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	Networking setup for multi-tank monitoring: Overkill or necessary?
vonaton738 Small Fry Posts: 0 Kudos: 0 Votes: 0 Registered: 27-Feb-2026	Edited 27-Feb-2026 10:30 Hey everyone, I’m in the middle of a bit of a project and could use some collective wisdom from the community here. I’ve recently expanded my setup to include three large Discus tanks and a smaller quarantine tank in my basement, and the cable management for my various sensors is becoming a real nightmare. I’ve been trying to move away from relying on Wi-Fi for my temperature and pH monitoring because the humidity in my fish room seems to play havoc with the signal stability over time, leading to some annoying "device offline" alerts in the middle of the night. One specific point I’ve noticed during this transition is that hardwired connections just seem so much more reliable for long-term data logging, especially when you are trying to track minute fluctuations in water chemistry over several weeks. To get everything talking to my central monitoring server, I’m looking into a more robust networking setup than just a standard consumer-grade router. I’m actually looking at installing one of those network devices modules—specifically a 4-port Gigabit expansion card https://serverorbit.com/network-devices/modules/4-port —into a small fanless PC I’m using as a hub. My logic is that I can give each tank controller its own dedicated physical port on that module. This would allow me to segment the traffic so that if I’m running a data-heavy update on one tank’s camera, it doesn't create any latency for the emergency temperature alerts on the others. I’ve had a few close calls in the past, including one scary incident where a heater controller lost its Wi-Fi signal during a cold snap and stayed "stuck" on its last setting. It really made me realize that "smart" aquarium tech is only as good as the physical infrastructure behind it. Does anyone else here go to the length of using dedicated network modules and hardwired lines for their controllers, or am I totally over-engineering this for a home hobbyist setup? [link][link]
Posted 27-Feb-2026 10:29


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