Striking a balance with automation....

[boshk]

How do you guys strike a balance between automation and redundancy.

About to purchase either Apex or GHL and ATO osmolator for my 44G.
So far, everything has been manually handled with little backup or redundancy.
Dosing alk, cal, mag, iodine, nopox are all manual by hand, test water, dose as required, occasionally missing 1 or 2 days of dosing due to work.

No leak detection

There's one heater in the sump
One built-in heater in chiller which is turned off.
One dc return pump
reefer 170 ato mechanical float switch (not consistent)
Two smaller pumps in sump running chiller and mini carbon reactor

I saw a few videos and posts on automation and redundancies and what people recommend......dual heaters in case 1 fails, dual wave pumps in case 1 fails, return pump on separate power bar, etc etc

I can definitely see the pros of having a controller, even to monitor just the basic and essential components of a reef tank namely salinity, pH and temp but having a Controller also adds a certain degree of complexity and what if..

What would be the redundancy for the controller and at what point is it relying too much on one system.
How about a failure of the controller brain or powerbar?

Ideally and I assume for most people, Controller powerbar(s) would control:
two heaters, one as backup
Wave pumps, turn off for feed mode and wc
Led lights, turn off if water exceeds certain temp
skimmer, off when feed mode or water change to avoid overflow
Chiller, turn off if water temp drops below x
Doser, turn off if pH exceeds x since it likely means too much alk
Clipon fan, turn on when water too warm
ATO, turns off if salinity or pH drops below x,

If I go with GHL controller and Osmolator, I could add an additional optical sensor and set to turn off ATO if max level sensor reached, that would be another redundancy behind the mechanical float and internal timer of the osmolator

If I attach return pump to Controller for feed mode and wc, everything could die if powerbar fails. If the return pump is on a separate powerbar, that would be the tank's redundancy

Reactor can be standalone
Refugium pump standalone
Refugium light standalone on basic mechanical timer

Any thoughts and experience from you guys who have or had some form of controller and redundancy system?

[Ilovethehobby]

I have a controller on my 15g fresh (hope this is allowed I do have a 7.5g salt nano), anyways woke one night glanced the screen on the controller, pH 8.6 so the down dose was in full tilt. I have the controller dosing up/down pH and for the past 3 months has kept it rather tight and stable. What exactly happened is still a mystery to me, I did a master reset on the controller and when it came back pH was reading 7.65 so the 8.6 was false. The fish survived unscathed I believe because I caught it so quickly.

I do a master reset now every 3rd day hoping to avoid another occurance.

[Grayhead]

I use apex. Controls dosing all, mag, cal, and carbon. I can compare dosing with pH spikes as well. Also continuous water change using DOS. I monitor salinity in the tank as well as the salt mixing station. Temps in both. Just started monitoring par. Although that may be a part time feature. I control my kessils and t-5 lighting. Built in redundancy for temp controls via lighting. Heater control if needed. Never really run the heater. I control both Wav pumps and Gyres for flow. I use a tune ATO, but it is plugged into the apex power bar. If I shut the main pump down it is set to kill power to the skimmer as well as the ATO. I have leak detection with logic to shut down certain key areas as well as notifications. My top off and salt mix station has high and low float switches which controls and notifies the RODI set up. I also have manual float valves that will shut the RODI off. I can remotely shut the RODI on or off as well as select which storage tank I want to fill. I will soon be setting up a new apex brain in case something happens to this brain. All critical systems are set on in case of failure. I chose to rely on one component to simplify a semi complex setup. But then again, this is part of my enjoyment with this hobby