- Joined
- Mar 10, 2012
- Location
- Rocky Mountains BC
Darryl_V link said:
If you had one you would have known your power had been off at some point when you were away, you almost had a little catastrophe...
Mine tells me when my ato resevoir is empty (I don't have plumbing near the tank), runs the light cycles on the tank, runs the ato pump, makes sure that one of the two heaters doesn't malfunction and cook or freeze the tank. emails me if the power has been off, or if the level in the sump is too high (meaning a return pump is off, or something else is wrong). Checks the PH in the tank before turning on my dosers (which it runs). One switch shuts everything down for feeding/cleaning. I don't have to have timers wired in...for me, they are a necessity. :shrug
[/quote]I have gotten by with out one for over seven years so I will stick to my guns and say they are not "needed". Helpful, useful, sure...but not absolutely necessary.
I probably wouldnt have known that the power went out because I was in the US and didnt have my cell. That and the power going out didnt cause a problem with the tank per say (I have a large UPS for the return pump) but the skimmer and bio-pellets/carbon/gfo run on stupid sicce 2500 pumps that are hit and miss for restarting. If anything I should replace those pumps before a controller. I don't think my tank was ever in danger of crashing from this though and I'm aware of all the things that can go wrong....part of being a good reefer is to think of worse case scenarios.
As a note I dont think its that advantageous to monitor pH, I have a temperature controller and ATO system that I trust and the rest is on timers.
The only thing I would like from a controller that I can't do know is get email notifications if something is up.
[/quote]
There's my point again. You have a dedicated room, custom built, plumbed and wired. You have timers for lights, a controller for temp, probably a programmable doser, a separate ATO. In other words what you're saying is that if you have all the items separate then you don't need a tank controller. While I certainly can't argue that your setup is very good, it's certainly not typical! The apex can take all the stuff you have and put it all together in a tiny little black box...and add email notifications. How can someone have a similar setup to yours without buiding from scratch or doing a renovation?
I know your thoughts on PH, but if my PH is for some reason at 8.4 I don't want it dosing in a whole whack of alk and putting it up over 9. I don't know why but for about a week this year I was running 8.5 and only dropping to 8.3 at night. In fact the tank notifies me if I hit 8.4. I did a few water changes and brought it back down, no idea what caused it, I even went so far as cleaning and re-calibrating the probe and it was still high (ORP was at a record low at the time too, it was weird).
So in short, if I had your setup there is a good chance I wouldn't see the need for an apex, but for a tank all on its own in the living room, they are godsends.
