Reef Keeper Lite Reviewed

The Reef Keeper Lite is the first controller I have tested out after resisting dropping the money on something I had thought of as only a luxury item, and it surprises me at every turn. when I thought of a controller, I always assumed I was paying a premium for a fancy timer, but boy was I wrong!

I started out by connecting it in the fashion that is most common. I hooked up the included temperature probe and set the controller to turn my heater on and off when the temperature changed. what I didn't count on is the probe reading in tenths of degrees and being able to control the heater in the same. It easily keeps the tank temperature with a tenth of the degree I set no matter what ambient temperature is doing.

I also connected all my lights and streamlined my set-up as far as timers go. This is where I left it for about a week as I read through the manual and looked at the upgrade options it has, but as I was reading I found some shocking options. The Reef Keeper Lite can control the included sockets in one second intervals. This means that it can easily be used as a finely tuned dosing system if mated with some lifter pumps and chemical containers.

I couldn't resist the urge to try it out, so I mixed up some chemical for A & B parts in one gallon jugs and picked up a couple of dosing pumps. Part A (Calcium) is set to kick on at nine, and part B (Alkalinity) is set to kick on at ten to prevent mixing of the two. As with all dosing I started out on the low side and slowly worked my way up to maintain the levels I was after, and after about a month of running the system it is still maintaining my levels at all times. The Reef Keeper Lite is the most amazing addition I have ever made to my reef, and for about $100 it's much cheaper than some of the other equipment.

There are also many upgrades available for the system, and I'm already looking at adding additional plugs, ph and salinity monitoring and the internet box to keep me updated on the go.

 

Great write up thanks for sharing

 

No problem. It's hard to choose one of these for your reef, so hopefully this helps someone pick easier.

 

I bought mine in December of 2010, and love it! Makes things sooo much easier, and at $159 with FREE pH probe, SL1 upgrade and upgraded temp probe (from MarineDepot.com)...couldn't pass that up! Now I just need to buy some more stuff to justify buying more modules for the RKL! ;D

 

Very good review. I'm very happy with my RKL. I think it is the best bang for the buck in controllers. There are certainly extra frills things that would be nice, but it does everything I *need* and then some, for a lot less than anything else that had functions I needed.

 

Update:

Recently I reviewed the Reef Keeper Lite, and came to the conclusion that it is an amazing controller at an amazing price with tons of amazing features, but I hadn't even scratched the surface yet. From the moment I bought it, I was planning on adding more modules to get the most out of the system, and that is just what I've done. I started by adding another PC4 to get an additional 4 sockets to control. This is a pretty standard upgrade that doesn't add much in the way of new features, but gave me enough sockets to control all of my lights on separate times. Next I decided to add the moonlight package. This is where the tank really starts to feel computer controlled. They are designed to simulate a full lunar cycle by changing brightness levels each night, and but as soon as I installed them I noticed the control unit having some problems. Night mode wouldn't operate properly, so I decided to finally put teh time into updating the firmware for all units. This is no easy task, because every unit must be plugged directly into a computer loaded with Reef 2.0 (Free from Digital Aquatics) to update. After getting this done, all was running smooth, and that's when the magic really started to happen. I loaded Reef 2.0 for the sole purpose of getting the controller running properly, but I didn't realize how powerful the software is. All settings in the Reef Keeper can be changed from the computer via Reef 2.0, and everything can be monitored from the computer as well. It's graphing capabilities are particularly useful in seeing heater efficiency. Graphs of temperature and heater use can be monitored side by side to see exactly how much swing your temperature has and how fast. The only thing lacking in this equation is the controllers lack of ability to log data while a computer is not attached. With a cheap net book that was an easy fix though, and I now have access to a graph of temperatures over recent history whenever I wish.

 

Another thread that is going to end with me going further in debt, lol. Does anyone know how the salinity monitor is with the RKL? I thought I read somewhere they were not 100%?

 

That's the next unit I'm planning on buying, so I should have a review on it soon.