jaws789832
Active Member
As I read through these forums I always see a lot of misconceptions about what a controller can and cannot do, should and should not do. I will preface by saying I do not work for any controller company (or any company having to do with the aquarium industry). I do own an Apex gold (now classic) and love it so I might be a little biased towards that controller (because it’s what I use and know), but I assume most controllers can do the same type of things. And I don’t claim to be an expert by any means so if I say something completely wrong feel free to correct me.
First off a controller is not HAL from 2001. It’s not an Artificial intelligence that is going to take over your tank and just do things. It will only do what you tell it to do. Its basically a high tech power strip. You can program it to turn outlets on and off at certain times of day or when certain parameters are met. If you don’t program the outlet, it is either on or off depending where the switch is on the interface. In the case of you losing the interface there is a fallback command. This tells each outlet what to do in case the controller stops working. For example I set the heaters lights and dosers to fallback off. So if the controller stops interfacing with the powerbars all those outlets turn off so it can’t nuke the tank. My pumps and skimmer fallback on so they would stay working if it loses contact. Basically everything that is essential to the short term health of the tank is fallback on and everything that is non-essential to the short term health is fallback off. The controller (or lack of) would then send me a text alerting me that there is a problem., and that buys me the time to fix the problem. So just because the controller (the brain) is out, does not mean you tank is dead in the water. The powerbars will still function (because they are plugged into the wall) based on what you set the fallbacks to on each outlet. Now all this goes out the window in the event of a power failure, because all outlets would be off (which they would be with anything you are using). You can set it up with battery backups though, so when the power goes off, the battery backup recognizes this and powers whatever outlets you have programed in this event. This can get a little complicated to program as you might need a battery backup for the powerbar (and or individual pumps) and for your router if you want it to send you a text telling you the power is off. There are several ways to do this but on mine I kept it simple. I plug the battery backup into the power bar and then a few power heads aimed towards the surface of the water into the backup. With normal power, the powerheads draw from the powerbar and the battery backup charges itself, but when the battery backup senses a power outage it switches to battery mode and powers my powerheads to keep flow and O2 in the tank, until I can hook up my generator. Mine won’t send me an email or text because because it is set up this way and if the power is out so is the controller and my router so nothing can be sent.
I hear people talk about putting all your eggs in one basket (so to speak). Yes you can do this with a controller if you solely rely on it for everything. Since I am at work for days at a time, I subscribe to the triple backup plan. The controller is one line of defense in this plan. My heaters for example. I buy heaters that have a thermostat on them. Using a NIST calibrated temperature probe and a bucket of water I set them to go off at 79.5 degrees F. I then plug this into a separate temp controller calibrated to 79 degrees. This plugs into the controller which has 2 temp probes. I set the outlet to turn off at 78.5 degrees on temp2 (one of the temp probes) and to turn off at 78 degrees on temp1 (the other probe). So with this I have 4 failsafes built in, Heaters are set to go on at 77.5. Then at 78 temp1 clicks the outlet off. If temp1 probe or the module that its plugged into fails then the temp will rise to 78.5 and temp2 probe will shut the outlet off. If this too fails then the separate temp controller will click it off at 79 and the last line of defense is the heater itself which should go off at 79.5. Everything that can nuke my tank is set up this way where there are multiple failsafe’s to minimize catastrophe. Nothing can completely eliminate it but things can be done to greatly minimize it and a controller is just one of those lines of defenses. So all my eggs aren’t in one basket I spread them out among many baskets with the controller being the first.
Another thing I hear a lot (and this is mainly about the apex) is that controllers are proprietary. Meaning that if I buy the apex, I either have to buy everything else from apex or make sure it is apex compatible. This isn’t really true either. Remember a controller is just a high tech power strip. So if you have an outlet set to on, whatever you plug into it is going to work. For example, I have an ecotech Vectra return pump. These are not apex compatible. The pump still works and works great. What I lose is the ability to use all the features of the pump through the apex. It still pumps water to the display, I can still shut the outlet off at feeding time so the food doesn’t go over the overflow. But if I want to change the rate of flow or use the built in feed mode of the pump I have to manually do it. Same goes with my skimmer and some of the powerheads (including the ones on battery backup) all of which are not apex compatible. Being compatible or apex ready just means its plug and play and you get all the features you are paying for through the controller. Now there are certain things I would probably only buy through the controller company, like the probes, because I want to make sure they are going to work as intended and are truly plug and play but that goes with anything. I would not buy tunze pump replacement parts to put in my vortechs, so everything is proprietary to a certain degree.
A controller is just another tool in the toolbox. It monitors the tank and puts information in 1 easy to read format. It can automate mundane tasks (such as ATO, feeding when you are away, lighting timers, or even automatic water changes, ect) and provide failsafes for other things (such as heaters and dosers). They do not make your tank hands off though. Just like anything else they should not be relied upon to make drastic changes to the tank without first checking and double checking the results. If I pulled out my hanna checker and got a reading of 3dkh I wouldn’t automatically dose a bunch of alk, I would first look at the tank to see if everything was ok, then double check the reading with another test kit, then maybe triple check it just to be sure. The same kind of thing should go with your controller. Just like anything else in this hobby a controller can fail (or parts of it), but by watching and understanding your tank, and using some common sense they are a wonderful tool to have.
First off a controller is not HAL from 2001. It’s not an Artificial intelligence that is going to take over your tank and just do things. It will only do what you tell it to do. Its basically a high tech power strip. You can program it to turn outlets on and off at certain times of day or when certain parameters are met. If you don’t program the outlet, it is either on or off depending where the switch is on the interface. In the case of you losing the interface there is a fallback command. This tells each outlet what to do in case the controller stops working. For example I set the heaters lights and dosers to fallback off. So if the controller stops interfacing with the powerbars all those outlets turn off so it can’t nuke the tank. My pumps and skimmer fallback on so they would stay working if it loses contact. Basically everything that is essential to the short term health of the tank is fallback on and everything that is non-essential to the short term health is fallback off. The controller (or lack of) would then send me a text alerting me that there is a problem., and that buys me the time to fix the problem. So just because the controller (the brain) is out, does not mean you tank is dead in the water. The powerbars will still function (because they are plugged into the wall) based on what you set the fallbacks to on each outlet. Now all this goes out the window in the event of a power failure, because all outlets would be off (which they would be with anything you are using). You can set it up with battery backups though, so when the power goes off, the battery backup recognizes this and powers whatever outlets you have programed in this event. This can get a little complicated to program as you might need a battery backup for the powerbar (and or individual pumps) and for your router if you want it to send you a text telling you the power is off. There are several ways to do this but on mine I kept it simple. I plug the battery backup into the power bar and then a few power heads aimed towards the surface of the water into the backup. With normal power, the powerheads draw from the powerbar and the battery backup charges itself, but when the battery backup senses a power outage it switches to battery mode and powers my powerheads to keep flow and O2 in the tank, until I can hook up my generator. Mine won’t send me an email or text because because it is set up this way and if the power is out so is the controller and my router so nothing can be sent.
I hear people talk about putting all your eggs in one basket (so to speak). Yes you can do this with a controller if you solely rely on it for everything. Since I am at work for days at a time, I subscribe to the triple backup plan. The controller is one line of defense in this plan. My heaters for example. I buy heaters that have a thermostat on them. Using a NIST calibrated temperature probe and a bucket of water I set them to go off at 79.5 degrees F. I then plug this into a separate temp controller calibrated to 79 degrees. This plugs into the controller which has 2 temp probes. I set the outlet to turn off at 78.5 degrees on temp2 (one of the temp probes) and to turn off at 78 degrees on temp1 (the other probe). So with this I have 4 failsafes built in, Heaters are set to go on at 77.5. Then at 78 temp1 clicks the outlet off. If temp1 probe or the module that its plugged into fails then the temp will rise to 78.5 and temp2 probe will shut the outlet off. If this too fails then the separate temp controller will click it off at 79 and the last line of defense is the heater itself which should go off at 79.5. Everything that can nuke my tank is set up this way where there are multiple failsafe’s to minimize catastrophe. Nothing can completely eliminate it but things can be done to greatly minimize it and a controller is just one of those lines of defenses. So all my eggs aren’t in one basket I spread them out among many baskets with the controller being the first.
Another thing I hear a lot (and this is mainly about the apex) is that controllers are proprietary. Meaning that if I buy the apex, I either have to buy everything else from apex or make sure it is apex compatible. This isn’t really true either. Remember a controller is just a high tech power strip. So if you have an outlet set to on, whatever you plug into it is going to work. For example, I have an ecotech Vectra return pump. These are not apex compatible. The pump still works and works great. What I lose is the ability to use all the features of the pump through the apex. It still pumps water to the display, I can still shut the outlet off at feeding time so the food doesn’t go over the overflow. But if I want to change the rate of flow or use the built in feed mode of the pump I have to manually do it. Same goes with my skimmer and some of the powerheads (including the ones on battery backup) all of which are not apex compatible. Being compatible or apex ready just means its plug and play and you get all the features you are paying for through the controller. Now there are certain things I would probably only buy through the controller company, like the probes, because I want to make sure they are going to work as intended and are truly plug and play but that goes with anything. I would not buy tunze pump replacement parts to put in my vortechs, so everything is proprietary to a certain degree.
A controller is just another tool in the toolbox. It monitors the tank and puts information in 1 easy to read format. It can automate mundane tasks (such as ATO, feeding when you are away, lighting timers, or even automatic water changes, ect) and provide failsafes for other things (such as heaters and dosers). They do not make your tank hands off though. Just like anything else they should not be relied upon to make drastic changes to the tank without first checking and double checking the results. If I pulled out my hanna checker and got a reading of 3dkh I wouldn’t automatically dose a bunch of alk, I would first look at the tank to see if everything was ok, then double check the reading with another test kit, then maybe triple check it just to be sure. The same kind of thing should go with your controller. Just like anything else in this hobby a controller can fail (or parts of it), but by watching and understanding your tank, and using some common sense they are a wonderful tool to have.
