So for my birthday my fiance got me a reef angel plus controller and I figured I'd do a review on it since I haven't seen one for it.
I was looking at the Apex and Reef Angel I ended up going with the Reef Angel because it supported my current PWM drivers out of the box.
I ended up ggetting the Reef Angel Plus with the following options:
-Wifi Module
-Additional Relay Box
After getting this up and running I realized I should have done this sooner.
I've been into fish for a long time. From freshwater african cichlids, Oscars, Convicts, Stingrays, Rams,planted tanks, and Breeding Discus to FOWLR tanks, and reef tanks for about 16 years now.
My current profession is a car salesman for going on 5 years now and my hours are nuts. Just to give you an example this is my typical schedule.
Monday: 9am - 9pm
Tuesday: 9am - 4pm
Wednesday: 12pm - 9pm
Thursday off
Friday: 1pm-9pm
Saturday:8:30am - 6pm
Sundays: Off
This doesn't include the times I come in on appointments. We are comission based so no sales = no pay. So those are the times I'm required to be at work.
The RA has made everything easier on me and my fiance.
One of the things I've read was that the Reef Angel is tough to program and setup. This is far from being true.
If you go on the RA website you can download the manuals on how to set it up and it takes you step by step really fool proof.
It has a wizard where it takes you step by step on your equipment and you tell it what you want it to do and then it does all the coding for you and uploads it for you.
If for some reason you do have an issue you go on to the forum and they help you out in a timely manner.
I did have to use the forum because certain items weren't showing up in the portal and my banner wasn't working. It was because I didn't setup the wifi module right and after Roberto replied I got it up and running in no time.
Here is my current reef setup.
120 Gallon tank with a 20 gallon long sump.
2 Brute cans on each side of the tank( one RO, one SW mix)
2 Rapid Led fixtures
2 kent reactors
4 power heads
1 heater
1 Return pump
1 Skimmer
So with the RA my water changes have gotten easier. 1 Button on the reef angel or on my phone and my pumps,skimmer and power heads shut off.
Since I have a premixed brute can of saltwater. After I clean my tank I just have to press 1 button on my phone and it starts to fill up my tank, with my ATO it turns off the pump without me having to watch it. I still do though since I'm usually doing other things while its top off the tank. Then after 15 minutes (which you can change) it turns on my return pump,and power heads. 1 Minute later I have it set to turn on my skimmer so that the water level gets back to a stable level in the sump.
Feeding is easier since again a button press turns off my pumps,skimmer and power heads. Then my fish swim to the top I feed them and 4 minutes later everything turns back on 5 mintues later the skimmer turns on. If I'm stuck with a guest at work I just text the fiance and she feeds them the exact same way. Before she wouldn't feed them because she didn't want to mess anything up.
The ATO is probably one of the parts that really helped me out. Since I redid my 20 gallon sump to fit my Diablo. I've lost some of that oh crap room incase the power goes out (bad planning on my end).
Well now I only have about a 1.5 gallon gap so if I top off more then 1.5 gallons and the power goes out I'll have a mess in my tank and probably the carpet.
Setting up the ATO I know when my tank is topping off and don't have to worry about if I added too much water. Not to mention sometimes if I got stuck at work or went into work early and didn't have time to top it off I'd come home to my pump sucking in air.
Yesterday I was at work and my ATO went off and I cleared it from my phone and I got another alert that the ATO went off again. So I went home ( I live 7 mintues from work ) and found that the hose came off the pump and was siphoning into my sump. This saved my from having 44ish gallons of RO/DI water on my floor.
Another thing I can wait for is I'm going to order the salinity module and you can program it that if your salinity falls below a specific level you set that it will top your tank off with the premade saltwater instead of RO.
IMHO well worth the investment.
If any of you have any questions let me know and I'll try and answer them.
I was looking at the Apex and Reef Angel I ended up going with the Reef Angel because it supported my current PWM drivers out of the box.
I ended up ggetting the Reef Angel Plus with the following options:
-Wifi Module
-Additional Relay Box
After getting this up and running I realized I should have done this sooner.
I've been into fish for a long time. From freshwater african cichlids, Oscars, Convicts, Stingrays, Rams,planted tanks, and Breeding Discus to FOWLR tanks, and reef tanks for about 16 years now.
My current profession is a car salesman for going on 5 years now and my hours are nuts. Just to give you an example this is my typical schedule.
Monday: 9am - 9pm
Tuesday: 9am - 4pm
Wednesday: 12pm - 9pm
Thursday off
Friday: 1pm-9pm
Saturday:8:30am - 6pm
Sundays: Off
This doesn't include the times I come in on appointments. We are comission based so no sales = no pay. So those are the times I'm required to be at work.
The RA has made everything easier on me and my fiance.
One of the things I've read was that the Reef Angel is tough to program and setup. This is far from being true.
If you go on the RA website you can download the manuals on how to set it up and it takes you step by step really fool proof.
It has a wizard where it takes you step by step on your equipment and you tell it what you want it to do and then it does all the coding for you and uploads it for you.
If for some reason you do have an issue you go on to the forum and they help you out in a timely manner.
I did have to use the forum because certain items weren't showing up in the portal and my banner wasn't working. It was because I didn't setup the wifi module right and after Roberto replied I got it up and running in no time.
Here is my current reef setup.
120 Gallon tank with a 20 gallon long sump.
2 Brute cans on each side of the tank( one RO, one SW mix)
2 Rapid Led fixtures
2 kent reactors
4 power heads
1 heater
1 Return pump
1 Skimmer
So with the RA my water changes have gotten easier. 1 Button on the reef angel or on my phone and my pumps,skimmer and power heads shut off.
Since I have a premixed brute can of saltwater. After I clean my tank I just have to press 1 button on my phone and it starts to fill up my tank, with my ATO it turns off the pump without me having to watch it. I still do though since I'm usually doing other things while its top off the tank. Then after 15 minutes (which you can change) it turns on my return pump,and power heads. 1 Minute later I have it set to turn on my skimmer so that the water level gets back to a stable level in the sump.
Feeding is easier since again a button press turns off my pumps,skimmer and power heads. Then my fish swim to the top I feed them and 4 minutes later everything turns back on 5 mintues later the skimmer turns on. If I'm stuck with a guest at work I just text the fiance and she feeds them the exact same way. Before she wouldn't feed them because she didn't want to mess anything up.
The ATO is probably one of the parts that really helped me out. Since I redid my 20 gallon sump to fit my Diablo. I've lost some of that oh crap room incase the power goes out (bad planning on my end).
Well now I only have about a 1.5 gallon gap so if I top off more then 1.5 gallons and the power goes out I'll have a mess in my tank and probably the carpet.
Setting up the ATO I know when my tank is topping off and don't have to worry about if I added too much water. Not to mention sometimes if I got stuck at work or went into work early and didn't have time to top it off I'd come home to my pump sucking in air.
Yesterday I was at work and my ATO went off and I cleared it from my phone and I got another alert that the ATO went off again. So I went home ( I live 7 mintues from work ) and found that the hose came off the pump and was siphoning into my sump. This saved my from having 44ish gallons of RO/DI water on my floor.
Another thing I can wait for is I'm going to order the salinity module and you can program it that if your salinity falls below a specific level you set that it will top your tank off with the premade saltwater instead of RO.
IMHO well worth the investment.
If any of you have any questions let me know and I'll try and answer them.
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