Aquarium controller or individual controllers?

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by Pan

Yes if i had the money i would get one

Re-read my initial post. I wanted to not concentrate on costs here. Only what is best for the tank's inhabitants.

[Pan]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Re-read my initial post. I wanted to not concentrate on costs here. Only what is best for the tank's inhabitants.

Again, as I've said in many posts previous. If i had the money i would get one...only to make things easier...they are NOT needed in my opinion. But if keeping things healthier in your tank means having a controller do things automatically for you which for a lot of people is what it takes to maintain the discipline in very aspect of tank upkeep then i think you would prosper. I use zeovit with the dosings required etc it is no problem to do the other few things manually that i need. I don't really have to monitor my ph...you'll find very few who really do monitor an established tank for this, my calcium and alk never really waiver (maybe between 460-470 or so) my alk is always bang on. I'm not convinced moon cycles do anything for a tank, even moon lights there is not really much literature beyond speculation as to whether this is to satisfy life cycle requirements of our tank inhabitants or purely aesthetics. timers control the lights as well as a controller for significantly less money, (aside from dimmable, which is a feature i don't utilize, you may). my zeovit reactor is on a timer that works flawlessly. I dose manually so no need for automation there, would be nice as in less work for me, but it's not really a big deal. I am not a gadget person so seeing my tank at home from the net is useless, most times if there was a problem I could not run home (school is far more important, as would work be than the tank...a shame but reality) to fix it if online monitoring alerted me of a problem. sms msg for a tank controller is simply appealing to the equipment people....which if this is your thing then by all means. the practicality of it is questioned in my mind...again to those who use this feature so be it. Salinity monitoring is useless beyond when you mix the water for me...with a top-off system you should be fine, even without as long as you top-off every day your fine. (manually i mean). For a big system with a lot of things plugged in, then i could see a benefit in consolidating everything into a controller, but if done properly (there are a lot, and i mean a lot of amazing timers on the market, i have all I need in them). It looks nicer than a lot of timers etc...but again that is if you use an ugly timer.
Proper utilization of cheap timers, a music board (forget the exact name) power switch thing (yep, technical i am) or two and some common sense and sticking to your guns with maintenance you are fine without. That last point is a good argument against zeo, fauna marine, etc as well...good housekeeping on the tank may be what makes these tanks work...with these systems you have to be very diligent...(yes I'm experimenting as to the benefits...) again. if you want a controller go ahead...do you NEED one..

No.