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["Julius Odian" <juliusodian at yahoo_com>]

I just wanted to say hi. I subscribed to the list starting in 97' but I
took a break last year to live and travel in South America. I made an
effort to see the jungle while I was in Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia.
Now it's time for me to setup a planted tank again and have been reading
up on new developments since I left.

I wanted to mention a cool product that I found surfing on the web
yesterday. It's called the LabJack www.labjack.com and it might be the
solution to building an Aquarium Controller for 1/2 the price of the
Octopus or equivalent solution with much more flexibility. Essentially
it's a USB Data Acquisition unit which can be tied with software to
monitor and control systems. Best of all there is even some software
available so you don't have to be a programmer. 

Extending this solution a little further, I am imagining tying the data
logs via a database like mySQL with PHP scripting to the internet so
that I can monitor my Tank and perhaps even make parameter changes from
anyplace that has an internet connection. Anyway, I would appreciate any
thoughts people might have. I've read many of the tank automation
projects on the Krib and on APD over the years, but was wondering if
anyone has done anything lately with new technologies available today.

Take care,

Julius Odian