Neptune Controllers et. al.

[PharmrJohn]

Lots of aquarists have a controller system. Personally, I ain't sure it's worth it. My questions to those who own one of these marvels are....

1.) Why did you buy it?
2.) Did it meet or exceed your expectations?
3.) Looking back, would you buy again.

I'm just trying to get a feel as to the efficacy of these systems. And if I should invest in one. As always, TIA. J.

 

[apb03]

I held off buying one for over a year, but eventually I did end up choosing the Hydros. I did consider the Apex as well.

My thought at first was to use kasa power strips and dedicate my funds to the necessities and livestock which did fine at first but then as I got more experience the little things started to add up, like my simmer overflowing every time I forget to turn it off when feeding or building in a failsafe in case my return baffle is clogged with cheto and my other sections overflow because my ato is in the return section.

I think all reefers should know how to manually maintain the system but controllers sure do make it way more convenient.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Lots of aquarists have a controller system. Personally, I ain't sure it's worth it. My questions to those who own one of these marvels are....

1.) Why did you buy it?
2.) Did it meet or exceed your expectations?
3.) Looking back, would you buy again.

I'm just trying to get a feel as to the efficacy of these systems. And if I should invest in one. As always, TIA. J.

Running GHL Profilux 4 here.

Bought it for tank automation as I travel overseas for extended periods.
It works flawlessly and has never given any problems at all. 100% reliable for over 3 years.
Absolutely I would buy again.

Being able to travel 4-6 weeks at a time with the tank on fully unattended auto pilot is magic.

 

[PharmrJohn]

I think all reefers should know how to manually maintain the system but controllers sure do make it way more convenient.

I agree. I have the cash to buy one, but I am of the belief that one needs to get their hands dirty to get a 'feel' for the system. Experience counts.

 

[Jmp998]

The automation is nice for some things-one system to control auto feed, kalkwasser addition, pumps/wavemakers including feed mode, water change mode, redundant temperature controller, etc. But the biggest selling point of a dedicated controller, for me, is the remote monitoring. A quick notification when something is wrong can prevent a crash. I lost essentially everything in my tank a few years ago when I was out of town. If I had a properly configured controller at that time, I would have been notified and could have asked someone to flip a breaker back on and lost nothing.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Running GHL Profilux 4 here.

Bought it for tank automation as I travel overseas for extended periods.
It works flawlessly and has never given any problems at all. 100% reliable for over 3 years.
Absolutely I would buy again.

Being able to travel 4-6 weeks at a time with the tank on fully unattended auto pilot is magic.

I echo all of this, 100-150 days of road warrior life for me. Without it, I'd be out of the hobby.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Tagging along as I just bought a DOSqd with zero automation experience. Although, I am sticking my toes into it with my new tank. Trying to learn this new way of reef keeping!

 

[PharmrJohn]

The automation is nice for some things-one system to control auto feed, kalkwasser addition, pumps/wavemakers including feed mode, water change mode, redundant temperature controller, etc. But the biggest selling point of a dedicated controller, for me, is the remote monitoring. A quick notification when something is wrong can prevent a crash. I lost essentially everything in my tank a few years ago when I was out of town. If I had a properly configured controller at that time, I would have been notified and could have asked someone to flip a breaker back on and lost nothing.

I just looked into how long you could feed using auto feeders. I was shocked. Amazing, the new(ish) (to me) technologies.......

 

[PharmrJohn]

Tagging along as I just bought a DOSqd with zero automation experience. Although, I am sticking my toes into it with my new tank. Trying to learn this new way of reef keeping!

LOL, looking at the name DOSqd, I'm SURE they borrowed from pharmacy on that one. QD, in pharmacy, means one time daily. We see it all the time. The Latin full translation is Quaque Die. First year pharmacy school stuff!

 

[areefer01]

I'm just trying to get a feel as to the efficacy of these systems. And if I should invest in one. As always, TIA. J.

Hobbyist will have their respective reasons. It may, or may not, be similar to yours.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Hobbyist will have their respective reasons. It may, or may not, be similar to yours.

Oh yeah, that's the whole point of the thread. I want those differing opinions. I find my own opinion changes with greater understanding of something I'm not familiar with.

 

[SliceGolfer]

I purchased because I traveled a lot for work. I use my controller more as a monitor than controller. I have three tanks in my fish room and all three are connected to the same controller. On the monitor side, I have temp and pH probes in all tanks, I control pumps with feed modes, use the temp probe as a failsafe monitor that can power off the heater controller if temp is out of spec, and I run all dosing for one tank from this system. I have email and SMS alerts configured so I get notified when something isn’t right, and I have my 3 ATOs running from the controller. I don’t plug in anything that I don’t need to control, so my lights, wave pumps, UV, etc are plugged into standard power strips. No sense wasting a plug for these. And the logging, monitoring, tracking, and history for trend analysis has proven very beneficial.

 

[dangles]

I have a Neptune controller on my system. In my particular case, it’s 100% a necessity. That’s not true for everybody, but I’m gone for 24+ hours at a time. I love my wife dearly, but she’s not very useful with the tank lol. On top of that, I travel a decent amount. Aaaand…. I live out on the country and am prone to semi-frequent power outages. I needed an automated system to monitor temp, pH, flow and dosing. And for the above reasons, I needed the system to be able to take corrective actions in the event something goes wrong.

For somebody who is able to spend more time around their tank, I don’t think they’re strictly necessary. But for me I wouldn’t be able to participate in the hobby without it.

Plus I’m a tinkerer and building the system was at least half the fun!

All that being said, they’re NOT cheap, and they’re NOT perfect. I’m no Neptune Fan-boi. Some of their stuff kinda sucks! No matter which system you go with, you’ll likely run into hiccups at some point. As you design the system, do dry runs on every failure scenario you can imagine. Know how it behaves if something goes wrong, and design backups into the system.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Lots of aquarists have a controller system. Personally, I ain't sure it's worth it. My questions to those who own one of these marvels are....

1.) Why did you buy it?
2.) Did it meet or exceed your expectations?
3.) Looking back, would you buy again.

I'm just trying to get a feel as to the efficacy of these systems. And if I should invest in one. As always, TIA. J.

I have a controller system for a few reasons. I have five tanks. Four of which are on the Apex. I have two sps tanks that require daily testing and dosing. I also have an lps tank that requires dosing. I am at work most of the day and cannot test and dose manually. I also have the controller for convenience. It is voice activated with the Amazon Echo device. I turn off all pumps when feeding my fish. One voice command turns all the tanks off then automatically back on in a timeframe which I set. I will never go back to not having a controller, it is a necessary part of my reefing because of my choice of coral.

The Apex exceeds my expectations because I can program it to do anything I want. If you have just one tank that doesn’t require daily testing and dosing, then a controller may be a waste of money for you. But you can always add on later as well if you upgrade or add more tanks. And yes, I have had problems with my Apex and had to buy another one after 3-4 years. They aren’t perfect and get quirky sometimes.

 

[areefer01]

The Apex exceeds my expectations because I can program it to do anything I want.

I tried to get mine to make me coffee in the morning and it told me to go fly a kite...dang thing.

 

[areefer01]

Oh yeah, that's the whole point of the thread. I want those differing opinions. I find my own opinion changes with greater understanding of something I'm not familiar with.

Fair enough. I think to sum up your three questions based on my experience two things come to mind.

• Quality of life improvements. Basic on, off functionality, with advanced capabilities when I want. Single presentation layer (UI), and some data logging.
• Monitoring. Similar to some of the basic functionality noted above things like a heartbeat/poll or temperature change can be a tank saver.

Some of these things can be done with other pieces of equipment but the single presentation layer is what makes it important for me. That and an API access to extract the data for long term retention and viewing trends.

I would buy one again, yes. I do not believe they are mandatory or required to be successful. I really do think they are just another part of the hobby we tinker with that includes some quality of life improvement options.

 

[encrustingacro]

LOL, looking at the name DOSqd, I'm SURE they borrowed from pharmacy on that one. QD, in pharmacy, means one time daily. We see it all the time. The Latin full translation is Quaque Die. First year pharmacy school stuff!

QD just means "quiet drive", similar to Ecotech's Vortechs, I think.

 

[PharmrJohn]

QD just means "quiet drive", similar to Ecotech's Vortechs, I think.

LOL! And here I thought I was smart!

 

[gbroadbridge]

I tried to get mine to make me coffee in the morning and it told me to go fly a kite...dang thing.

Did you purchase the latest upgrade and addon?

 

[PharmrJohn]

Did you purchase the latest upgrade and addon?

You can, but it fills up the reservoir with saltwater.....