Marine assistant Aquarium Controller V3
Marine-Assistant is a fully DIY reef controller designed specifically for reef aquariums and powered by Home Assistant.
Whether you're monitoring temperature, pH, water levels, leaks, dosing systems, or custom equipment, Marine-Assistant provides a flexible platform that grows with your reef.
Unlike closed ecosystems, Marine-Assistant is built around openness, customization, and community-driven development.
Why Marine-Assistant?
Reef keepers need reliable monitoring and automation, but many commercial controllers are expensive, restrictive, and difficult to customize.
Marine-Assistant was created to provide an affordable alternative that gives hobbyists complete control over their reef system while leveraging the power of Home Assistant.
Designed for Reef Aquariums: Built specifically around the needs of reef keepers.
Powered by Home Assistant: Integrates seamlessly into the Home Assistant ecosystem for dashboards, automations, notifications, and remote monitoring.
Fully DIY: Build it yourself, customize it your way, and expand it as your reef grows.
Community Driven: Developed alongside reef hobbyists who actively contribute ideas, feedback, and new features.
Key Features:
Temperature Monitoring
Support for multiple waterproof temperature probes to monitor critical areas of your system.
Analog Monitoring
Accurate pH, ORP, EC and TDS monitoring with dedicated isolated probe support and calibration capabilities.
Leak Detection
Receive instant alerts when leaks are detected around your aquarium or equipment.
Water Level Monitoring
Track sump, reservoir, ATO, and container levels with a variety of sensor options.
Dedicated ports For ATO Sensor and ATO resevoir.
Automation Ready
Control heaters, pumps, fans, dosing systems, lights, and more through Home Assistant automations.
Expandable Design
Modular hardware architecture allows future expansion and additional sensor support.
Local First
No cloud dependency. Your reef data stays under your control.
Notifications & Alerts
Receive notifications directly through Home Assistant when parameters move outside your configured limits. The Main controller also has colourfull LEDs for alerts and a loud internal buzzer.
Built for Makers
Marine-Assistant isn't just another aquarium controller.
It's a platform designed for hobbyists who enjoy building, customizing, and improving their systems.
Whether you're running a simple nano reef or a large mixed reef with multiple automation requirements, Marine-Assistant can be adapted to suit your setup.
The Marine assistant comes in a kit form, it will need assembling. Soldering of through hole components is required. The Case is 3d Printed, Print your own or purchase one.
What Can It Monitor?
Temperature
pH
ORP
EC
TDS
Water Level (ATO volume)
Leak Sensors
Float Switches
Optical Sensors
Flow Sensors
And because everything is integrated with Home Assistant, you can combine reef monitoring with the rest of your smart home ecosystem. There are litterally thousands of products compatible with Home Assistant.
It can also control various hard-wired outputs such as LEDs and 12v devices.
Open & Expandable
Marine-Assistant is built around an open philosophy.
No subscription fees
No vendor lock-in
Local control
Community-driven development
Continuous feature improvements
As the project evolves, new sensors, modules, and capabilities will continue to be added.
Whats Included:
Main Controller:
Main PCB (High Quality with All SMD Components pre Soldered)
Supplementary GX16 mounting PCBs
All electronic components needed to finish the hardware. (LEDs, Resistors, Headers, RGB LEDs)
All Hardware needed for the 3d Printed case (Screws, Inserts)
All GX16 Sockets (Female side)
Options: (All are needed)
All 3D Printed parts for the Case
ESP32 S3 ETH
All GX16 Plugs (Male side)
PRE SALE INFO:
The presale will run up until the 11th October and is purely to buffer the initial surge of orders. Shipping is expected to start earliest at the end of October and all orders sent by latest Mid November.
At the moment the build guides are in the works, as well as written build guides for the controller itself and how each input (GX16 Port) Should be wired. These will all Be available by the time you recieve your controller kit.
