AquaController III

I picked up an AquaController III for my frag rack build this last weekend. I likely won't have all of that running before Christmas, so while I've got it laying around I figured I'd run my 29g with it and get used to programming these babies!

Well... it took me almost exactly an hour and a half from the time I walked over and picked it up until now when I'm sitting down and everything is working. It was really quite simple and I couldn't be happier to have it going. The options are truly limitless!

Coolest features.
More advanced temp control with .1 degrees accuracy.
Feed and walk away. Pumps automatically resume 20 minutes later.
Osculating powerheads. I'll install a second powerhead in a few days and they'll be programmed to run one at a time, 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off for better multi-direction flow.

It's just cleaner and nicer with more options and control with less equipment. I believe I'll have a controller on every tank I own from here on out.

WOW! That looks like the Rolls Royce of controllers, I'd buy one, but I can't see the setting for having my cup of tea ready in the morning as I get up.... then again I haven't found that setting on Mrs Y yet either.... oh heck she reads this forum now as much as I do since she got her nano JBJ!

I'm sure I could easily schedule it to make some coffee. But then I might have to remember to turn my pumps back on after feeding or something crazy like that.

Very nice I have looked at both the apex & reef keeper, hopefully someday down the road I will have one if all goes as planned.

Matt, glad to hear that about the reefkeeper. I bought the apex jr....took me about an hour and half and I have all that stuff going as well so sounds very comparable. The oscillating feature is very nice.

Have to say though, the coolest feature on the apex is the pre-programmed dawn and dusk times as well as moon stages for the entire year. Everything already loaded into the system. You could actually program your lights to accurately reflect these....very cool.

The AquaController is made by the same people who make the Apex. Mine has those features as well, but I just went for the timed programming. That is a cool feature though. :-)

My apologies....why I read reefkeeper and not aquacontroller I cannot say.

Have you played with aquanotes at all? I haven't, so I was wondering if it was useful at all.

Oh, and I agree....I just used timed lighting periods as well. Mainly because I don't want to leave my lights on for 10-12+ hours per day.

You can offset it though, so I thought about offsetting from the preprogrammed times, an amount to equal around an 8 hour day like I have and then it would adjust accordingly adding time in the summer and reducing in the winter. So say if sun-up is 6 am....offset it by 6 hours for lights to come on at noon and then vice versa on the sunset. Lots of possibilities there.

I haven't. I don't have it plugged up to my network yet. I'll get that going later. Pumped about when I do get that hooked up though!

What will really be interesting is having two of them on the same network... I'll have to figure it all out!

I figure I'm not trying to get anything to spawn, so I'm really not too worried about any of the seasonal timing stuff. But once again... it's just plain cool that I could so easily if I wanted to.