Reef-Pi: what do I need to get started?

[Joe81]

Hey everyone, this will be my first experience with an aquarium controller. I’m looking to get started with a pretty basic setup. I currently have a Red Sea max 250 AIO. So far I would like to control 3 lights (0-10v), heater control, ATO and of course the ability to control pumps/skimmer/etc via outlets for feeding and water changes. I planned on buying from robo-tank, should I just get a deluxe complete kit? Which other sensors/probes do I need to get started and which will I want in the future? Any advantage to using a rpi4?

Thanks in advance

 

[aSaltyKlown]

Check out this thread.

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

 

[Ranjib]

i'll suggest starting slow, and build the power, temperature and ato controller first and light control at the end.
You can use an hs300 wifi power strip and some basic sensors (ds18b20 temperature sensors, float switch) to get this going. The guides in adafruit should be starting point. Robotank also provides a more up to date guide that you can follow.
r

 

[Sral]

Hey everyone, this will be my first experience with an aquarium controller. I’m looking to get started with a pretty basic setup. I currently have a Red Sea max 250 AIO. So far I would like to control 3 lights (0-10v), heater control, ATO and of course the ability to control pumps/skimmer/etc via outlets for feeding and water changes. I planned on buying from robo-tank, should I just get a deluxe complete kit? Which other sensors/probes do I need to get started and which will I want in the future? Any advantage to using a rpi4?

Thanks in advance

As @Ranjib mentioned: you can go comparatively slow and start with the WiFi-controlled power strip he mentioned and add a minimum of two simple temperature sensors according to the Adafruit guide. The Lighting-control can be added later, as also explained in the guides. You can, however, leave some space in the Box for that lighting control, if you want it in one compact box.
The WiFi-controlled strip has the upside of not needing additional hardware, with the downside that it CAN be unreliable in cases of WiFi and power outages and Router resets. You can however work around that and people have been using them for years without troubles. Just keep in mind that your heater should, for example, have an internal temperature limit as a backup and you might want to delay loading of Reef-Pi by 1 minute after he acquires WiFi for example. We can point you to a simple guide for this if you like.

Robo-Tank from @robsworld78 is also a time-efficient, tried and tested option that is comparatively cheap (mind the import taxes), expandable and modular.
The complete deluxe package (300$ plus import tax and shipping) gives you a ton of capabilities (definitely more than you are currently looking for, but who knows about the future ^^) for a good price in my opinion. You also get a Pi Zero 2 and a SD card included as well, which is pretty nice. You can of course start slow there as well and only connect what you want to start with.

You could also start slower and only get parts of that package, but to get the AC bar and the lighting module you are looking at 220$ (plus taxes and shipping). The deluxe package without 12V power supply offers an additional sensor module on top for 210$ (plus taxes and shipping).

So you would need to decide if you can get a 12V 2A power supply, a Raspberry Pi with SD card and Ethernet cables for the remaining 90$.

Another option I just noticed: you could get the controller with sensor and lighting module without power bar for 140$ (plus import taxes and shipping) and get a Kasa HS300 power bar for about 50$ from Amazon, with the downsides mentioned above.

You could also look at Leviathan, it also packs quite a few features. Downside is that it would need to provide a power bar yourself and I'm not sure how active the manufacturer is. Its definitely doable with the help from this forum. You could probably connect a Robo-Tank Power bar to this if you like. Would that be possible @robsworld78 ?

Options over Options.

Personally, I would recommend:
- DIY if you REALY get off on DIY and have the spare money and time
- get Robo-Tank if you don't
(it's just cheaper in both time AND Money in my opinion, but I might be wrong on that)
- maybe try Leviathan if you are really short on money ? Not sure on that one though.

 

[robsworld78]

As @Ranjib mentioned: you can go comparatively slow and start with the WiFi-controlled power strip he mentioned and add a minimum of two simple temperature sensors according to the Adafruit guide. The Lighting-control can be added later, as also explained in the guides. You can, however, leave some space in the Box for that lighting control, if you want it in one compact box.
The WiFi-controlled strip has the upside of not needing additional hardware, with the downside that it CAN be unreliable in cases of WiFi and power outages and Router resets. You can however work around that and people have been using them for years without troubles. Just keep in mind that your heater should, for example, have an internal temperature limit as a backup and you might want to delay loading of Reef-Pi by 1 minute after he acquires WiFi for example. We can point you to a simple guide for this if you like.

Robo-Tank from @robsworld78 is also a time-efficient, tried and tested option that is comparatively cheap (mind the import taxes), expandable and modular.
The complete deluxe package (300$ plus import tax and shipping) gives you a ton of capabilities (definitely more than you are currently looking for, but who knows about the future ^^) for a good price in my opinion. You also get a Pi Zero 2 and a SD card included as well, which is pretty nice. You can of course start slow there as well and only connect what you want to start with.

You could also start slower and only get parts of that package, but to get the AC bar and the lighting module you are looking at 220$ (plus taxes and shipping). The deluxe package without 12V power supply offers an additional sensor module on top for 210$ (plus taxes and shipping).

So you would need to decide if you can get a 12V 2A power supply, a Raspberry Pi with SD card and Ethernet cables for the remaining 90$.

Another option I just noticed: you could get the controller with sensor and lighting module without power bar for 140$ (plus import taxes and shipping) and get a Kasa HS300 power bar for about 50$ from Amazon, with the downsides mentioned above.

You could also look at Leviathan, it also packs quite a few features. Downside is that it would need to provide a power bar yourself and I'm not sure how active the manufacturer is. Its definitely doable with the help from this forum. You could probably connect a Robo-Tank Power bar to this if you like. Would that be possible @robsworld78 ?

Options over Options.

Personally, I would recommend:
- DIY if you REALY get off on DIY and have the spare money and time
- get Robo-Tank if you don't
(it's just cheaper in both time AND Money in my opinion, but I might be wrong on that)
- maybe try Leviathan if you are really short on money ? Not sure on that one though.

Yeah if you only need temps or basic outlet control there's definitely cheaper routes to go but if you want pH then it'll be very hard to DIY cheaper than Robo-Tank especially if a person only orders the PCBs. The AC power bar will connect directly to any Pi GPIOs or Arduino etc. Just need 8 GPIO's and a common ground, the power bar has it's own power supply so no extra power needed.

 

[TheyGaveItToMe]

Hey everyone, this will be my first experience with an aquarium controller. I’m looking to get started with a pretty basic setup. I currently have a Red Sea max 250 AIO. So far I would like to control 3 lights (0-10v), heater control, ATO and of course the ability to control pumps/skimmer/etc via outlets for feeding and water changes. I planned on buying from robo-tank, should I just get a deluxe complete kit? Which other sensors/probes do I need to get started and which will I want in the future? Any advantage to using a rpi4?

Thanks in advance

Do you have experience with Raspberry Pi or Arduino? If yes, then Reef-Pi is an awesome option. If no and you are just trying to cut cost, the Apex Jr w/ NEP-EB8 is going to be easier, lest time consuming, and has better functionality.

 

[TheyGaveItToMe]

Any advantage to using a rpi4?

Have you seen RPI4 in stock for retail price anywhere? If so, I would like to know.

 

[Sral]

Have you seen RPI4 in stock for retail price anywhere? If so, I would like to know.

I think that's a general problem. With the PI 4 there are at least regular-ish drops on the official vendors, not sure if you can find PI Zeros that way

PI 4 have more Memory and CPU, so you can run more things on it in parallel. For Reef-Pi itself there are only very limited upsides to using a Pi 4, if any. Additional USB Interfaces might be one and an easier time if you want to add a monitor to it, but that's not realy necessary.

 

[robsworld78]

I don't mean anything bad from this but feel I have to call it out so nobody is mislead. I was just looking at the Leviathan controller website and through out the site and in the video it implies you can monitor pH but doesn't state you need to buy a $40 - $80 circuit, on the about me page it says just plug in a pH probe but the connectors for pH and ORP are just I2C headers.