**Neptune AquaController**

[Woodstock]

For you folks with In-stand electrical devices, make sure the moisture from your sump/refugium is not getting on/in them. The best time to inspect for excess moistue is early in the morning when no lights have been on and the water's temp is warmer than the ambient room temp.

Note: you should also check the canopy in the same manner. It is amazing how much moisture accumulates on the insides overnight! Proper ventilation (ie; fans) will prevent it.

[bluespotjawfish]

Both of my controllers are mounted with a piece of velcro on the canopy (above water level). The ACJr, is in one back corner, the RK2 is on the other side. The ACJr has 4 different wires that come out of it (ugly), the RK2 only has one

waiting patently in the snow for my temp probe. Curt has confirmed the RK2 probe won't work on the ACJr.

[BigAl07]

Velcro here on AC Jr too

[Craig Manoukian]

I had my hood fans run a seperate timer, stone age - no contoller, 24/7 and never had any salt build-up/creep in my lights. Just the slightest salt film on my bulbs needed claning once per month.

[bluespotjawfish]

My tank is so much quieter without the fans running constantly. I am fortunate to have an open canopy and the stand is pretty open in the back too. I do run my ceiling fan throughout the day. Otherwise with the 4 tanks, I would get condensation on my windows in the afternoon.

Stone age is over rated (of course so is technology)! One day into this manual stuff and I am ready to pull my hair out. Temp was 77 something this morning (no fan, heater stuck on overnight). Tonight it was 75 something (fans on timer to come on with lights on, heater didn't come on). I would replace this heater, but I have bought about 6 of them this past year and all have had the same problem. Might just toss the sucker in the garbage and go heaterless like I did for 8 years!

[reefnut]

ok guys thks. I just want to set mine up to look hi-tech lol. i will prob go with the RK2.

[bluespotjawfish]

My temp probe came today and I am happy to report that it looks like they have really "beefed" these guys up. This one is much more heavy duty than the old one. I'll try and post a pict later of the two.

[Woodstock]

Good to hear Lorraine! I think I'll order a spare temp probe "just in case"

[Octoman]

T-minus 14hrs to delivery... I'll be camped out in the front yard tomorrow waiting for the UPS man. I ordered the ACjr

I found some wireless serial adapters for bluetooth, but I don't have that on my laptop (although my girlfriend has it on hers...). For now, I'll just use the wired connection with the usb converter.

Now I need to research and find some good fans for cooling, I've got a cheap clip on fan, but I think I can find something a little more powerful that will do a better job.

I'll get some pictures and a description of my final configuration up in a couple days.

Originally Posted by BigAl07

that's one thing that really worries me is Temp over-run or short-run!!

Allen, my solution for avoiding over-temp is to use a heater with an internal thermostat. I set it a little above the shut off in the controller so if the controller messes up, the heater's thermostat will shut it down before it goes much higher.

[BigAl07]

Sounds great Mark!

That's how I have my heater set as well. I have them both set to 82 degrees just in case.

Can't wait till you get it!!

[Octoman]

Now that I'm thinking about it, a usb bluetooth adapter is like $10 on ebay, I wonder if the serial bluetooth adapter could communicate with aquanotes through this...

[BigAl07]

Bro I've tried and tried it! Heck if you'll give it a GOOD try I'll ship my stuff to you so you can experiment with it. I don't have built in bluetooth either so I bought the "Bluetooth" dongle and all that stuff.

[Octoman]

I may take you up on that Allen. If I could get it to work, then I could ship it back to you and get my own setup. If not, then I send it back and I didn't blow the $75 on trying...

[BigAl07]

Drop me a PM with your shipping information and I'll try to get it all together tonight and out to you tomorrow.

[Octoman]

It's here!!!

First note, buy the serial cable from neptune. The controller has a mini-din 8 serial port and you need their cable to adapt from this to DB9. I thought it was something else and I had serial cables around already. Oh well, that will be here first thing next week. I can do the programming manually just fine and it will be good to get the hang of the controls on the ACjr first before using Aquanotes to do it.

Gotta go make dinner and then get going on setup! I'll post more tomorrow...