pickupman66
5000 Club Member
Dowtish i believe wrote a good article on whether or not a controler was a worthy investment. you may want to see if you can look that up. Ill offer my opinion as well.
SO YOU NEED ONE to have a successful reef? NOPE. Does it help? YEP! In my 15 years or so in the hobby I have run a controller for the last 7 or 8. It started with a simple Temperature controller to run my heaters. this worked great as it was a good redundancy on a heater breaking and it had an alarm if there was a high or low temp issue. I then got a deal on a ReefKeeper elite and slowly evolved from simple pump and heater controls to my Calcium reactor, custom build LED ramping and wavemaking with Jebao pumps. At one point, I had a total of 20-24 controlled outlets on my 180. It was quite complicated but it made it so I could see my tank from anywhere and helped in my travels. Then 3 years ago, I swapped it to the new Archon by DA. it was an all new contoller that i was part of the Beta testing in. I still use that one today. I have done away with a customer LED ramp and now just have a pair of AI hydras and use their software. I control everything else with it. My big takeaways are the abilty to have it text or email me if temp or PH or Salinity is not where it should be. I can look in on it from anywhere in the world and make an adjustment or alert my wife if I am traveling. on my "advanced" system, I control a Jebao return pump, three Jebao powerheads, skimmer, Cheato light, redundant heaters, ATO and then power supplied to the lights and a dosing pump.
Some additional Info, While there is a bunch of help out there on the DA products, they have shut their doors for support and production. If it were me, knowing that I would not purchase one unless it was a smoking deal. the LITE is limited so an elite would be better. If you are wanting a controller and can afford a new apex, I would go that route.
SO YOU NEED ONE to have a successful reef? NOPE. Does it help? YEP! In my 15 years or so in the hobby I have run a controller for the last 7 or 8. It started with a simple Temperature controller to run my heaters. this worked great as it was a good redundancy on a heater breaking and it had an alarm if there was a high or low temp issue. I then got a deal on a ReefKeeper elite and slowly evolved from simple pump and heater controls to my Calcium reactor, custom build LED ramping and wavemaking with Jebao pumps. At one point, I had a total of 20-24 controlled outlets on my 180. It was quite complicated but it made it so I could see my tank from anywhere and helped in my travels. Then 3 years ago, I swapped it to the new Archon by DA. it was an all new contoller that i was part of the Beta testing in. I still use that one today. I have done away with a customer LED ramp and now just have a pair of AI hydras and use their software. I control everything else with it. My big takeaways are the abilty to have it text or email me if temp or PH or Salinity is not where it should be. I can look in on it from anywhere in the world and make an adjustment or alert my wife if I am traveling. on my "advanced" system, I control a Jebao return pump, three Jebao powerheads, skimmer, Cheato light, redundant heaters, ATO and then power supplied to the lights and a dosing pump.
Some additional Info, While there is a bunch of help out there on the DA products, they have shut their doors for support and production. If it were me, knowing that I would not purchase one unless it was a smoking deal. the LITE is limited so an elite would be better. If you are wanting a controller and can afford a new apex, I would go that route.
