reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[bishoptf]

dang, right around the corner. I'm in Ofallon 40 and Winghaven Blvd.

Thinking about hosting a get together for St. Chas reefers if you are interested. I'm running on Robo Tank myself.

Yup pretty close, ive been doing reef-pi stuff since 2019...I have 3 of them running right now. They cant do everything like test for alk etc but they are solid and for the most part do everything I need to do. Hopefully I can get the code updated so we can at least get it working on the newer OS and the newer rpi 5's.

 

[GuppyHJD]

What probe or sensor is recommended for temperature? When I look at many Rasbery Pi forums or Arduino sensors, what I have found has a stainless steel probe. I want to find a plastic or epoxy encapsulated probe?

 

[elysics]

What probe or sensor is recommended for temperature? When I look at many Rasbery Pi forums or Arduino sensors, what I have found has a stainless steel probe. I want to find a plastic or epoxy encapsulated probe?

Ds18b20. I used the metal cap knockoffs for a while either with cutting the metal cap off and potting the sensor in silicone, or potting the entire metal cap in silicone. They always died after a year or so, I think because the acetic acid from the silicone kills it or salt is leaching in somehow.

Even if you are not concerned about the metal cap rusting I wouldn't use those as is, having taken apart a few of them I really wouldn't trust the sealing/potting inside the cap that comes from the factory

Then I got the sparkfun ds18b20 that already comes with a silicone tip, that one is going strong 2 years now and doesn't seem like it's dying anytime soon. It costs the same as a 5 pack of the cheap ones but it's worth it

 

[Kurtzisa]

the cheap one Ds18b20 is not a ds18b20 but a fake one...

 

[That Crusso Kid]

For anyone interested in reef-pi, there is a new thread, found below, that provides very good updates to this project.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reefpi-update-raspberry-pi-os-trixie-64bit.1142965/

 

[Ranjib]

how is everyone doing? what are the current top pain points? pi 5 compatibility? any serious bugs? ... i am going through @epicfatigue 's thread and cleaning up the repo.. its been some time. AI is here.. but lot has changed in the pi platform itself. Its becoming very desktop type ecosystem, and not hardware hacking friendly. I want to do some work on the project... but unsure if its worth changing/updating or we should pivot to a different platform altogether? would love your thoughts

 

[MikeSpike]

Hello all,
I’ve been using reef-pi for many years now — massive thank you to @Ranjib for creating it. I originally started with a DIY build, and eventually moved on to a Robo-Tank kit after a hardware failure that unfortunately nuked my tank . Since then it’s been solid with the Robo-tank build from day one.
The UI hasn't been my taste and while I’m a data analyst (SQL/Python), I’ve never really had the chance to learn HTML/CSS or had the confidence to build my own frontend. A bit of help from Claude Code is allowing me to give something back to this community.
I’ve completely rebuilt the dashboards with the following objectives:

1. Better looking
2. More user friendly
3. Suited to mobile screens
4. Some additional functionality

It’s difficult to go through all the changes here, but you can easily try it out — just temporarily rename/take a backup of your current homepage, deploy this, and explore.
Important notes:

• I built this using AI, and during testing I’ve already found a number of bugs
• Please let me know if you find any more issues or have suggestions for improvements
• I take no responsibility for this — use at your own risk

Hope some of you find it useful! And happy to hear feedback

 

[epicfatigue]

I think there is a big want and need, and I am more then happy to contribute.

I think the gaps in reef pi are.

Documentation.
Electronic design.


I am working on in the background both I just haven't released anything yet.

In my fork I was having a play with Drivers having alittle more control and passing all of their information to the UI, and calibration being a part of the driver itself.

The goal was to make it so you could write a driver without having to do so much in the front end.

Part of this was making the PH tab into a chemistry tab so it wasn't so focused on one thing.

With the UI, my goal was to fix the graphs so you could clear then and cap the amount of data they stored, then use Prometheus/grafana for analytics.

I am an IOT engineer, languages are
Java, python,r,c
Databases Oracle,psql,postgress
My job is very demanding and have alot going on in my family life but I would love to contribute.

 

[hectorespert]

how is everyone doing? what are the current top pain points? pi 5 compatibility? any serious bugs? ... i am going through @epicfatigue 's thread and cleaning up the repo.. its been some time. AI is here.. but lot has changed in the pi platform itself. Its becoming very desktop type ecosystem, and not hardware hacking friendly. I want to do some work on the project... but unsure if its worth changing/updating or we should pivot to a different platform altogether? would love your thoughts

Hi Ranjib, I'm glad you are back.

I'm currently using Reef-Pi in my planted tank, the last 6.0 version on a Rasberry Pi Zero running Bullseye.

I tried to compile Reef Pi from the main branch several times, but I'm stuck here: https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/issues/2303. I've no idea whats the problem.

 

[Ranjib]

Hi Ranjib, I'm glad you are back.

I'm currently using Reef-Pi in my planted tank, the last 6.0 version on a Rasberry Pi Zero running Bullseye.

I tried to compile Reef Pi from the main branch several times, but I'm stuck here: https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/issues/2303. I've no idea whats the problem.

hi @hectorespert yes, i have gone through the issues. It looks like a concurrency bug involving go's time.Ticker in pi zero platform. It might not be a simple fix, but its on my queue as i go through the bug fixes. Im (more like claude) targeting the easy fixes first. I'll keep you posted

 

[theatrus]

hi @hectorespert yes, i have gone through the issues. It looks like a concurrency bug involving go's time.Ticker in pi zero platform. It might not be a simple fix, but its on my queue as i go through the bug fixes. Im (more like claude) targeting the easy fixes first. I'll keep you posted

I was going to mention, nice to see all the activity in the repo :)

(As a heavy agentic user, the side projects are now much more tractable in time investment)

 

[Simonv92]

Hi @Ranjib! I'm glad too to see you again on the forum
I'm currently using Reef-Pi on a Rpi Zero 2W which controls everything on my tank (outlet, lights, dosing, temperature, Ph, ORP, ecc... ) all integrated in Home Assistant.
Looking forward for new feature

 

[Simonv92]

Hi All, for all those who use Reef-pi with Home Assistant, I have a strange problem:
As you can see from the right bar and the bottom bar of the PC I have 2 hour offset between the log time and the actual time. Reef-Pi and HA time and date are correct. What can it be?
Thank you very much!

 

[Ranjib]

Hi All, for all those who use Reef-pi with Home Assistant, I have a strange problem:
As you can see from the right bar and the bottom bar of the PC I have 2 hour offset between the log time and the actual time. Reef-Pi and HA time and date are correct. What can it be?
Thank you very much!

thats the date time coming from linux, running on the rasapberry pi.

 

[hectorespert]

Testing the last builds: https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi#snapshot-builds

 

[Ranjib]

Testing the last builds: https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi#snapshot-builds

status translation?

 

[Simonv92]

thats the date time coming from linux, running on the rasapberry pi.

Thank you as always @Ranjib..
I've done the few steps to configure NTP but the problem remains the same:

NTP is now working fine for my local area but I still have the 2 hour time difference.

 

[Ranjib]

Thank you as always @Ranjib..
I've done the few steps to configure NTP but the problem remains the same:

NTP is now working fine for my local area but I still have the 2 hour time difference.

did you reload reef-pi after that?

 

[Simonv92]

did you reload reef-pi after that?

Yes, same problem as before..

 

[Simonv92]

@Ranjib the strange thing is that the time offset seems to appear only on the ATO last run time. Everything else is working fine...