device Name" function. This is just a means of inputting and displaying a name for each device so that its not necessary to rely on the cryptic 3 characters names native to the AC-III:
The last pic shows the window used to set the necessary parameters for accessing and communicating with the AC-III. Here I'll be adding number of additional parameters to increase functionality:
The utility also feeds a small LCD screen with status data. The screen will be mounted on the living room wall, next to the tank and display a constantly updated snapshot of the most important tank parameters.
Playing around with the AC-III, it dawned on me that it would be possible to actually control attached devices via a program running on a PC. This would allow very complex control logic. Its something I'll be exploring in the next couple of months.
BTW: I am aware that I'm dating myself
by using the Windows Classic Style, as opposed to Win XP or Vista's look. Let's face it, its hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
Did that until even I started thinking it was a little weird, 
so I stopped. Now I just turn the markings to the back - still a little weird, huh?
I completely misunderstood your original question. I was probably having one of my senior moments. 
