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Apex el

Hi guys. Just got an used apex el 2019 $300 (can't pass). Never have Neptune system before... please share tips n tricks. My system so simple... most of them by Ecotech ( lights, return pumps and power heads) now control by Mobius. Two parts dosing and Arco power control by Bubble magus dosing pumps, i do have skimmed but they run 24/7, i have refugium light run opposite time with my lights control by timer. Could you please teach me best way to utilize all equipments. TIA
 
Yes I know how to get started, but all my Ecotech gear control by Mobius and dosing pumps units... how can I utilize with apex at one system? Thanks
 
you can't. An apex is just a "fancy" timer. ex. if you are old school and use a bunch of timers to turn on things like lights and whatever else. You can now eliminate those and plug them into the apex power bar. The apex will not dose for you unless you buy their DOS unit. Your Radions will turn on/off through Mobius.. So Apex will NOT help there either. Sorry to burst your bubble. :( An Apex can be a great tool, but definitely not a necessity. Its mostly for monitoring your system parameters. There are some seasoned Apex users that can do some Crazy cool things with them, That is not me. I just use it for basic functions.
 
If you're worried about power usage you can plug your Ecotech stuff into Apex ports and then a quick look to make sure the current draw is not abnormal, but I would probably only do that with a return pump because that's a lot of wasted real estate on the EB32 power bar just to see if your pumps are drawing the right power (plus if you run Vortechs in any sort of mode that varies speed your current draw will be all over the place).

I really don't get the need to have an "all in one" solution for what largely is an app driven mechanical system. Chances are you'll have to swipe to a different part of your Apex app to deal with pumps, so is that really any different than just opening the Mobius app and doing the same thing?
 
I thought you had to be there to use mobius? Apex you can connect to just about
anywhere

Mobius uses Bluetooth LE, so yes, you need to be physically close to the devices to access them via a phone app. There is no way to use a Mobius enabled device with Apex.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I asked Ecotech about remote access of Mobius enabled devices through the network, and they said they are working on wifi enabled functionality for release at a later date.
 
you can't. An apex is just a "fancy" timer. ex. if you are old school and use a bunch of timers to turn on things like lights and whatever else. You can now eliminate those and plug them into the apex power bar. The apex will not dose for you unless you buy their DOS unit. Your Radions will turn on/off through Mobius.. So Apex will NOT help there either. Sorry to burst your bubble. :( An Apex can be a great tool, but definitely not a necessity. Its mostly for monitoring your system parameters. There are some seasoned Apex users that can do some Crazy cool things with them, That is not me. I just use it for basic functions.
Thankz. That what i feels the same... until now come across this unit almost brand new..
 
Why would you need to access Mobius remotely though?

I imagine there are lots of reasons with a lot being error cases, but here’s some thoughts

- Trident reports high alk and you want to shutdown calcium reactor or dosing (using Versa)
- low alk/Ca/Mg and you want to do a one time dose with Versa
- temp is too high and you want to turn off lights
- you remotely see a leak on camera or leak sensor goes off and you want to shut off return pump
- if you’re using versa for awc and you run out of saltwater or your waste receptacle Is getting full

Edit: Forgot one of the most important ones - monitoring and alert generation. If you're away for an extended period of time or on a vacation, being able to monitor or be notified of errors is of great value. Without connectivity to apex (aside from being able to get power analysis from being plugged into it), having Mobius access remotely, becomes even more important. And without Reeflink support anymore, you're losing some functionality with the upgrade to Mobius.
 
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- Trident reports high alk and you want to shutdown calcium reactor or dosing (using Versa)
- low alk/Ca/Mg and you want to do a one time dose with Versa
- temp is too high and you want to turn off lights
- you remotely see a leak on camera or leak sensor goes off and you want to shut off return pump
- if you’re using versa for awc and you run out of saltwater or your waste receptacle Is getting full
Alright, I can dig that, well maybe except the lights thing has anyone done any studies to show how much your tank temp raises when your lights are on? I mean I remember back in MH days and the effect was maybe 2 degrees, I can't imagine LEDs get anywhere close to that. But that said l will say that if you have the sense of mind to think of all those problems in the first place, why would you even use Ecotech gear in the first place? I mean you get an Apex because you want all this remote connectivity then why set yourself up for failure by getting gear that isn't remotely connectable.
 
I used my EL with the pH meter, temp sensor, AFS, and power bar. I had my skimmer, 2 heaters, return pump, ATO, and refugium light on the power bar. The EL does give you a lot of options but it does require a fair bit of research to figure out, I liked checking out people on YouTube like Reef automation to see how they used their apex to the max potential. You can do some cool stuff with the code, here’s what I did with

I liked having a feed mode which would turn off the return and skimmer, and then another longer feed mode for WC which turned off ATO, skimmer, heaters, and return pump.

I also programmed my heaters to distribute the workload to reduce on/off cycles and then monitored their usage and had alarms in an attempt to detect issues with the heaters if they started to deteriorate.

I liked looking at the charts because I would compare the pH and refugium light on time in order to keep pH steady by tweaking the refugium on time.

Inevitably after having it for 3 months I switched to GHL after considering long term cost, I want a system I can continue to upgrade and the cost of the apex modules makes addons add up compared to the GHL including lots of expansion ports.
 
I'd be really interested in seeing someone start a GHL thread, I'm curious how things compare to an Apex, I mean I've seen hardware side of things compared before but for a vast majority of people it's really all about the user interface which really catapulted the Apex into the lime light compared to the predecessors like the Reefkeeper or Aquacontroller (that a LOT of marketing put out there), and honestly I've never really seen a GHL setup, i.e popping open your phone to see everything, etc. not sure if it even can do that.

And since Neptune isn't likely to sponsor me with free gear for any future tank builds of mine with hardware (mostly because I don't have much social media presence) , I like to keep my mind open about what options are out there. :D
 
I'd be really interested in seeing someone start a GHL thread, I'm curious how things compare to an Apex, I mean I've seen hardware side of things compared before but for a vast majority of people it's really all about the user interface which really catapulted the Apex into the lime light compared to the predecessors like the Reefkeeper or Aquacontroller (that a LOT of marketing put out there), and honestly I've never really seen a GHL setup, i.e popping open your phone to see everything, etc. not sure if it even can do that.

And since Neptune isn't likely to sponsor me with free gear for any future tank builds of mine with hardware (mostly because I don't have much social media presence) , I like to keep my mind open about what options are out there. :D
It’s a little confusing and really requires most of the setup to be done on a pc but it’s got some nice potential. Like I’m using it to dim my light bars I got from aliexpress. I need to work on it more before I could do a gold write up on it, but to answer your question here’s my dashboard. Nothing is plugged into the pH bnc right now. There’s a chart above but I haven’t set it up
55D49F02-BA8B-470B-866D-E64534E919F5.png
 
Alright, I can dig that, well maybe except the lights thing has anyone done any studies to show how much your tank temp raises when your lights are on? I mean I remember back in MH days and the effect was maybe 2 degrees, I can't imagine LEDs get anywhere close to that. But that said l will say that if you have the sense of mind to think of all those problems in the first place, why would you even use Ecotech gear in the first place? I mean you get an Apex because you want all this remote connectivity then why set yourself up for failure by getting gear that isn't remotely connectable.

You could be like me and have a lot invested in Ecotech already (using reeflink) and want to continue on with their products. Or if you believe Ecotech makes the best lights to grow coral, then we’ll, you want them.

That said, I think it was very short sighted of Ecotech in this day and age of IoT to not have wifi support out of the gate. Bluetooth was an odd choice for me to centralize on.
 
It’s a little confusing and really requires most of the setup to be done on a pc but it’s got some nice potential. Like I’m using it to dim my light bars I got from aliexpress. I need to work on it more before I could do a gold write up on it, but to answer your question here’s my dashboard. Nothing is plugged into the pH bnc right now. There’s a chart above but I haven’t set it up
View attachment 18245
With the p4 you do do not need PC. All can be done from GHL central app on phone or pc..
 
That said, I think it was very short sighted of Ecotech in this day and age of IoT to not have wifi support out of the gate. Bluetooth was an odd choice for me to centralize on.
Yeah I agree, seems like at the very least could have been made using a bluetooth module to communicate, but the consensus is a pissing match between Ecotech and Neptune, and who knows who is doing the peeing.
 
With the p4 you do do not need PC. All can be done from GHL central app on phone or pc..
I looked into it more, the things I couldn’t set up are just a limitation of the pmini but I saw a R2R thread of Vinny saying it’s on the roadmap to add in a software update. But for now no temp charts, pretty lame
 
I looked into it more, the things I couldn’t set up are just a limitation of the pmini but I saw a R2R thread of Vinny saying it’s on the roadmap to add in a software update. But for now no temp charts, pretty lame
Correct, the none mini p4 is cloud based setup already. The mini is coming on the road map as you said. I wish they have done it all at once..
 
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