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It looks a lot like the ReefBot I used to use. But it does seem to have better quality components, and looks a lot less "built in the garage." That sort of colormetric system should work well. The ReefBot did. Plus it uses standard reagents. The downside to the idea is all the little moving...

It seems the sell the "Compact" Theiling Rollermat still. But not great reviews. Leaning heavily toward to Red Sea. Looks like good quality, and it has nice warnings on when you need to change the roll.

The cords are not that long, and splicing in a properly waterproof extension might no be so easy. Perhaps a pipe instead. The powerhead would be on the back solid end wall but pointed down into a big 1.5" pipe. That pipe goes down the back, then forward under the rockwork to the front end of...

Any recommendations on a roller-mat brand/model?? Key issues for me: Strong and long lasting. Easy to find replacement fleece. The Deltec looks pretty good, but is on the high end. Red sea 1200 looks decent, but lots of parts. Clarisea (D&D) looks decent, but has a couple of bad reviews. The...

In a way I am glad everything is going wrong at once though. A series of repeated tank crashes would be far worse.

More bad luck. My cooling fan on the sump decided to die a couple days ago. So the cooling failed over those hot days. Tank temperature peaked at 83.7 degrees. And of course, no alarm from Apex. The recent crash caused all sorts of PH/etc complaints, so I turned it off. Oops. Ugh... Fish are...

I use a lot of Brute containers. Both 50G trash can for salt mixing, and a lot of brute bins for general garage storage. Never noticed a smell. You might go to home depot and sniff the Brute containers there. :-) See if they smell that way new. Is your brute trash can outdoors? It is actually...

It had problems 3 times. They were actually pretty good about quickly sending replacement parts. So no complaints on support, assuming you are a techie. Replacing a servo, pump, or reformatting/loading a new SD card was no big deal for me. But this last failure was a big leak in one of the...

Bought one! I had a reefbot for several years, but it eventually died. And not needed to test Alk/Ca myself put me out of the habit, so when it died, I mostly stopped testing. Bad idea. Been thinking about a Trident for a while. Sale made me do it.

Inrush is commonly in the 40 Amp range. Put 2-3 power supplies on there, and it really adds up. Short period, and limited by voltage drop over wiring, but still a lot for a little relay. Key is that if the relay does not contact properly, perhaps due to a bit of salt corrosion, it is enough to...

Be a bit careful with free dirt. It might have some interesting chemicals in it. If it is all below grade under a pond liner, no problem. Depends on use. u-save rockery has soil and delivers relatively small quantities (like 1 yard is ok). Not sure if they specifically sell fill-dirt though...

Opinion : Futile. Focus your effort on nutrient handling and cleanup crew. And a reminder : Best nutrient sink = coral.

Bluefish has a $100 version with no display. Considering you would use your phone app anyway, that is fine. Apex VDM is also $100. Another problem with the simple on/off is that LED power supplies have a lot of inrush current. A big system like mine could be rather hard on Apex relays...

I have been struggling with controller choice. I already have an Apex, but it has 0-10V outputs only, no PWM, plus the base unit only has 4 channels. Any my Apex is in the garage, far away from my display tank. The Bluefish does look like a very good option. It has everything you need, and is...

Should float really well when almost empty. The tank walls are not that thick. Might sink when full. You cannot put it in the ATO with the float sensor idea. It must be a fixed amount of liquid. Even evaporation throws it off a bit. Does not really have to be water though.

You could DIY something. Put your CO2 tank in a bucket of water with an Apex float switch. As CO2 tank goes empty, tank rises up, displaces less water, so water level goes down. Triggers float switch. Calibrate by adding a bit more/less water to the bucket. Standard Apex stuff only, no...

Remember that you have to clean the salt mixing tank. Your setup makes it look difficult. What I did is TEE off my RODI. One leg goes to RODI as normal, with a float valve. The back pressure auto-shutoff valve is connected to that. The other leg goes to the salt mixing tank. It has both a...

Curious: How are your snails? For me, a large quick Alk drop seems to stun and even kill my snails. Although 8.5 to 7 is not so bad.

The Apex hardware complaints were not really about the case. The older Apex units had rather cheap low-current relays, and there were quite a few failures. (I had this failure) The new ones are better, but still could be larger. The DOS peristaltic pumps need the head changed a lot. Cheap...

Fun! Long ago I made a DIY water depth sensor like the new ruler like LLS they are doing. (Using E-Tape liquid sensor + arduino) Acuracy was so-so. So I am interested in what Neptune will see in long term real use.