FarmerTy

Please do! I'm tired of looking at that thing already. [emoji6]

Traced it back to issues with the wifi and my carrier at the house. Causes the whole system to freeze up. There have been a couple other reports with Cerebra owners and Time Warner Cable internet.

To me, I think there are better exploits to be had by hacking a phone or tablet with android than a reef tank controller. And since I haven't had an android phone hacked in the 4-5 years since I've had one, I like my odds up to this point.But it definitely is a risk... I just consider it a very small one but worth the effort to at least bring up for discussion for sure.

I'll take a tank full of SPS any day over a tank of zoas. At least I know what to give them and they'll be happy.

I've never heard of FTN Dan! What kind of SPS circles are you hanging around? [emoji12] I think most use RTN for rapid tissue necrosis but there's no standard so moot point.

Those are the exact medias I use in my tank, GFO for phosphates, biopellets for nitrates, and carbon for organics/toxins. I'd be surprised if high nitrates killed your fish... Perhaps an overdose of food and maybe ammonia poisoning? Only reason I say that is my fish have all been living in a tub for 6 months now and the nitrates are above 100 ppm and all fish are still alive. I have an achilles and powder blue in there as well as a myriad of angels and they are all fat and healthy.

Don't worry, we'll work all the kinks out so you can be sailing smooth within minutes out of the box. [emoji6]

Keep the foam! Its blue!

Hahahah. Please, FOWLR? You know I could never give up my GSP or Xenia Alright, give me a sandwich and you'll be forgiven for even joking about it.

FOWLR? That sound you just heard was me deleting your number from my phone... [emoji36]

Yeah, I couldn't kill my Oregon Tort even if I tried. I've had that thing for almost 6 years now! 4.7 dKh... whatever... Try again.

While I don't think it'll dethrone the king at its current beta stage, I do like the added competition like you said. We'll just all win out when the companies all try to win our favor.I definitely see potential with this thing. Updates are as simple as one touch of a button, open programming structure for those app nerds (imagine an app for water changes) and for the wannabe nerds life myself that only excel in stealing code, and a development team that is constantly on the Cerebra forum literally taking our "want lists" back to developers and programming the code into the next firmware revision after thorough testing. The collaborative effort between beta tester and developer is inspiring and I'm glad I have the opportunity to be in the frontline of it. Perfect example is someone wanting to hook up a Kessil. Since Vertex is just about to release the developer package to 3rd party peripheral companies, the hope is a lot of this will be taken care of via manufacturer. Some companies might just sit back and wait for the manufacturer to sort it out but the techs were on the forum asking about the Kessil, what type of hook up he was currently using, researched the connection, and provided a wiring solution to the poster. Then proceeded to say that he will push this to development and asked to give a 1-month timeframe to get the proprietary connector cable made for it. Wow! Instead of just waiting for Kessil to jump aboard the Cerebra train, they troubleshot it, developed their own cable, and is promising to have it ready and shipped in a month's time! I don't mean this statement to bash Apex as I still love my two units I'm running but I can't remember a time when I even had direct customer tech support from Neptune over the last 6 years other than here is your RMA and send the unit in. Both times, it cost me $150 for a full board replacement and a vague description on why they needed to replace the whole board. Neptune tech support consisted of jumping on the Neptune forum, not calling someone. I picked up the phone and called Vertex and one ring later, the same US tech support guy I see all over the Cerebra forum picked up the phone and walked me through the process. That easy. It was refreshing. Man, word must have got out that I'm a sucker for beer. [emoji4] I bet we can make that happen though I'm in the early hooking up stages of the controller myself. If you're available during the weekdays in the daytime, I can almost guarantee I can help. Otherwise, I may have to help remotely. [emoji6]

Just to add data, my DAM Blue got toasted in my frag tank when my alk hit 6 dKh. My alk dipped down to 4.8 dKh at times and the acros mostly survived. As a general observation, the aquacultured acros seemed to weather the alk swings in the frag tank better than the maricultured acros but that makes sense since the aquacultured ones had a longer time to adjust to tank conditions over the years.

I haven't seen them as often as I used to a the LFSs. I'm sure you could go to any of them and ask them to order one for you.

If you weren't sold in the first 20 seconds of it turning on, you must be a robot.

I should say I welcome others to add their experiences with their unit as well to this thread. This isn't intended to be just about my own interaction with the controller.

It's so advanced, it even knew who was controlling it! [emoji4]

My favorite interactions so far with the controller is the ease of adding probes and calibrating them, the ability to use a wireless USB mouse and keyboard with the system, and the fancy touchscreen. Alright, using the built-in browser was pretty cool too. I know some have installed angry birds just to say that they played it on their controller but I see no point. Though having the option to is cool though. My least favorite interactions so far is that the firmware was super outdated out of the box and needed to be updated ASAP. Unfortunately, the wi-fi is still giving me issues and causes my controller to lock up within a few minutes of being on. Once I turn it off, it is smooth sailing but it took a couple hours of tech support and trying to download firmware updates before it freezes before I could figure out what was wrong. At one point, the whole system crashed but fortunately the firmware update took care of the issue besides the lingering wi-fi issue. For now, I am connected via ethernet. I wanted to try the VNC connection out but sadly, I can only view it and not control the controller via my laptop. Basically, the VNC connection allows me to mirror the controller on my laptop or other device and control it remotely. While I can see my controller on my laptop, for some reason I can't control it like others can. I'm sure its user error on this one for me, unlike the wi-fi issue which I believe is a software issue. Anyways, I'm going to call it a night and if I have time sometime this weekend, start plugging in devices for it to control and program it. I was just happy to be able to get all my sensors (pH, ORP, and temp) hooked up and running on the system. Oh, I don't think I even mentioned but I'm running it on my frag tank for a long test period before it ever even sees my display tank. I like to experiment but I'm not crazy!

Hello ARC, I was willing to be a guinea pig for the new Vertex Cerebra controller that is coming out to market in beta form. It is android-based and packs a nice touch screen LCD. While I won't get into the technical details as you can look them up online, I will try to document my interaction with it for setup and programming. I unboxed it this late afternoon and started to set it up. Boxed Unboxed Screen and main head unit Connections on back of head unit (notice the wifi dongle included) Front of multibar (powerstrip with most of the connections for probes and sensors) Back of multibar where all the goodies get plugged into to. Regular powerstrip Temp probe with LED indicator lights

Superglue is my friend with STN... just glue the leading edge of the STN and most of the time, it'll stop it if the offending conditions are remedied. When the STN is just too far spread, I'll frag it up like Dan did. I did try the Lugols once Timfish and though I think in theory it should work, for my test run of it, it sadly didn't stop the STN. I'll give it another guy the next time though as I have faith.

Creepy, I just saw a woman walk by twice and two dogs. I feel like I'm watching an episode of Big Tank Brother.

Nitrates are easily removable via water changes. It appears as though your high nitrates were just a cause of the dead fish in the tank. If that's the case, I'd do a series of water changes to get your nitrate levels back to manageable levels again, @ 5 ppm. Nitrates are much easier to take care of because the percentage of water removed is equal to the percentage of nitrate level drop in the system. If you change 50% of your water, you'll see a corresponding 50% drop in your nitrate levels.

What are your actual levels for nitrates and phosphates? I wouldn't recommend running biopellets in those reactors, they don't tumble the best in them.

I'll take it too.

I'll take it.