Best place to buy AC Jr.?

[MNGold15]

I am looking for an AC Jr. Anyone know where the best place to buy one is? Fosters and Smith has them with the dc8 and probes for $249. Is that the best deal?

[wolmutt]

$249 sounds a little too cheap. Are you sure everything is included? I think someone in the club is a Neptune distributor. Maybe Maxseely???? I'm not sure.

[David Grigor]

Nope not too cheap actually it's too high.

Reef tank supply base price for Jr/ dc8 / temp probe is $214. Shipping is another $13.

Ph probe and serial port are extra but they aren't included in the Drs Jr package either.

I recently got the Jr/DC8/Temp probe / Ph probe ( extra $36) from reeftanksupply for $264shipped. They typically get drop shipped from Neptune so figure it to take at least a week to 10 days to arrive.

http://www.reeftanksupply.com/product_info.php?products_id=100&osCsid=5ca69106a57c5feb897d1321a6f055c5

There are some group buys out there as low as $199 for Jr/dc8/temp probe package but you have to wait until at least 8 or 16 orders at a time and will take much longer to arrive because you don't know when all 16 are filled . I don't bother with that to save just $15.

[wolmutt]

yeah, I was thinking that it probably did not have the ph probe or serial port. I believe the total with those extras comes out to around $289, and then around $13 for s/h.

[David Grigor]

I don't have the serial on any of my 3 Jrs just the PH probe add on.

If I wanted to hook up to a computer and use aquanotes to send pages/alerts etc, I'd be buying a AC3. I personally don't see much benefit from hooking the Jr to your PC if you have to leave your PC on all the time for it to work. If that's really important to your the AC3 with the built in web server should be looked at seriously.

[mtfatwork]

I think www.reefhut.com has them for about the same price also.

[mtfatwork]

ok, that is the wrong address, I will find it later. :)

[laja9801]

it is thereefhut.com instead of reefhut.com

I have had good experiences with reeftanksupply as David stated. I organized a group buy through them and it was great things went pretty smoothly considering how many orders and all. there were some mistakes though small ones are to be expected with a group buy from multiple locations, but I think they were all straightened out.

[David Grigor]

I believe reefhut was where the group buy for $199 was at but you have to wait until the minimum order is met before they ship.

[gamepoint]

I always leave my computer on so that's not a problem for me, but my question is, isn't it far easier to watch you ph over time and adjusting you dosing pumps if you can see the graphs over time? How many for the group buy, I may be interested if there are others.

[mtfatwork]

you would need 8 for the group buy price :)

[David Grigor]

Ooops.

[David Grigor]

I always leave my computer on so that's not a problem for me, but my question is, isn't it far easier to watch you ph over time and adjusting you dosing pumps if you can see the graphs over time? How many for the group buy, I may be interested if there are others.

Graphs etc. are all just fluff to me. The datalogging built in is sufficient to determine most trends. PH shifts occur nightly I don't need a weeks worth to tell me the shift I just need a 24hour period but it can store several days worth anyhow. You can set the data logging intervals to whatever you want every 5 minutes or once an hour etc. With the built in datalogging you can store more days worth with a longer interval. I believe mine is every 30minutes and goes back at 2-3 days.

Being able to use aquanotes to program it can be a nice to have but programming using the unit itself is no big deal to me.

The only useful thing the I can really see by using the aquanotes would be to alert you via page/email with abnormal conditions. However, my take on it is that if you have it programmed well, as well as hardware redundancy, alternative power, you should have temp and ph covered and not need to be alerted. If you really wanted and/or depend on this type of functionality, Jr. is probably not the best fit anyway and should be looking at AC3 so your PC is not a weak link and another thing to go wrong and screw your tank up becuase you didn't get a page.

[MNGold15]

Well, I talked to Fosters and Smith, and they told me that for $249 the AC Jr. comes with a ph and temp probe, DC8, and the controller itself. I thought that that was a pretty good deal so I went ahead and ordered through them. Thanks everybody for the feedback!

[MNGold15]

lol, but everywhere on their site it says nothing about including one. I have a feeling their support just wanted me off the phone.

[David Grigor]

Did you write down the representative etc. you talked to so you can dispute it if it doesn't arrive ? The description clearly does not mention anything about the PH probe included and is always an add on unless it is specifically mentioned. For hardware, Dr.Fosters is rarely the best price out there and when you talk to them they don't price match because they think there service is worth the extra $.

"AquaController Jr. Includes AquaController with standard software features, power cord, owner's manual, temperature probe, and one DC8 controlled outlet. Controls up to 12 different control modules."

[Goldpony75]

Have you received this yet? and if so did it come with theserial port and ph probe?

[MNGold15]

Yea, I didnt get the serial port one, just because it is going to be on my frag tank, and I probably would never use it. Mine did not come with the pH probe, but I bought one. I am going to be running a Pro on my 210, I can't beileve how nice these things are.