Advice on Adaptive Reef Controller Cabinet

olemissdylan · Feb 28, 2022

I have recently purchased the adaptive reef controller cabinet. I was going to see if anyone had prior experiences mounting the Apex Base Unit to their adaptive reef controller cabinet. I have searched the internet and only see pictures of the Apex Base Unit mounted to custom controller boards. I want to see the best solution without drilling unnecessary holes in my cabinet. Any recommendations on my new controller cabinet are wanted. Thanks!

blaxsun · Feb 28, 2022

I mounted mine inside my Adaptive Reef cabinet with command strips, so I could easily remove it if need be. You need to connect it to the EB832 and it also needs to connect to all the probes, so one possible location would be on the upper right panel and thread everything through one of the slots.

Occasionally you do need to hard power the Apex, so the downside (for me) on having it inside the cabinet is that I have to remove a panel to regain access. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but suffice to say that with a pair of EB832s, DOS and Trident - t's a bit of an electronics graveyard in there.

olemissdylan · Feb 28, 2022

blaxsun said:
I mounted mine inside my Adaptive Reef cabinet with command strips, so I could easily remove it if need be. You need to connect it to the EB832 and it also needs to connect to all the probes, so one possible location would be on the upper right panel and thread everything through one of the slots.

Occasionally you do need to hard power the Apex, so the downside (for me) on having it inside the cabinet is that I have to remove a panel to regain access. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but suffice to say that with a pair of EB832s, DOS and Trident - t's a bit of an electronics graveyard in there.

I am waiting for the trident and dose faceplates to arrive in the mail. They have this as the demo pic on BRS. I am unsure if I want to mount the Apex Base Unit inside the cabinet or put it in the front panel. What was your thought process on mounting it inside the cabinet?

blaxsun · Feb 28, 2022

The Trident needs to go on the bottom, and it's two panels high - so it will consume a lot of real estate. I put my single DOS on the top consuming another panel - so that only left one panel in the middle. On that I mounted my 2 ReefWave and Maxspect controllers.

There are 2 cutouts that slip off on each side of the Trident, and they're just big enough to stick a hand through or shine a flashlight around. They're just held in-place by friction so you don't necessarily want to mount anything to them.

So then I have 2 Sicce pump controllers (that I never need to access) and the Apex unit itself (which I almost never need to access), and with my DDR reservoir and the Trident waste container placed beside the AR cabinet, I didn't really have a lot of options but to mount those items inside the cabinet.

I guess I could've mounted the Apex to the side, but it would've either meant snaking all the cables around or drilling out a slot for them.

olemissdylan · Feb 28, 2022

blaxsun said:
The Trident needs to go on the bottom, and it's two panels high - so it will consume a lot of real estate. I put my single DOS on the top consuming another panel - so that only left one panel in the middle. On that I mounted my 2 ReefWave and Maxspect controllers.

There are 2 cutouts that slip off on each side of the Trident, and they're just big enough to stick a hand through or shine a flashlight around. They're just held in-place by friction so you don't necessarily want to mount anything to them.

So then I have 2 Sicce pump controllers (that I never need to access) and the Apex unit itself (which I almost never need to access), and with my DDR reservoir and the Trident waste container placed beside the AR cabinet, I didn't really have a lot of options but to mount those items inside the cabinet.

I guess I could've mounted the Apex to the side, but it would've either meant snaking all the cables around or drilling out a slot for I will be mounting my apex base unit on the inside.

Thanks for the response. I will be putting my unit on the inside then. I was wanting one of those LED boards as well but it does not appear I will have enough real estate on my cabinet door.

blaxsun · Feb 28, 2022

olemissdylan said:
Thanks for the response. I will be putting my unit on the inside then. I was wanting one of those LED boards as well but it does not appear I will have enough real estate on my cabinet door.

It all depends on how many controllers you have to mount. I had 5 plus the Apex, so I just mounted the ones that I'd either need access to regularly or couldn't control via WiFi.

olemissdylan · Feb 28, 2022

blaxsun said:
It all depends on how many controllers you have to mount. I had 5 plus the Apex, so I just mounted the ones that I'd either need access to regularly or couldn't control via WiFi.

I already have my energy bar mounted. Besides that, I will have the trident, Apex Dose, and the main unit to place in the cabinet.

I know that the Dose and Trident will be on the cabinet door. I would like to have my AI neuro powerheads mounted as well but they're very tiny.

blaxsun · Feb 28, 2022

You could mount the Apex on one side of the center panel and the pair of AI controllers horizontally beside it (one on top of the other). I've found command strips worked really well for a lot of this stuff (and might work well for the Nero controllers). Use one slot for each set of cables that needs to connect to the Nero controllers.