High Tide Aquatics

Neptune Apex -- worth it?

ofzakaria said:
Not sure I follow. On my main tank I use ghl. Used to use apex in the past thu. Still have an old apex on my 2nd system, was not worth it to upgrad
To me remote controlability is what I seek. I try to use native apps if the product offer it to reduce dependencies on the controller. Anything that can give me remote informations. about the diffrent pieces in the system I make sure to have.
Man I even do water change remotely lol
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I just know that in the past you’ve been fairly vocal about not liking Neptune equipment and this thread is titled “Neptune Apex — worth it?”.
 
I always envision it more like a comedy skit, where i see that tank going south and scream "no,no,noooooo!!" And not be able tondo anything about it.

So if I see something wrong, what are some of the things I can actually do to help salvage the situation?
 
JVU said:
Since you run a bunch of small tanks, I’m not as sure about the value proposition for you. For me, it is an absolute necessity. For many years I didn’t think I needed one, but in retrospect I should have gotten on board sooner, and I can trace a lot of the problems I’ve had to not having a controller before.
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Of the 11 or so tanks I run, 4 of them are 55G+, not counting sump... the rest are 10-20Gs mostly and a few 5s.

On a few of my tanks they're fairly high valued livestock (one tank houses 12 CC supernovas and 1 CSB for example)

I've invested a lot in lights, wifi enabled pumps, electronic heaters, etc.

But I always struggle with what I can do with an apex that is impactful if things happen while away (calling upon the spousal unit would not be an option)...
 
NanoCrazed said:
Of the 11 or so tanks I run, 4 of them are 55G+, not counting sump... the rest are 10-20Gs mostly and a few 5s.

On a few of my tanks they're fairly high valued livestock (one tank houses 12 CC supernovas and 1 CSB for example)

I've invested a lot in lights, wifi enabled pumps, electronic heaters, etc.

But I always struggle with what I can do with an apex that is impactful if things happen while away (calling upon the spousal unit would not be an option)...
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Lol man get a controller or at least use products that has remote access like wifi plugs and such.
I use a combination of 3 wifi enabled plugs to do remote water change..
There are many options for such controlability now days it's hard to pass on..
 
NanoCrazed said:
I always envision it more like a comedy skit, where i see that tank going south and scream "no,no,noooooo!!" And not be able tondo anything about it.

So if I see something wrong, what are some of the things I can actually do to help salvage the situation?
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Well it depends on what wrong things those are. For instance if you see your pH dropping greatly, maybe turn off a calcium reactor (or shut the solenoid, assuming that's hooked up. Or better yet, have a tank buddy who you can call in an emergency and just say "hey go check things out will you, I'm seeing a low pH" which is probably the best solution, because the pH drop may be because your water level is dropping and it's sitting out of the water, which is a whole other can of worms.
 
NanoCrazed said:
Of the 11 or so tanks I run, 4 of them are 55G+, not counting sump... the rest are 10-20Gs mostly and a few 5s.

On a few of my tanks they're fairly high valued livestock (one tank houses 12 CC supernovas and 1 CSB for example)

I've invested a lot in lights, wifi enabled pumps, electronic heaters, etc.

But I always struggle with what I can do with an apex that is impactful if things happen while away (calling upon the spousal unit would not be an option)...
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Not limited to, but here's a list.

- calcium reactor not meeting demands and alk dropping (Trident installed), remotely dose using 2-part that hooked up
- salinity dropping, look at sensors or camera and see ATO going nuts, turn off ATO
- I have a skimmate locker and I noticed salinity was dropping, it was because my skimmer was going nuts and I remotely shut it off
- sometimes skimmer gets plug with a snail or chaeto and power cycling it and dislodge whatever is blocking it. You can detect this is the power draw on skimmer suddenly goes higher than normal.
- in case my RO/DI reservoir in garage goes low and I’m notified via an optical sensor, I can flip on the RO and booster pump (water flow is controlled by a solenoid)

There is probably more that I’m doing at home, I just don’t remember.
 
RandyC said:
Not limited to, but here's a list.

- calcium reactor not meeting demands and alk dropping (Trident installed), remotely dose using 2-part that hooked up
- salinity dropping, look at sensors or camera and see ATO going nuts, turn off ATO
- I have a skimmate locker and I noticed salinity was dropping, it was because my skimmer was going nuts and I remotely shut it off
- sometimes skimmer gets plug with a snail or chaeto and power cycling it and dislodge whatever is blocking it. You can detect this is the power draw on skimmer suddenly goes higher than normal.
- in case my RO/DI reservoir in garage goes low and I’m notified via an optical sensor, I can flip on the RO and booster pump (water flow is controlled by a solenoid)

There is probably more that I’m doing at home, I just don’t remember.
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For something like skimmer I feel much more safe with one of these skimmer collection containers that turn off skimmer when it overflow. Waiting on a controller to show low salinity is too late in my openion to take action.
Same applies to thinga like rodi and water flow components I feel more safe with mechanical float valve that turn on and off based on water level...but that's me

There are great values in controllers but also one can screw up if chasing too kuch dependencies on controllers since they have their weak points from probs that drift in reading over time, optic sensor that goes faulty or dirty to other possible break points.
I try to reduce dependencies on controllers to avoid cascaded issues when a controller fail or give wrong reading.
 
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Really helpful feedback everyone! Something to really think about...

I run redundant almost everything these days after losing some high end pieces, and been wondering how much more actual safeguarding is there.

Truth be told, just got to Tahoe last night, and on way out, i turned off all my gyres...because stupid nems happen
 
ofzakaria said:
For something like skimmer I feel much more safe with one of these skimmer collection containers that turn off skimmer when it overflow. Waiting on a controller to show low salinity is too late in my openion to take action.
Same applies to thinga like rodi and water flow components I feel more safe with mechanical float valve that turn on and off based on water level...but that's me

There are great values in controllers but also one can screw up if chasing too kuch dependencies on controllers since they have their weak points from probs that drift in reading over time, optic sensor that goes faulty or dirty to other possible break points.
I try to reduce dependencies on controllers to avoid cascaded issues when a controller fail or give wrong reading.
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I built the skimmate locker myself and it does have a float switch, but I was able to turn it off before it dumped 5 gallons of tank water before the float switch triggered.

Controllers are tools and having multiple technologies (controllers and mechanical) to provide redundancies is obviously the best method. Most of what I have set up has them both. But mechanical is typically my last resort effort and I'd rather catch the problem before the mechanical fail-safe is hit so it doesn't cause more of an issue than it needs to - which my controller aids me in doing.
 
Like I said, make a list. Add to that list times that "bad stuff" happened, write down what happened, and maybe even post said things maybe other Apex users can tell you "oh yeah if you had this setup like that, then you'd receive an alert and..."

I remember when I got my first real controller ages ago, a Reefkeeper Elite (later an Aquacontroller 3), and after using it for a while I found that it was basically a really expensive on/off timer for my lights (pre-LED days), like seriously a $500 controller to do that. And it's not like I swore off controllers (still use the Reefkeepers as exactly that, fancy timers), but I did decide that I needed to know why I needed a controller and is that justification worth the $500 plus (emphasis on the "plus" because every little add on does increase that cost and it can go up significantly) before I got another.
 
Opinion:

Using Apex as a CONTROLLER is nice, but hardly important. A simple $10 timer can do pretty much the same thing.
In fact, that cheap timer is often better, because it is so simple to set up.

Using Apex as a MONITOR is the key. You know when something is going wrong early enough to act on it.
And being cloud connected is very important to that.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Like I said, make a list. Add to that list times that "bad stuff" happened, write down what happened, and maybe even post said things maybe other Apex users can tell you "oh yeah if you had this setup like that, then you'd receive an alert and..."

I remember when I got my first real controller ages ago, a Reefkeeper Elite (later an Aquacontroller 3), and after using it for a while I found that it was basically a really expensive on/off timer for my lights (pre-LED days), like seriously a $500 controller to do that. And it's not like I swore off controllers (still use the Reefkeepers as exactly that, fancy timers), but I did decide that I needed to know why I needed a controller and is that justification worth the $500 plus (emphasis on the "plus" because every little add on does increase that cost and it can go up significantly) before I got another.
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As Rygh posted, an Apex is more than a controller. Its like the alarm for the house, but for the tank. Or the check engine light for the car.

Most of the time, the Apex turns stuff on/off and gives you numbers. But the 1 time it alerts you to a failure, the value it gives you just multiplied tremendously.

Eg, a user posted on FB (iirc) of a situation where his ti heater broke apart in the tank. Got an alert from his cond and orp probes. Went to look and found nothing wrong with tank. Then noticed the temp dropping (no far enough to get an alert but lower than normal). Got zapped as he reached into the tank. Found the issue and removed/replaced it.

Would you have known before you got home? Or even days after if your house is well heated and the heater barely works?

Would you know if you are at work and the return pump fails? Or even before it fails because it started to draw less power than normal and you had power monitoring alert set up?

Can you correlate the usage of your heater vs temp of the tank against time? Is the heater too big or too small for the tank? Can you calculate how much a larger heater vs a small heater would cost you?

It gives you a lot of information, what you choose to do with it is up to you. You can keep using it just to turn stuff on/off or you can use it to really know your tank and use the data it gives you to do it.
 
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hah... let it be known that I never half @$$ my experiments... after getting an Apex, found a Trident so adding that to the game plan... and maybe eventually a DOS after I get some data to see if it;s needed
 
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