Controller or not???

I consider a controller a necessity.

I can get the family involved in taking care of the tank - feed mode, maintenance tasks and handle minor emergencies without the need to flip power strips ect.
 
n2585722

My ATO is currentl kalkwasser fed from a chem feeder (dosing) tank from the basement. I currently only have it run on a timer from about 10PM to 6AM each day - that's about how long it takes to make up the daily evaporation. Obviously this varies per season so I have to watch the sump a little bit and adjust the time.

My new thinking (in order to keep my current chem feeder which has worked flawlessly for about 5 years) is to hook the chem feeder pump to the IM Hydrofill for daily top off, but then backup the Hydrofill with a maximum timed outlet on the controller (say no longer than 12 hours on. If I got fancy I guess I could have the controller notify me if the pump is drawing current for more than say 11 hours. Or, I guess I could install a backup float switch setup.

Thanks for the thoughts.
 
I use three float switches in my sump. One is a full float switch and is used to turn off the ATO at that level. One is for low level alarm. This will turn off the return pump. If the retun pump turns off that will turn off heaters, cooling fans, skimmer, ATO, auto water change and all reactor pumps. It also sends an email alert. The third is one for overfull. This turns off the skimmer, ATO and water change. It will also trigger an email alert by turning off the power to the ATO and water change pumps. So if the full float fails one of the other float switches will eventually trigger given enough time. I also have a forth float switch installed but not use. It can be used in place of any of the three after adjusting the height and programming. Float switches are fairly cheap and I have 14 switch inputs at the tank. I don't think I will ever use all of those inputs though.

Sounds like you are giving this a lot thought before doing anything. This should help make a sound system for you. Just make sure that your tank setup can survive without the controller in operation until you are someone can intervene for you. The better controllers do have a default or fallback setting that the power bars will revert too if they loose communitation with the controller. Just remember the controller could have a failure of a task and still have the communication task working enough to fool the power bars. This probably would be a rare occurrence, but is possible. So keep that in mind when designing you setup.
 
One of the locals had his apex freeze, not die. It kept all of the circuits exactly how they were when they were running... titanium heater got the tank to 83 and ATO emptied the reservoir (thank goodness that it was nearly empty). Everything that you "control" from one should have it's own system for redundancy, IMO. No texts or alerts from a frozen unit.

He got help and got the apex rebooted and updated, but still scary and learned a lesson in single control. If you count on them not being foolproof, then you will be better off.
 
Heater should have been on its on controller set to a degree above what the Apex is set for.

The ATO should have had a float valve to prevent that. Like the ATK does.

Both could have been prevented easily.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I agree. Everything should have yet another level of check and control. Unfortunately, too many people do no do this... they read stuff like "apex saved my tank" or "has failsafes" and think that it is not necessary whereas the smart ones know to do it.
 
Sounds like I'm back to my original pondering:

"I'm also not sure that it's necessarily a good thing to have everything hooked to a controller."

Or, are we now talking about hooking everything to a controller but having failsafes for the controller (in case of controller failure)?
 
You will have to weigh the pros and cons. No system is perfect. Even a system without a controller can have a catastrophic event that may have been prevented by a controller. It can go either way. If you plan on having a sump. A tank can go for good length of time without the sump running as long as there are pumps for flow in the tank itself. At least with a controller you can connect to it away from home and check it. I have called home on a number of occasions and had my wife check on things because something was not quite right with the data I was seeing. There were times when something was wrong. Whether it would have made a diffence of a few more hours before intervention I cannt say. At least my controller gives me a way of keeping track of it while away. Also anything under the control of the controller can be controlled by you remotely. If you did not have a controller and you had a return pump go out you would not know until you were at the tank to check. With a controller if it was working and the internet was working you will get a email with the alarm or you would probably notice when you check on it. As for how much you want it to control that is up to you. Mine controls everything except my two Vortech's. If something happens I would have about 24 hrs before I would have to worry. I have had a power failure last a couple hours before the system came back to life and returned to it normal operation with no ill effects to the tank. What ever you do please test things to make sure they react as you intend them too. An example is a power failure. Make sure it will recover from that while you are there.
 
There's also a feature on the Apex called heartbeat, if it stops responding (freezes up or shuts down) for a certain length of time it will notify you. You just have to enable the feature as it is off by default.
 
Cheapreef said:
There's also a feature on the Apex called heartbeat, if it stops responding (freezes up or shuts down) for a certain length of time it will notify you. You just have to enable the feature as it is off by default.
Click to expand...
This is a good feature to have, but you still need to have a way to keep the tank alive until you can get to it and intervene. That is what we are trying to say. Don't completly rely on the controller. Alway have a backup that works automatically. A good way is to have the flow pumps or some of them not rely on the controller to run. That will give you several hours to respond to the issue. Also have the heater thermostats set as a backup to the controller. Also use more than one heater and multiple outputs for the heaters.
 
You just can't get the same level of stability with timers and heater thermostats as you can with a controller. Even an old ACJr which can be found for $100ish with DC8 used will turn off your lights if it gets hot, set heater temps to +/- 0.1 degrees, make sure your heater and chiller aren't fighting, shut of kalkwasser ATO if pH gets too high And on and on and on.
 
I have two desperate temperature controllers which do heater and chiller separately. (Extra fail safe) $30 each and its set and forget. Has its own measuring probe so offers the fail safe from heater and chiller malfunction. Dosers/wave makers/ dc return pumps have their own controllers. Lights modern led lighting has enough overheating fails safe built in. Ato's has on and off fail safes. All up extra money spent on "fail safe" is maybe $200 a damn side shorter than thousands for Alex and all it's add on costs for probes and modules. It's just not necessary from the "fail safe" argument. There's plenty you can do with a lot less money. All your paying for is some digital readings and convenience to control multiple things from one controller.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You can't get your desperat controllers to shut off the lights? To turn on fans? Can you set them to .1 degrees? Can you set the min cycle on/of times so your chiller will only start once every 5 minutes? Or how about oh crap statements like if temp > 85 (probe broken or out of water) chiller off? And send you a text for critical alarms like wet floor?

When you add up all the cost for the jumble of power strips, timers and controllers against the cost of a used controller, the price is pretty close but the functionality of a controller is the hands down winner.

Mind you, I bought a black label APEX classic with PB8 for $200, no pH probe.
 
I have 2 seperate DC8 and each is plugged into a seperate circuit just in case I trip one the other will continue to operate and my life support gear is split between the 2 DC8.

Like 5.56 says it is not about simply controlling that one piece of equipment but others as well to work in unison for the tank. IE my wife turned off our AC the other day to have the windows open while I was down at the beach and out of cell reception. She left to join me and had closed all the windows in the house but not turned the AC back on. The house started to get rather warm because of this.

The tank temp started to climb and as such heaters turned off first. Temp climbed above 79 so fans started to kick on. Temp continued to climb over 80 and at that point lights went off, and non essential equipment was turned off as well allowing my tank to stay around 80 till I came back from the boat and saw the alerts. A simple timer or temp controller would have left all those other pieces of equipment on and not turned on fans likely nuking my tank.

I also have things in the house hooked up so that I can monitor for these things so I was able to bring up my tank web cams and check in as well as turn my AC unit back on . I would not rely solely on that single piece of equipment which is why my ATO is still on its own controller (tunze) and my calcium reactor utilizes a PH controller of its own as well as my apex to kill entire unit if needed. Things happen but the ability to have a computer turn on and off other support equipment to counter an issue till you can get there is priceless in my eyes and CHEAP compared to what we put in these tank. Heck I have a coral or 2 alone in my tank that would pay for the apex outright...
 
IMO, a decision about a controller is a simple matter of economics. If you can afford it, get it, that's the end of the story :) They are life-changing in terms of confidence, stability and safety.
 
Can we can stop with the nuking of tanks and all of that... I have never had a tank crash and never had a controller. Getting up into the lower eighties, while not ideal, does not crash tanks. ...but it never had to get that hot even if you did not have a controller.

People without controllers just don't get cute and try and be in charge of everything. Fans come on with the lights - I have a LOT of MH and the temp won't even barely rise this way, but if you wait and turn them on after the temp goes up a degree, then it continues to go up for even longer before the fans can catch up and start to help. Temperature does not have to be as hard as people make it once they have the ability with a new device... besides, dual stage temp only controllers are anywhere from $40 to $100 and more reliable than a temp probe on an Apex, RK or the like.

In the summer, turn fans on when the day (or lights) starts to get hot, not when your tank does. Get ahead of the problem. In this particular instance, the old method is better than the new.
 
jda said:
Can we can stop with the nuking of tanks and all of that... I have never had a tank crash and never had a controller. Getting up into the lower eighties, while not ideal, does not crash tanks. ...but it never had to get that hot even if you did not have a controller.
Click to expand...

Never said low 80s would kill a tank however that is where I was able to hold it. On days where the temps rise close to 90 outside with t% lighting and such yes my tank would have gone critical had adjustments not been made

People without controllers just don't get cute and try and be in charge of everything. Fans come on with the lights - I have a LOT of MH and the temp won't even barely rise this way, but if you wait and turn them on after the temp goes up a degree, then it continues to go up for even longer before the fans can catch up and start to help. Temperature does not have to be as hard as people make it once they have the ability with a new device... besides, dual stage temp only controllers are anywhere from $40 to $100 and more reliable than a temp probe on an Apex, RK or the like.
Click to expand...
I have some fans on with lights to maintain temps when they come on. However if home gets too warm they are not capable to maintain temps when home raises too far in temps. I have backup cooling devices for that purpose. No reason to have all fans on all the time as that would lower my temps in normal instances and I would have to either have heaters on all time or some bigger pumps to generate more heat. No ideal.

In the summer, turn fans on when the day (or lights) starts to get hot, not when your tank does. Get ahead of the problem. In this particular instance, the old method is better than the new.
Click to expand...

See above but I have 2 sets of fan groupings. 1 does come on before my lights go on to compensate for the lights and equipment and general slight warming of the house. The second group is for emergency or backup should heat still not be stabilized.


So no even in this instance the old method is far from better then the new. No where does the old method turn off other equipment and lights to help mitigate the issue either without a daisy chain of dual stage temp controllers which would begin to match cost of apex. And that is only controlling for temp and not other issues that arise constantly for our tanks.
 
This is my whole point, you are being finer than you need to be. This fineness does not always result in better results. If a controller was not available to you, all of the fans would be on when it got hot, or the lights came, on, and your tank would never get close to crashing even when your wife left the AC off.

Your controller and fineness caused some of the issues that it later helps to solve.

I think that the people who use a controller the best do not get fine with them very much at all. They still use mechanics for the important things, and alert and possibly shut down only with a controller.
 
jda said:
This is my whole point, you are being finer than you need to be. This fineness does not always result in better results. If a controller was not available to you, all of the fans would be on when it got hot, or the lights came, on, and your tank would never get close to crashing even when your wife left the AC off.

Your controller and fineness caused some of the issues that it later helps to solve.

I think that the people who use a controller the best do not get fine with them very much at all. They still use mechanics for the important things, and alert and possibly shut down only with a controller.
Click to expand...

There's zero downside to using a controller. Everything you talk about can be done with one, usually better. Don't want "fineness"? Then don't program it that way.

Like I said earlier, it's a simple matter of economics. There's no other reason to steer someone away from a controller. If you can afford one, get one. If you can't, you can do just fine without it.
 
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