Everything Sucks, to somebody. Whatever someone thinks is the greatest product ever, it fails. Every car manufacturer has a service department.
I've been doing Aquarium controllers for a long long time. I started DIY in 1987 by taking a sprinkler timer, adding relays and having a 100g Saltwater tank in my frat house with 3 stages of lighting that ramped up and ramped down everyday. In 1989 I started making money by getting a low voltage contractors license and buying Ademco alarm system, modifying the sensor inputs to monitor float swithes, temp, leak, and flow - and have a system that dialed a pager when something went awry.
I didn't get the Neptune Aquacontroller 1, but I did get the 2nd generation of the Aquacontroller --- Headache.
I jumped on board with the first gen Apex. I loved the ability to just keep adding prebuilt modules to it. I was so into tweaking it that I was the Neptune Key speaker at MACNA Denver.
When during my speach of how I had custom built components I found that a BOB could be substituted with a 9 pin round computer cable for under $10.... The company frowned up on me. Then I lost my faith with the company. First, they advertised expansion to 256 modules. But being one of the first end users to get past 18 modules. Each time a module was added after 18, they had to modify a firmware for me. Everytime they did an update, they had to send me a special firmware.
And then after a major update, there was a flaw in the firmware that bricked the system at 12:01a the day after the update.... And the company shut down all public threads warning people.
I setup a GHL system, but the support was too slow, and too much was needed.
I stuck with Apex as a controller, and the number of times the system hiccuped, glitched, or froze and cost me thousands of dollars each time was beyond the number of fingers on my hands. The products they released that seemed to only have been protoyped and then sent to market for Alpha testing.
But the product reliability was the real issue, with 30 modules, and every new product produced becoming less and less reliable.
When I first talked to Hydros about taking control of my system, to their benefit they said at the time that their system wasn't able to handle the needs/size of my system.
Then after another major Apex failure, and me being upset, Joe of Unique Corals / Triton US / Marco Rocks said - Dude, it's your fault. It keeps crashing, and you keep resetting it.
He was right, I couldn't keep ******** about a product, when I was the idiot that kept using it. I decided to build my own controller. I started with Siemens PLC used parts off ebay. Then realized I wanted newer modules for webaccess. I invested a few thousand in building a Siemens test board, with multiple probes for temp, ph, ORP, DO, Salinity. And relay control outputs and push button inputs. But the web programming was intense.
And then my brain started to fail, literally, the onset of dementia. The Siemens went into a box. Someone offerred to help me with the PLC project but instead of Siemens wanted to use Clickplus PLC with the Ziplink addons.
He offered to do all the programming. I bought 2 complete systems, one for each of us to test and develop with. I got the temp probe working, he got the first part of the web access for temp working. And then his wife called that it was time to go have their baby. He said he would call me in a week.
He never called. A drunk driver hit the car with him and his wife on the way to the hospital. I couldn't learn the programming for the Clickplus, and it all went into a box in the fish shed.
Then Hydros said they were comfortable taking on a system the size of my system. Four Years ago I started the transition. Has it been perfect, Nah. Has there been calls to support, more than a few. Have modules failed, yep one or two.
But, In 4 years, I can't say that any issue I have ever had with Hydros has caused any harm to any of my livestock!!!! And that's the most important thing for me.
I don't understand the logic that every module is an independent controller. Yet when a module fails, or a cable gets disconnected - the collective goes offline. I have 18 modules online. The 'collective' (dumb name IMO) for my 1500g reef system is spread across 5 locations. Figuring out where a module has gone offline (which mean I knocked a cable out usually) - is a pain in my tush. But the livestock is safe.
I now have a Hydros on my Freshwater tank, and my wife's clown breeding rack.
1/2 my system volume and 3/4 of my Hydros system is outside. And unless you shoot water right into the outlets on an XP8 - the system outside in the elements has not been an issue.
The prices of anything for an aquarium is always too much, but let's not forget it is a luxury item a reef is not a necessity -- Even if you think you are a reef addict. But true addicts know - the good stuff ain't cheap - regardless of addiction.
Whether its drugs, cars, guns, jewelry, tech, audio or reef - Those are all luxury items - you don't need them to survive - you want them.
I can afford any of these. But what I can't afford is a piece of equipment that's supposed to protect my luxury fish and yet it's potential failure (or hiccup) puts all that livestock at risk.
Whether Apex, Hydros, Tesla, Apple, McClaren or Rolls - They all have tech support and service departments.
True DIY is a huge comittment of time and money - However from my brief experience the accuracy and stabilty is amazingly better - but you're starting off with commercial grade products.
The question I have for all you complaining about the price of this module or that module.... Do you have a generator at your house that automatically kicks in when the power goes out?
A $300, $400, $800 dosing head. A crappy, decent, amazing controller - ain't gonna do anything when the power goes out. Most of you are complaining about a sub $1000 item, protected 1000s of dollars in livestock, and yet you don't spend a few thousand to make sure the lights never go out....
Dave B
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of that any more 
