Which controller to buy?

W

wbeacham

New member
I am torn between the Reefkeeper and the Neptune controllers. Looking for recommendations from everyone to see which way to go.
 
+1 on Apex. Do a search on the forums for Apex vs RK and you'll get a ton of opinions and rationales, the majority of them advocating for Apex IMO.
 
Techies love their apex's. Simpletons like myself are happy with their RK's. I've actually seen a few people ditch their neptunes cuz it is too hard (for them) to program.
 
Go with the APEX. I absolutely love it and the service has been EXCELLENT!! You may get a busy signal if you call for service but that's because they are REALLY helping someone with their product. I called a few months ago and the call took about 2+ hours and there was never a rush to get off the phone. I've also emailed them on a Sunday night and got responses back ON A SUNDAY NIGHT. Not bad!

It is not hard to program at all. Just check out the Neptune forum here and you will find a slew of people willing to help you you coding. It's not hard at all.
 
I just got my neptune and have set up everything on the internet side, but haven't started to program the outlets yet. I also managed to successfully hook it up using a netgear wifi adapter so I do not need to hard wire it. So far working just as advertised. But the coding is slightly intimidating so I will definitely need help from the neptune subforum.
 
LowersMyBP said:
Techies love their apex's. Simpletons like myself are happy with their RK's. I've actually seen a few people ditch their neptunes cuz it is too hard (for them) to program.
Click to expand...

It's got nothing to do with being a techie. I ditched the RK Elite and RKL becuase I wanted a product that is reliable and that has modules that are competetive with other controllers and a company that has outstanding support. Digital Aquatics failed me on all.

BS on the people switching because Apexs are difficult to program, they are not. They are just as simple as any controller using the general programming provided in the PC programming. More advanced programming has a little bit of a learning curve, but is simple as well. BTW, there have been hoardes of people jumping from ReefKeepers to Neptune, Profilux, and even ReefAngel...not the other way around ;).
 
wbeacham said:
I am torn between the Reefkeeper and the Neptune controllers. Looking for recommendations from everyone to see which way to go.
Click to expand...

I've used both and will not own another Digital Aquatics product again. They are not ambitious in releasing new modules, and alot of their time is correct problems like the salinity probe. Getting RMA from them took a week of persistent emails.

Neptune has been far better from me. The customer service....I needed service, and had an RMA in less than an hour. I needed service on a Sunday night, and Curt was emailing me and checking my controller on line. Cant beat that.
 
Reef Angel is another choice as well, not as sleek looking but offers same features...

its an Arduino based controller, open source

I do not have one but intend on selling my RKL and buying one in the next month
 
If you want to keep it simple the Apex has what I call macros for programming, such as one for lights, one for pumps , ect, ect all you do is just fill in the varriable such as time you want the light to come on and off. Very easy, when you want more advance features you can switch to the advance mode. If you are interested I suggest downloading the New User Manual that is stickied to the top of the Neptune support forum on this site. Very well written and easy to understand.

Hope that helps and did not confuse.

Mark
 
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If I could do it again I would not go with Digital Aquatics Reefkeepers. I keep running into limitations of the programming, waiting for devices/modules/software constantly, and customer support is lacking. Having to mostly rely on their own forums on their site for some one to respond to a question is annoying and a lengthy process as it can take a while before getting a response. Took over a week for one of my questions a few times.

I don't know what other controller I would go with as I don't have any other experience with them but Neptune would be one I would start researching to make sure it can do what I really want to be able to do.
 
newfubar said:
I don't know much about this hobby but I do know this:

http://www.reeftronics.net/nufubar/apex-history

Russ is critical to the process for those of us that are computer challenged.

good luck!
Click to expand...

I highly recommend reeftronics.net to everyone that has just about any kind of controller. Its free (donations welcome and given) and nice way to get an external check and alert via email and text if you system is no longer reachable. I like his charts and easy read out of the current status of your devices.
 
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