Inadequate Aquaray Controllers

[DeannaDeanna]

Over the years, I have relied upon your judgement of products and have purchased many items from you as a result. I also reference your knowledgeable website on forums such as TPT forum. I still do think you are an outstanding source of info and products.





With this in mind, I would like to ask that you consider developing a source for an alternative controller, for the Aquaray lights, than the Aquaray controllers. A friend recently purchased the standard, two-channel, controller for his AquaBeam 600 Ultima (recommended by me) and became so frustrated with it, today, that he gave it to me (I have two AquaBeam 600 Ultimas – purchased from you). I can now see why he gave up on it.





This Aquaray controller is designed all around a moonlight cycle. As you know, for freshwater-planted tanks, the concept of the moonlight cycle is a joke (maybe in marine settings as well). It has no value other than aesthetically pleasing the human looking at the tank. There is no way to avoid the moonlight function in this controller. It is bound-up (a VERY strong chelator) with the single-event time period and prevents a dimming at the end of the photoperiod other than the 15-minute fixed dimming in the moonlight cycle. This is an exceptionally primitive and very limited controller. Frankly, I’m surprised that TMC allowed themselves to be degraded by such a childish approach to the control of their excellent lighting.

[Carl]

Actually the main use of this controller is around a solar time of ramping up and down. The Lunar feature is only available on the Smart Controller 8 (which it is but a feature, not the main function), not the standard controllers or previous multi controller

I would agree that the need for a Lunar Cycle is usually not needed but for high end coral rearing

Sorry you were provided with incorrect information.

I would agree though that the AquaRay Controllers do not have many buttons, and rely heavily a few buttons for the features. This said, the AquaRay Controller is one of the few that utilizes PWM which is superior for spectral quality as well as light efficiency

We provide downloads of instruction manuals should you not have one here:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Downloads.html#aquaray_controller

As well this video for the multicontroller shows how to utilize the basic controller too (neither utilizes lunar cycles)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecR3a7Vzhz8

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

May 18, 2017 14:48:33 GMT -5 DeannaDeanna said:

Over the years, I have relied upon your judgement of products and have purchased many items from you as a result. I also reference your knowledgeable website on forums such as TPT forum. I still do think you are an outstanding source of info and products.





With this in mind, I would like to ask that you consider developing a source for an alternative controller, for the Aquaray lights, than the Aquaray controllers. A friend recently purchased the standard, two-channel, controller for his AquaBeam 600 Ultima (recommended by me) and became so frustrated with it, today, that he gave it to me (I have two AquaBeam 600 Ultimas – purchased from you). I can now see why he gave up on it.





This Aquaray controller is designed all around a moonlight cycle. As you know, for freshwater-planted tanks, the concept of the moonlight cycle is a joke (maybe in marine settings as well). It has no value other than aesthetically pleasing the human looking at the tank. There is no way to avoid the moonlight function in this controller. It is bound-up (a VERY strong chelator) with the single-event time period and prevents a dimming at the end of the photoperiod other than the 15-minute fixed dimming in the moonlight cycle. This is an exceptionally primitive and very limited controller. Frankly, I’m surprised that TMC allowed themselves to be degraded by such a childish approach to the control of their excellent lighting.

I use this controller and was able to set it up easily. I'm not sure what you're talking about with the moonlight function. Mine just have a ramp up feature and ramp down for certain time periods. You could ramp down to a certain %, but I ramp down to 0%. So, I don't have moonlight. I would think you and your friend could easily do the same.

I do know it's a feature in their newer controller, with a 365 lunar cycle, but it is more of a user feature, as in that's what people have been looking for in features and it's nothing we had before like with T5. There is some science to moon lighting though. But obviously not required.

[Carl]

Also the Smart Controller 8 (not the basic controller) can only perform lunar functions when connected to a pc, not out of the box.

Personally, I have used basic grounded timers for years (decades actually), with multiples to stagger times off & on.
This still works for any brand LED and in fact with other brands that do not utilize PWM (which is the vast majority) would be better than utilizing built in times since these other brands are much less efficient when being dimmed via current reduction
Reference:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html#led

Carl

[DeannaDeanna]

I think that you both are referring to the previous model. The brand new basic controller has the moonlight aspect to it that I described above. Somehow, my friend received this newly shipped model (I'll ask him where he got it).

Carl: Yes, I understand the benefit of the PWM control. I figured that you might have access to alternative controllers that would have this capability.

[Carl]

There must be something faulty about this model.
We have them currently in testing (they are not even for sale yet in North America), and so far our testing does not show a true Lunar feature. Likely as with the Smart Controller 8, it has to be set up via a PC to even use this feature, assuming it even exists on this newest controller (which I have doubts here)

Honestly something is very fishy here. First you mention the standard controller (which does not even offer this feature), now it is the newest controller which was just sent to us for testing, and has yet to be officially released for the North American market


Carl

[Carl]

In looking at this newest basic controller, there is a moon phase, but not a true lunar cycle (which would need to be set to a lunar calender to be a true lunar cycle). It simply has a moon phase, which is a fancy way of calling a more dimmed lights, which all the previous models and other brand controllers can be set to to as well. You can go past this too with simply turning your lights to off after dimming.

This still does not change the fact this controller is not even out for the NA market and the previous controllers have been sold in the 100s and we have used and tested them and this problem has NEVER presented itself.

Carl

[DeannaDeanna]

Don’t get tripped up in semantics. I called it a “standard” controller because it is the lowest basic model they offer. I then called it the “newest” controller because it has the “Moonlight” feature and TMC has stated that this is their newly introduced model. He got his directly from aquaraylighting.com, so they must have direct access to TMC. It was purchased in North America. So it is in our market.

It has no option to connect to a computer and the directions make no mention of this. They do not claim that it is a lunar cycle. It is a “Moonlight” (their words) setting that needs to be placed within the single-event time period. There is nothing faulty about my model (other than the logic used in its’ timer design). It is performing as per the instructions.

You are right: their “Moonlight” is a fancy way of saying a time period with a dimmer. The problem is that it has a fixed 15-minute dimmer and disrupts the one time period they do provide, by forcing it to be inserted within that single time period.

I wasn’t so much interested in talking about this weak controller as I was in seeing if you were aware of any PWM controllers that might work with these lights.

[Carl]

These are not supposed to be currently available in NA as we are still testing this mode.

I know you state you are not interested in talking about this "weak controller" but I am telling you this controller has not even been officially released. If you were to read our Mission Statement you would know that we test most products we sell and this one is no different.
So the facts remain the current controllers are set to to standard solar time cycle as is this newest one with the dimming time on the new controller (again not yet released) simply called moonlight, but as with all other controllers is simply a dimmed phase and works very well.

Sorry, I have always tried to get correct information forward, and this goes for these controllers, so you are certainly entitled to call this newest controller weak, but this has not been the case in our testing and again it is not even available yet and blunt terms to state it is built around a moonlight cycle (which would imply a lunar cycle) is simply untrue

To have a controller set to a moonlight cycle it would have to do this which this controller does not do:
stardate.org/nightsky/moon

Further reading:
www.fish-as-pets.com/2010/09/aquarium-moon-lights.html

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

There isn't another PWM controller that we would recommend with the TMC brand. We'd recommend just not using the controller and using an standard on/off timer before using another brand that could void the warranties. What we've done with this new controller, it's been very straight forward just like the last model, so I can't explain why there's an issue. My suggestion is to ask the person the controller was purchased from. We're soon to have a video released on how to set this controller up, which all I can suggest is maybe waiting for the video. AAP is still the main distributor for this brand. It's a little concerning this new site popped up and is being ran out of a home with no support, with now people having to ask us for support. Best advice is to stick with AAP as we have the most info and support.

[DeannaDeanna]

Thanks, John. That's the info I was looking for.

I didn't purchase this, it was given to me by a friend. Nor was I looking for support on it, although I look forward to your upcoming video. All that I wanted was an alternative. It does seem that Amazon has some LED PWM controllers that might work on aquarium LED lights. Since they are so cheap, I can try it without much risk.

As far as this newer controller is concerned, the user manual (a small black pamphlet) states that the "Moon" setting MUST be placed after the primary "On" time and before the "Off" time. That puts it inside the primary photoperiod, which disrupts that photoperiod. My friend did contact TMC and they stated that this is an unanticipated problem that they are working on.

I assumed that the new site was an Aquaray site but, if not, and you are supposed to have exclusivity, it's a good idea to look into it.

[saw]

Hi Deanna,

I have tested the controller and will be posting a video soon on setup and use of the controller for AAP. From what I have discovered in my limited use of this new standard controller is that you are correct that the moon light can only be set in the photo frame period at this time. This makes it so the ramp is only useful when the lights are coming on, unless you set your moon light level to 10 and set your desired off time. This will not allow a moon light faze as you said you were not interested in. Another option is to set your moon light level to 0 and the light will turn off at the moon faze.

For people who want moon light;
My suggestion for someone who wants moon light would be to set the moon light when they want the lights to dim for the night and then off when they want the moon light off (this can be set just before the lights come on if needed).

Thanks, Steven

[Carl]

Basically what Steven is stating is this flow chart for choice one (for NO moon light phase):

ON --> then Moonlight at 100% (basically no difference in other words from daytime) --> then ramp down --> then off

-->Then ramp on --> then ON once more

This is different from all their other controller as per the flow chart, which admittedly a strange flow chart, but this still does not force a moon light phase if not desired

This is why again that we test and why it is important for persons to purchase from authorized websites that perform these tests rather than bargain shops or fly by night online sellers that make up official sounding names.
The majority of our days here are spent in research and testing along with answering questions, NOT sales. We could match these same prices if we cut our staff by 2/3 and provided no information web pages, research, testing, etc..
But there is a cost to this and even though we purchase at highest volumes and pass these prices on, resulting on a margin of only $15 per $100, we cannot provide even these answers if we were to follow the business model of these discounters or in this case I would call this web site a scammer

Honestly it still amazes me to this day of late how many will purchase from scammers, Amazon, etc then come to us via email, forums, YouTube comments for help after they bought a product we did not sell them. I do understand you personally did not purchase this, but I am really surprised at your friend purchasing an un tested product from a clearly scam web site when our web site comes up in good interent search


Carl

[DeannaDeanna]

Thanks. I figured out a way to extend the dimming to the normal ramp time: set the “Moon” ON time to the time that the normal dimming should begin and the “Moon” RAMP to 10 (whatever “10” is – seems like about 50% normal light when it completes). For example; if the normal RAMP is 45 minutes, and you want it off at 10:00, set the “Moon” ON time to 9:15. The 15-minute “Moon” RAMP will then drop it down over 15 minutes, beginning at 9:15, and hold it at the “Moon” 10 dim setting for another 15 minutes beginning at 9:30. Then a final 15-minute dimming begins at 9:45 with complete off at 10:00. Convoluted, but it’s the best this poorly designed thing can do.

Regarding your resource drain, I told my friend to buy it from you, but he went to that Aquaray website (for price) which, to me, looks like a legitimate TMC-authorized website – not a scammer. I hope you address that if they aren’t legitimate. In any case, I got a free controller (he almost threw it at me out of frustration), but I don’t like it much more than him. Since I bought the Grobeams from you, I didn’t hesitate to ask if you were aware of alternate controllers for them.

I don’t think that you should be surprised that people come to you with questions. Your site does look more like an information site than a sales site. So, it seems natural that people would ask for advice and make comments on topics that you discus in your webpages. Maybe you should eliminate the forum to limit this and just answer emails from verifiable customers or for pre-sales questions.

[devonjohnsgard]

Glad you got it working.

They made a real nice site, but are a discount site. That can be seen, but the place they do business from. We are working with our distributor and TMC about it.

You're last statement is the problem. People find out the information from our site, shop for price, disregarding who they learned the information from, then when they can't get support come to us to ask questions. Why wasn't the place this was purchased from asked for help? That seems odd. We do provide the most information on all items we supply. We can't do away from the forum as this is where we handle set-up questions for the items purchased from us. And other topics such as fish health.

[Carl]

May 22, 2017 16:26:23 GMT -5 DeannaDeanna said:

Thanks. I figured out a way to extend the dimming to the normal ramp time: set the “Moon” ON time to the time that the normal dimming should begin and the “Moon” RAMP to 10 (whatever “10” is – seems like about 50% normal light when it completes). For example; if the normal RAMP is 45 minutes, and you want it off at 10:00, set the “Moon” ON time to 9:15. The 15-minute “Moon” RAMP will then drop it down over 15 minutes, beginning at 9:15, and hold it at the “Moon” 10 dim setting for another 15 minutes beginning at 9:30. Then a final 15-minute dimming begins at 9:45 with complete off at 10:00. Convoluted, but it’s the best this poorly designed thing can do.

This is another way to explain the schematic Steven provided us with

Regarding your resource drain, I told my friend to buy it from you, but he went to that Aquaray website (for price) which, to me, looks like a legitimate TMC-authorized website – not a scammer.

This is what you get when your friend shops at a discounter or scammer, a product without all the bugs worked out.
Little we can do on the scammer side, but as Devon noted, scammers do the best they can to disguise who they are. It was difficult to find much of anything about them including any real warranty help.
But people would not get caught by scammers if they were not in the first place trying to get unreal deals (why would you buy your Rolex Watch for a price that is unreasonable from someone that there is no background on with no warranty servicing abilities???)

Your site does look more like an information site than a sales site. So, it seems natural that people would ask for advice and make comments on topics that you discus in your webpages. Maybe you should eliminate the forum to limit this and just answer emails from verifiable customers or for pre-sales questions.

Our website is very clear who we are, even down to very personal information.
Most know this and in fact we are attacked for our information just because many know that we DO SELL product such as AquaRay (somehow that makes our information illegitimate like my decades of experience and research should make us sell anything but what I would use for our clients.

Our Mission Statement & Bio:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumBio.html

BTW, our website has noted for years that you can use a grounded household timer to control the AquaRay lights & not cause issues with circuitry.
We have NEVER had a hard sell to purchase ANY of the AquaRay controllers as I personally have in 100s of light systems over the years just using grounded timers staggered to get the right effect for my clients.
Point being is there is no reason to purchase an AquaRay controller if all you want is on & off and varied amounts of lighting when on.

From the web page:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/LEDLights.html

Finally, I will admit though that I am very grateful that you did at least recommend us to your friend.

Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

Here's the video demo done by Steven

[Chuck Privitera]

I bought two Aquaray 2000 tiles last summer and mounted them in a canopy 10 inches above my 60 gallon Mixed Reef aquarium. The aquarium is 48 inches long, 13 inches wide by 21 inches deep. The lights are cycled on and off by my Apex controller with the East side turning on about an hour before the West side; and turning off an hour before the West side. Overall run time is 9 hours per day at full intensity. This looks great and my corals seem to love it but so does algae. I'm thinking about getting a controller for simple ramp-up and ramp-down along with potentially reducing the intensity. Before I take the plunge, I have a couple questions: 1) Will a controller help reduce nuisance algae? and 2) Will one standard controller suffice for my application?

[devonjohnsgard]

Jun 5, 2020 11:57:38 GMT -5 Chuck Privitera said:

I bought two Aquaray 2000 tiles last summer and mounted them in a canopy 10 inches above my 60 gallon Mixed Reef aquarium. The aquarium is 48 inches long, 13 inches wide by 21 inches deep. The lights are cycled on and off by my Apex controller with the East side turning on about an hour before the West side; and turning off an hour before the West side. Overall run time is 9 hours per day at full intensity. This looks great and my corals seem to love it but so does algae. I'm thinking about getting a controller for simple ramp-up and ramp-down along with potentially reducing the intensity. Before I take the plunge, I have a couple questions: 1) Will a controller help reduce nuisance algae? and 2) Will one standard controller suffice for my application?

Chuck,

If the aquarium was set up in the last year, there's a good chance of the aquarium getting algae. You need the light for the corals, which means the algae will come. Ramping the lights may help, but it will just be that much less light the corals would get.

Here's some tips to make sure your taking care of as algae can have many causes.

www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2008/04/aquarium-algae.html

I would also consider GFO in a reaction chamber and a UV sterilizer rated for the aquarium size, but running at a fast flow rate. This fast rate will keep up with the reproduction of the algae which is quick.

[Carl]

Jun 6, 2020 11:58:34 GMT -5 devonjohnsgard said:

Jun 5, 2020 11:57:38 GMT -5 Chuck Privitera said:

I bought two Aquaray 2000 tiles last summer and mounted them in a canopy 10 inches above my 60 gallon Mixed Reef aquarium. The aquarium is 48 inches long, 13 inches wide by 21 inches deep. The lights are cycled on and off by my Apex controller with the East side turning on about an hour before the West side; and turning off an hour before the West side. Overall run time is 9 hours per day at full intensity. This looks great and my corals seem to love it but so does algae. I'm thinking about getting a controller for simple ramp-up and ramp-down along with potentially reducing the intensity. Before I take the plunge, I have a couple questions: 1) Will a controller help reduce nuisance algae? and 2) Will one standard controller suffice for my application?

Chuck,

If the aquarium was set up in the last year, there's a good chance of the aquarium getting algae. You need the light for the corals, which means the algae will come. Ramping the lights may help, but it will just be that much less light the corals would get.

Here's some tips to make sure your taking care of as algae can have many causes.

www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2008/04/aquarium-algae.html

I would also consider GFO in a reaction chamber and a UV sterilizer rated for the aquarium size, but running at a fast flow rate. This fast rate will keep up with the reproduction of the algae which is quick.

Besides Devon's answer, I will add that the Standard Controller would suffice.