Who's got the Hydros X3?

[jhuntstl]

This seems like a bundle that might bring in some new Hydros owners.

I paid $280 w/free shipping from liverocknreef.com. It appeared to ship direct from Coralvue. They're $20 cheaper than anywhere else I've found.

My starter kit should be delivered tomorrow. I am super pumped to have some basic monitoring and control.

 

[blaxsun]

Cool.

 

[CuseReefer]

Nice! I just grabbed this Control 4 starter pack myself from here Control 4 Starter Pack and got a free Hydros T-Shirt and Chair with it too!

It looks like they are giving away free Hydros T-Shirts with the X3 packages as well Hydros X3 Monitor Pack

 

[jhuntstl]

Cool.

Indeed.

Nice! I just grabbed this Control 4 starter pack myself from here Control 4 Starter Pack and got a free Hydros T-Shirt and Chair with it too!

It looks like they are giving away free Hydros T-Shirts with the X3 packages as well Hydros X3 Monitor Pack

I'll take the extra $20 off over the tshirt haha. That is cool they're offering some freebies. Who would expect to get a camping chair with their reef controller!

 

[BaghdadBean]

I just ordered one off the Coralvue site. I’ve been out of hobby for a while and I’m always scared of the Amazon effect from third party distributors (getting used or fake equipment, like has happened far too many times on Amazon). Woulda been nice to save twenty bucks though!

 

[piranhaman00]

I was waiting for this! Don’t need the extra stuff offered on the full version,

 

[jhuntstl]

Well I'm a happy dude. Still got a lot of playing around to do. I've got most of the basics setup. Monitoring power on my ATO and return pump. Extra temp control and redundancy behind my Ranco controller. Still need to add the skimmer for timed shutoffs for stuff like when I dose phyto. Actually knowing my PH. May add an extra water level sensor for ATO redundancy. That or a leak detector.

 

[cooltowncorals]

I have the x4 really like it

 

[BaghdadBean]

I have the x4 really like it

I like the X3 concept because really I wanted it for monitoring and leak detection more than anything else, and I have independent controllers on my kalk and calcium reactors. I have thought about maybe putting them on one of the power bars as a redundancy for remote shut off if my tank chemistry were to suddenly go awry, just in case the controllers on them fail. I’m just wary of having only one point of control for everything, especially since internet failure is common where I live.

 

[Shooter6]

Never used a controller myself. That being said can anyone who has the hydros, explain the difference in the difference models.

Looking for the ph, orp,or, and power monitoring/ alerts. Also if possible I'd like to put my 4 jebao mcd and dcq 10000 return pumps on a controller, tocycle them off and on throughout the day, as they are powering my closed loop. If possible I'd like to connect either an alkatronic or the reef factory tester to the controller also. The reef factory stuff isn't available stateside but I'm tempted to order it and find adapter plugs for it.

 

[jtichenor]

I just setup the Control 4 yesterday and the ATO. Easy peasy. Love it.

 

[Spieg]

I'm waiting for the hard wired power strip before I try a Hydros... just don't trust my tank to wifi.

 

[jhuntstl]

I'm waiting for the hard wired power strip before I try a Hydros... just don't trust my tank to wifi.

That's fair. The only hang up I had on install was the wifi strip. I would prefer hard wired.

 

[jhuntstl]

Anyone have opinions on the Rope Leak Sensor Kit vs Leak Detection Sensor?

Rope seems far more versatile. 9ft long is a lot of coverage on a small tank like mine.

 

[n2585722]

I like the X3 concept because really I wanted it for monitoring and leak detection more than anything else, and I have independent controllers on my kalk and calcium reactors. I have thought about maybe putting them on one of the power bars as a redundancy for remote shut off if my tank chemistry were to suddenly go awry, just in case the controllers on them fail. I’m just wary of having only one point of control for everything, especially since internet failure is common where I live.

My internet goes down several times a day. It has not been an issue other than you cannot change any setups while it is out. You can still manually turn off and on outputs if you are there with the bluetooth connection. The control system will continue to work via wifi. So as long as you have wifi the wifi power bars will work. The wifi bars will continue in their current state if wifi connection is lost as long as there is no power loss. They power back up in the off mode until they get a signal from the wifi master. If you have a collective there is one controller that is the wifi master. If something were to happen to that controller another would take over as the wifi master.

 

[n2585722]

I'm waiting for the hard wired power strip before I try a Hydros... just don't trust my tank to wifi.

I use the drive ports for things like ATO, AWC and dosing. This will be easier now that CoralVue is introducing their own doser that connects to the drive port. I think they are hoping to have it available before the end of the month.

 

[BaghdadBean]

My internet goes down several times a day. It has not been an issue other than you cannot change any setups while it is out. You can still manually turn off and on outputs if you are there with the bluetooth connection. The control system will continue to work via wifi. So as long as you have wifi the wifi power bars will work. The wifi bars will continue in their current state if wifi connection is lost as long as there is no power loss. They power back up in the off mode until they get a signal from the wifi master. If you have a collective there is one controller that is the wifi master. If something were to happen to that controller another would take over as the wifi master.

Please pardon me if I’m extra dense here, but I just wanted to be sure of what you mean. IF the power goes off, then comes back on, everything on the power bars is still kept off until they receive a signal from the master, correct? Now, the master settings are kept via cloud? So if it reconnects and master settings call for say skimmer to be on unless leak sensor #2 detects a leak, it would automatically turn back on the skimmer once connection was reestablished?

 

[n2585722]

Please pardon me if I’m extra dense here, but I just wanted to be sure of what you mean. IF the power goes off, then comes back on, everything on the power bars is still kept off until they receive a signal from the master, correct? Now, the master settings are kept via cloud? So if it reconnects and master settings call for say skimmer to be on unless leak sensor #2 detects a leak, it would automatically turn back on the skimmer once connection was reestablished?

The setup is in the controllers. There is a copy in the cloud. That is the reason you cannot change the setup unless the internet is up as all the controllers and cloud need to match. The controller talks to the wifi strips via the wifi network which is local. So when power comes back up and everything connects back to wifi the controller will set the output to where they should be depending on any inputs used to control the outputs so if you did have a leak sensed the skimmer would not turn back on. The output do flash on when a wifi strip powers up for about a second. I don't know if they actually power up for that second or not. I live in Texas and i had the Hydros system when we had rolling blackouts for a week back in February. The system work great during that time even though it was getting powered on and off as often as one hour on and one hour off up to four hours on and four hours off. At that time the only backup I had was the battery pack for my MP10's. I have since added battery backup to my router and modem. There is not much to do when you are stuck in an all electric home with no power so I am hoping i will keep internet next time at least.i can at least use my tablet.

 

[BaghdadBean]

The setup is in the controllers. There is a copy in the cloud. That is the reason you cannot change the setup unless the internet is up as all the controllers and cloud need to match. The controller talks to the wifi strips via the wifi network which is local. So when power comes back up and everything connects back to wifi the controller will set the output to where they should be depending on any inputs used to control the outputs so if you did have a leak sensed the skimmer would not turn back on. The output do flash on when a wifi strip powers up for about a second. I don't know if they actually power up for that second or not. I live in Texas and i had the Hydros system when we had rolling blackouts for a week back in February. The system work great during that time even though it was getting powered on and off as often as one hour on and one hour off up to four hours on and four hours off. At that time the only backup I had was the battery pack for my MP10's. I have since added battery backup to my router and modem. There is not much to do when you are stuck in an all electric home with no power so I am hoping i will keep internet next time at least.i can at least use my tablet.

Thank you so very much for sharing all of your experience with us. It’s really helpful to hear these first hand anecdotes. I live in an area with a lot of winter time power outages, my ranch is the end of the grid for our road, so preparing for outages is a big deal. We often lose internet for up to a month, and last year due to forest fire we lost internet for 3 months, and power for a month. We’re on the list for a skynet/starlink whatever satellite connection but I’m not holding my breath over it. We have generator backups for everything, but that doesn’t do any good for the internet/phone outages. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they finally upgraded us from dial up to dsl, but our connection is still often <1.5 Mbps and our upload is usually only .26-.63 Mbps. I’m okay with not being able to change settings while the internet itself is down, I just need the settings I put on there to be still usable.

 

[n2585722]

Never used a controller myself. That being said can anyone who has the hydros, explain the difference in the difference models.

Looking for the ph, orp,or, and power monitoring/ alerts. Also if possible I'd like to put my 4 jebao mcd and dcq 10000 return pumps on a controller, tocycle them off and on throughout the day, as they are powering my closed loop. If possible I'd like to connect either an alkatronic or the reef factory tester to the controller also. The reef factory stuff isn't available stateside but I'm tempted to order it and find adapter plugs for it.

If you want pH the X3 has one probe port and two sense ports. The X4 had two probe ports and 4 sense ports along with 2 drive ports and 4 0-10v inputs and 4 0-10v outputs. It would be between those two if you want pH and/ORP. There is an X2 it has two drive ports and two sense ports. The XS has 4 sense ports. You can mix and match them in collectives for larger systems to get what you want. I have a collective with 8 control units. There are two wave engines that can control some pumps directly. Those can also be added to the collective. They will also power your control units. A collective requires enough buss cables to connect all the members along with a terminator for small collectives. Larger ones will require two terminators. These can be separate or built into the power pack depending on which you will need. Before you go into the collective if you are new to the controller it is good idea to ask on their forum or even here what you will need to hook up the controllers you plan to use. hope this helps.