GHL ProfiLux a full product explanation

[Aqua-Digital]

Since coming onto CANREEF, lots of members have emailed and called us asking about the GHL ProfiLux aquarium computer system and what it can actually do for them and their aquarium. So we thought it was about time we posted a complete product review so you can have a great insight into this amazing aquarium control system.




As the ProfiLux system is quite in depth I apologize now for the length of the thread.

Firstly who is GHL?

GHL is a German company who specialize in environmental computer control systems, one being of course the ProfiLux. All its equipment is produced and designed in house in Germany.



In 2005 the GHL ProfiLux won the innovation award in Germany for technical achievement and product invention.



Ok so enough about the company and more about the product itself.

The ProfiLux Plus II in its raw form is a computer controlled aquatic controller that is designed without any further expansion to control pH and temperature and timing functions, but has the built in ability to control your whole tanks environment simply and reliably by either direct menu driven input of settings or as 99% of users do, connect the unit via either RS232 or USB to their computers to access a much wider range of features. In its advanced and upgraded form you can even connect via LAN or WLAN and access your whole system via the internet anywhere in the world and view and change your tank parameters. But for now lets keep things simple!

So you have a ProfiLux what can i do with it?

Well lets look at the computer interface. here is a screen shot.



This first shot shows your opening screen, here you can enter your global position which will become useful later if you choose to use the moon phase to full effect. But more importantly look to the left and you will see the menus where you can view and change parameters.

Ok moving on to inside the software and some of the functions you can do, here is another screen shot below



Here you have the pH screen. From here you can control all your pH requirements whether you want to control a calcium reactor or manage your aquariums parameters or both. As you can see it is controllable to 0.01 point and you can also have nocturnal differences set.

So the next screen shot shows the temperature screen.



Just as with the pH you can control the temperature anyway you like, you can have a fan or chiller and your heater plugged into the plug bar and then from this screen set how you want the controller to control your temperature to an accuracy you really won't find anywhere else, so no more light heating spikes or over heating thermostats, etc.

Next screen down shows the pump circulation control.



This screen is in the main used for when you have the Tunze pumps connected to the unit, this simple screen replaces the Tunze controller and gives you far greater control of your pumps, being able to program true tidal flow. You can also use this screen to program other pumps to come on and off as you so please. The ProfiLux is also designed to control all variable flow Tunze's including Nano's and Waveboxes.

Next screen down



This is where the ProfiLux gets a bit more unique. the screen above shows you how you can program various illumination cycles, above is showing a cycle that we use for demo that is turning on and off on a dimming cycle one of the effect lamps. So here you would program your main light, when it would come on and if you had dimmable lighting you can also program how long you want the light to take to come to full power or select the intensity you so choose on a 0% to 100% scale.

Next screen shot



This is probably the most asked about area, how do you tell the ProfiLux what to turn on and how do you control your pumps heaters etc? Well looking at above this is where you program the power bars to what you want each socket to do. So as you can see in the screen shot I have socket number 1 programmed to control pH upwards so here I would have maybe my kalk stirrer plugged into socket 1. Each socket can be programmed to anything the ProfiLux will allow you to do. when a socket is in the ON mode, a red dot appears to the left of the socket function as shown in socket 1.

Next screenshot



This comes into play for either your Nocturnal lighting or actinics or if you have an effect stick, you can program full moon phases so the lights come on to the intensity of the moon, i.e full moon = bright low moon = less light. You can also program cloudy days where the moon does not show at all.

Next shot



Now the cool stuff!! With a flash effect LED GHL stick or spot you can create full weather patterns including preprogrammed or random thunderstorms, so when the lights go down sit back and have a tropical storm roll over your tank with varying intensity. NO it does not scare your fish, we did much research into this and my tangs used to come out looking for food! i guess a reaction of nature.

The last screen



If you have the GHL dosing pump station also you can then fully control them from here, this is ideal for low nutrient systems and variable dosing of anything you like really!

OK well thats the main screen shot, there are more as you can see from the menus such as level control and maintenance programming etc but that should give you some idea.

The GHL can be pretty much expanded to what ever you desire, Calcium and Nitrate is being worked on but this will take time as the cost of reliable probes are still out of the reach to most hobbyists, the expansion card is built, just waiting for the probes!

So the ProfiLux can either be a simple pH controller right up to a fully networked global access aquarium computer system that automates your every need.

Prices start from $499 CAD so drop us a line or call us on 1613 424 1679 for more information

Best wishes
Michael

[midgetwaiter]

You know what feature I would really like with this is the ability to record water parameters over time. Grab a daily snapshot or something that I can then do whatever with.

Here's a techie speak explanation of what I want to do, maybe you can pass this on to GHL and see what they say.

Is there some kind of SDK available that would let me build a script that polls and records the values from the sensors? Even better are you running a common O/S on the computer like QNX or something so I can setup a job that will ship the info out to syslogd on my PC?

Thanks.

[Aqua-Digital]

Hi

The GHL has already a built in data log system that records data over a period of time that can be simply exported.

Hope this helps
Regards
Michael

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

Hi

The GHL has already a built in data log system that records data over a period of time that can be simply exported.

Hope this helps
Regards
Michael

I did see that but my understanding based on the manual was that it is user initiated, I'd like to be able to automate it.

[Aqua-Digital]

Hi

The manual does not cover later F/W updates.

The developers are working on al sorts of new and funky areas from full data logging and also AND/OR Logic functionalities.

i.e if X=1 and Y=0 then output will be 0 etc etc