Looking for suggestions on a controller

JS- thank you I understand now what an x10 is. I knew these devices did this, but was unaware that it was the x10 that controlled the devices. Thank you so much for the clarification.
 
no problem, took me a good handful of weeks asking and searching and reading till I really understood the damn things.
 
No I don't yet have a controller but I'm getting a aquacontroller jr from marcye (getting a group buy from neptune systems together), so give her a call if you are going to go with the aquacontroller. And yes I am using 120mm or 4 3/4 inch computer fans on my tanks and stands.
 
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Marcye, well you could call SITC or the seainthecity forum but she is me no nemo on RC could probably find her on ORCA thread and pm her.

As for the Fans I have many different brands, don't waste your money and those 20-30 dollar fans with plugs huge waste of cash, I have on my canopy one side going in one side sucking out and on the stands both sides going in, unfortunately don't really have any pictures of just the fans but you can see some on my canopy in my canopy build. http://picasaweb.google.com/jsl6v8/CanopyBuild
 
JS- thanks. That was more or less where I was thinking of a spot for air in. Here is what I was thinking... a fan on each side blowing air in and on in the center of the top of the canopy sucking air out. This way the two blowing air in will send air flow over the lights and top of the water and the air can exit our the rear of the canopy and the fan on the top sucking air out will be between 2 250 MH lights sucking out the hot raising heat and some air being introduced. What do you think about that??
 
hot air doesn't exactly rise if you have fans blowing it around, I would suggest one on each side one blowing good cold/er air in and one on the other side sucking the hot hair out. that or 1 on each side blowing in and one on the top sucking out would be even better.
 
With what you just said, then the top sould be not as affective, but rather the opposite side fan sucking out should be more effective.
 
my thought is, with absolutely no research, is that if you have fans blowing air in on both sides then the oldest and hottest air would be in the middle so the top fan would be pulling out the hottest air, granted having an open back canopy, as long as there is some decent space between the back of the canopy and the wall the tank is along, then you wouldn't need a top fan as much.
 
I would definately do at least one fan blowing in, its hard for me to explain why but definately at least one fan blowing in.
 
Although you will be moving the same amount of air (with identical fans) it has been shown that there will be more evaporative cooling with the fans blowing across the water than when used to exhaust heat.
 
Chris, I have a reefkeeper II and it works fine, it's running 4 250 watt IceCap ballasts, 1 ballast for my T5 actinics and my fans. I did have to upgrade to the latest firmware to fix a issue. It was that every once in a while one light would power off but that has been resolved. One of the features I really like about it (RKII) is that you can set a max temp for everything, so lets say for some reason the chiller quit working, when the water temp hits 81 the halides all go off, the fans come on at 79, and the actinics go off at 84.

One other thing I did to keep heat down, I drilled 2 3" holes above the reflectors and 1 3" hole right behind the bulb mount. Then the fans are mounted in between the reflectors, two sucking air out of the hood and one blowing in.
 
Tagging along. I'm looking at getting an Aquacontroller 3 as part of my tank 'upgrade and automation' project this Summer. Anybody running one of those?

For me the ability to get alarms via Email/text message is absolutely vital.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9960240#post9960240 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ah64av8tor
This guy has put together a chart that compares all the controllers out there so you can compare them side by side.

http://www.aquariumcontrollers.com/
Click to expand...

*nod*

I read the chart and it looked like the Aquacontroller 3 was the best for me. I was just wondering if anybody in club had _hands on_ experience with one. My backup option is the Lighthouse, but it's significantly less shiny.
 
Thanks Dave. This is kinda what I had in find. Quetion about the firmware, does this come as a free upgrade or do you have to but them? IF I tell them I will be running IC ballast, will it come already pre-installed with the correct firmware? ---- I liked your idea about the fans too!
 
You can get the latest firmware from their site and it installs with a laptop or pc with a cable. The USB cable is extra but it comes with a serial cable. All you have to do is power it up and you will see the firmware level on the controller, then check the web site to see if you are at the latest level (I think it's 2.2 now). It's really a crap shoot as to getting a RKII with the latest firmware or not.

Sorry almost forgot, all firmware upgrades are free.
 
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