Finally took the plunge into controllers!

K

knapp870

Member
Hey everyone!! I have been wanting a controller for a long time but was never willing to take the plunge. However, after a TON of research I have finally taken the plung and went with....wait for it.....The Reef Angel! After researching all the controllers, I really didnt see too many disadvantages to this controller, barring a little more work than some of the others may be to configure. Also, as I plan to sell my house and upgrade tanks in the next year or two, I saw that the Reef Angel would be able to grow with me with less cost, as opposed to something like the apex jr and came with more bells and whistles off the line for less cost than something like the full blown apex. Let me know any thoughts or questions you guys may have!

Also, if anyone else is using a Reef Angel I'd love to hear your story, experience, tips, etc. Thanks!
 
sk8rdn

sk8rdn

Has been struck by the ban stick
I will be interested to hear your reviews. I couldn't find many people who run them so I couldn't get reliable feedback.

....Salt Creep Is Everywhere!....
 
K

knapp870

Member
I was able to find many people that all had glowing reviews of it. I searched the reef angel site, reef central, several other sites as well. I plan on using it to control halides, cooling fans, pumps, skimmer, ATO, monitor ph and temp and access via web and smartphone. Also, I plan on adding some safety triggers such as turning off lights if temp gets too high, possibly leak detection, and add a feed mode, water change mode, etc. In addition to the base unit I purchased the wifi module, and moonlight led's to do a lunar cycle that follows the moon. Most people I talked to found that it has been very reliable and very scalable. The sky is the limit for the most part. I am also considering adding a vortech and use the new RF controller they have for that. In the future I will also probably use it to control dosing as well.
 
steved13

steved13

Well-Known Member
PREMIUM
Great, I'll be following along. Keep us updated, pros and cons (hopefully no cons, but everything has some bumps in the road).
 
K

knapp870

Member
Just a quick update. I ordered the Reef Angel Friday at about 4:15 CST. It then shipped from California Saturday and looks like it will be at my house tonight! That is a ~2 day turnaround!
 
sk8rdn

sk8rdn

Has been struck by the ban stick
Cool! You should make a video of the unboxing... So we can live it with you!

...."Fish" Happens!....
 
K

knapp870

Member
Sorry, I tried taking video but it was too awkward on the IPhone. However, here are some initial pictures:
ShippingBox.jpg

OpenBox.jpg

image13.jpg

First4.jpg

Controller.jpg

BoxInsideBox.jpg
 
K

knapp870

Member
So, last night I did the unboxing after work and began setting up the controller. So far, the only issue I have had was a problem with my ATT DSL router and the authentication/encryption it used. After I figured out how to change that, I was able to successfully get it connected to wifi and begin coding what I wanted the controller to do.

As of now, I have it set to control:
-my internal pumps
-return pump
-skimmer
-Customized a feed mode and water change mode
-controlling halides
-controlling moonlight leds that I ordered with the unit on a ramp up and ramp down setting
-I have it turning the fans on when temp gets to a certain level
-controlling heater with an emergency overheat setting that will turn off lights and heater if exceeds 84 degrees
-refugium light schedule opposite of halides.
--I would say that all of this took less than an hour or two for the "coding", the majority of my time was spent figuring out the wifi issue. I used the RAgen software to customize most of this and only had to modify 1 actual line of code manually for the Moonlight ramp up/down schedule

Still to do:
-Get phone connectivity set up when not on my home network(currently works when on home network)
-Set up Banner Bar status
-Set up Reef Angel client on laptop to control/monitor when not at home
-Set up ATO control however I'm not sure if I want to utilize this or continue utilizing my JBJ ATO. I may use the sensor as a high or low warning to know when JBJ is out of top off water or something along those lines
-Mount moonlights
-Calibrate PH probe and begin monitoring PH (I didn't have any calibration fluid and need to figure out where to get it)

Any suggestions, thoughts, questions are more than welcome!
 
sk8rdn

sk8rdn

Has been struck by the ban stick
knapp870 said:
So, last night I did the unboxing after work and began setting up the controller. So far, the only issue I have had was a problem with my ATT DSL router and the authentication/encryption it used. After I figured out how to change that, I was able to successfully get it connected to wifi and begin coding what I wanted the controller to do.

As of now, I have it set to control:
-my internal pumps
-return pump
-skimmer
-Customized a feed mode and water change mode
-controlling halides
-controlling moonlight leds that I ordered with the unit on a ramp up and ramp down setting
-I have it turning the fans on when temp gets to a certain level
-controlling heater with an emergency overheat setting that will turn off lights and heater if exceeds 84 degrees
-refugium light schedule opposite of halides.
--I would say that all of this took less than an hour or two for the "coding", the majority of my time was spent figuring out the wifi issue. I used the RAgen software to customize most of this and only had to modify 1 actual line of code manually for the Moonlight ramp up/down schedule

Still to do:
-Get phone connectivity set up when not on my home network(currently works when on home network)
-Set up Banner Bar status
-Set up Reef Angel client on laptop to control/monitor when not at home
-Set up ATO control however I'm not sure if I want to utilize this or continue utilizing my JBJ ATO. I may use the sensor as a high or low warning to know when JBJ is out of top off water or something along those lines
-Mount moonlights
-Calibrate PH probe and begin monitoring PH (I didn't have any calibration fluid and need to figure out where to get it)

Any suggestions, thoughts, questions are more than welcome!
Click to expand...

Wow, quick setup...
And don't feel bad, it seems network connectivity is the bane controller existence. No matter the brand, someone here has had major issues with wireless...

...."Fish" Happens!....
 
Built347

Built347

Has been struck by the ban stick
My apex was kindof a pain to hook in the the network... if I remember correctly Matt had a few issues with his controller too... haha!

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2
 
K

knapp870

Member
Ya, the issue that I had was that my ATT DSL router was using WEP encryption and it needed to use WPA-2 encryption. However, once I figured that out, I couldn't figure out where to change it in the settings. Finally, after some googling, I found a manual that showed a tab within a tab that I had missed! Once I changed that, it was easy peasy lemon sqeezy! haha. I really like how easy setting the majority of the parameters were for lights on/off, temp precautions, email notifications, pumps, feeding/water change modes and uploading the settings/code to the controller. Things I don't like include the ATO sensors not coming with mounting brackets, no calibration fluid for the ph meter, no brackets for temp or ph probes and the length of the cable on the ATO sensors and leds. However, some of this is by design so that you have flexibility on how you use the sensors. For example the ATO sensors can be used to sense high water, low water, etc (think blocked U-tubes, top off malfunction or dry top off container). The flexibility of being able to code what you want certain things to mean is what is probably the best part and I see being able to grow with me as my tank and needs grow.

I'm glad to hear that even the more main stream controllers have had similar issues. However, so far at the ~$330 price tag I'm pretty happy :)
 
Built347

Built347

Has been struck by the ban stick
Wow 330$.. I've got 1000 into the apex.... I'm tuned In.. I want to see what that thing can do... when I was shopping there was very little info on the reef angels.. and nobody on the forum stepped up to talk about there's....

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2
 
K

knapp870

Member
Widget.jpg

This is the new windows widget I got for the Reef Angel that monitors tank temp. You can expand it to see status of ports
Client.jpg

Here is a remote client for monitoring and making updates via wifi or usb.
 
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