I need a Controller...or Do I ?

[solitude127]

I am still considering one, in the back of my mind, purely for monitoring, as we will be traveling to Panama a lot this Spring. The Reef Angel is appealing to me because it is endlessly configurable.

it's great for piece of mind while you're on vacation.

 

[WSPepsilon]

If you have everything hooked into your controller, the downside is that it's a single point of failure. For me, I have my main circulation pump and my vortechs plugged into regular outlets.

True but chances are you'd get a notification of some kind allowing you to address the situation faster. Still maybe not a bad idea to have a spare circulation pump.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2

 

[rtparty]

I'd never set up a tank without one again. They have way too many positives in my opinion.

 

[scuzy]

I recently had a minor spill and with the waterbug sensor and my apex no disaster . I was able to turn off all pumps wen the sensor was detected.

 

[krzyphsygy]

Looking at the APEX Lite, I think I am gonna pull the trigger. Any one know about the powerhead controller that is seperate. I have two controllable Tunze and cant find the information on exactly how it works. Can I control speed of the pump or turn them off and on, or is there flow pattern like the Vortec Controller?

Also how about there warrenty? One year?

 

[ArmanS]

Get the Apex, control your Tunze's monitor PH, and have a temp controller which can turn off lights or heater when tank is too hot, the explandability is endless. The first thing I bought when I planned my new setup was an apex. For tunze you can buy the cable on eBay for like 20$ that control's 2 pumps I am not sure if the lite can do it but the full apex can without any additional hardware only with the cable.

 

[krzyphsygy]

What do you guys plug into the powerbar? Everything, or leave skimmer and returns off?

 

[PrangeWay]

I have everything on the controller, except my tunze 6105's which are on a UPS.
That way when your controller fails (mine hasn't but you should plan on it failing) circulation stays up and ideally everything lives...


PW

 

[JustinGr]

What do you guys plug into the powerbar? Everything, or leave skimmer and returns off?

If you plug in the skimmer and return, they can be programmed to shut down on low water events via a ATO style switch. Also, if the skimmer is in sump and the tank is off, and kicks back on with a power outage type event, a skimmer can and most often will overflow when the sump is flooded, so a high water ATO switch will prohibit this event if the skimmer is in the powerbar.

Many, many options.

Neptune has a community that discusses these and many more cool programming options. I have two of these, and love them, and can control the tank from my phone.

Justin

 

[HippieSmell]

I had an Aquacontroller 3, in which an X10 module melted and burned. Now I have a Reef Angel, where lights won't turn off every month or so. I'm done with all-in-one controllers.

My new build will have dedicated controllers for temp, for top-off and water changes, and light timers. I don't need pH monitoring because I don't have any control over it anyway. Put a wireless webcam on my tank for remote monitoring, and I'm good to go.