11-14-2021, 11:21 PM
Hi Jmgr, welcome to the forum and I hope the controller arrives soon.
I agree those Kessil's are rather pricy and you need to stick with their older models if you want to control, their new lights they removed the 0-10v input which is unfortunate. Most lights don't have an input for external controllers by design so it can be difficult, I know some people use these but can't speak to how well they work. Note the 30w version doesn't have the input socket.
https://amzn.to/3Hy8jgH
I'm not sure about the light you linked, if that library controls it there needs to be a link somehow, maybe you need to hack the light to add a socket or it has wifi built in but doesn't appear to. I just see a few buttons on it where it looks like you setup the modes.
Nice to see another Walstad fan, when I setup my tank I wanted no maintenance and love the idea of all natural so I tried it and the results were better than I could have ever expected. It's literally been nearly no maintenance and the tank looked amazing the first 2 years and slow decline from there. Today it's quite sad looking as there's only a few plants left, I'm waiting on all the fish to pass before redoing it, there's 3 remaining plus a shrimp.
During the first year I did about 25% water changes every 10-20 days which the plants loved but I didn't like how the fish would react so I started doing less water changes and just topped up. The last 2 years I think I've only pulled water out a handful of times, always just adding. Sounds mad but my water is perfect, I have an Amano shrimp that is almost 7 years old, don't ask how, all his mates died years ago.
This was it in it's prime, just light and soil. You can basically see all the livestock that was in the tank so you can see it was never crowded.
My lights are only 2700k and I believe 5600k LEDs, I did a DIY for it, very basic.
I agree those Kessil's are rather pricy and you need to stick with their older models if you want to control, their new lights they removed the 0-10v input which is unfortunate. Most lights don't have an input for external controllers by design so it can be difficult, I know some people use these but can't speak to how well they work. Note the 30w version doesn't have the input socket.
https://amzn.to/3Hy8jgH
I'm not sure about the light you linked, if that library controls it there needs to be a link somehow, maybe you need to hack the light to add a socket or it has wifi built in but doesn't appear to. I just see a few buttons on it where it looks like you setup the modes.
Nice to see another Walstad fan, when I setup my tank I wanted no maintenance and love the idea of all natural so I tried it and the results were better than I could have ever expected. It's literally been nearly no maintenance and the tank looked amazing the first 2 years and slow decline from there. Today it's quite sad looking as there's only a few plants left, I'm waiting on all the fish to pass before redoing it, there's 3 remaining plus a shrimp.
During the first year I did about 25% water changes every 10-20 days which the plants loved but I didn't like how the fish would react so I started doing less water changes and just topped up. The last 2 years I think I've only pulled water out a handful of times, always just adding. Sounds mad but my water is perfect, I have an Amano shrimp that is almost 7 years old, don't ask how, all his mates died years ago.
This was it in it's prime, just light and soil. You can basically see all the livestock that was in the tank so you can see it was never crowded.
My lights are only 2700k and I believe 5600k LEDs, I did a DIY for it, very basic.
