Apex worth it?

[fattiremike]

I have been reefing for almost 20 years now. My methods are simple and probably considered old fashioned. I am also in the military. I leave home often. Sometimes for a year or more. My wife is pretty good at keeping the tank up but this last go around had a huge die off of my sps due to cyano. Killed it all. I have the tank recovering, but I need to do something to clue me in before the disaster strikes when I'm gone again. I am looking at this apex controller with skepticism. The reviews are mixed. How much maintenance does the apex take? Can I get it set up and leave and trust the apex?

I would like to get the community's opinion before I drop the coin.

Thanks!

 

[Crabs McJones]

I was in the same shoes as you. I never used a controller. Just traditional power strips and switches. I saw all the posts from users along with bulk reef supplies videos during their 52 weeks of reefing and decided to try it. I scooped up a used basic reef keeper. The ability to control everything off one unit instead if using power strips and a multitude of timers was so much better. So with my wifes permission, this year I purchased a brand new apex. I absolutely love it! It is definitely worth the money. The monitoring, control, and failsafes that you can put into place, and alerts when something goes wrong are invaluable in my opinion. I say definitely do it! And if you dont want to spend a huge amount, apex now offers the EL for cheaper. You loose the salinity and orp probes, and 0-10 volt port control, but I personally dont need them :) I hope this helps and Welcome to R2R!!

#WelcometoR2R

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Welcome to R2R and thank you for your service!

 

[Bob Escher]

I love mine. Invaluable to me when I travel

 

[fattiremike]

Thanks for the replies. I have

I was in the same shoes as you. I never used a controller. Just traditional power strips and switches. I saw all the posts from users along with bulk reef supplies videos during their 52 weeks of reefing and decided to try it. I scooped up a used basic reef keeper. The ability to control everything off one unit instead if using power strips and a multitude of timers was so much better. So with my wifes permission, this year I purchased a brand new apex. I absolutely love it! It is definitely worth the money. The monitoring, control, and failsafes that you can put into place, and alerts when something goes wrong are invaluable in my opinion. I say definitely do it! And if you dont want to spend a huge amount, apex now offers the EL for cheaper. You loose the salinity and orp probes, and 0-10 volt port control, but I personally dont need them :) I hope this helps and Welcome to R2R!!

#WelcometoR2R

Thanks! I have been watching the BRS videos as well. They seem like honest folks. The reviews of the apex are anything from an overpriced timer to the best thing since sliced bread. I really don't care about the cost, years of reefing has made me numb to that, it's more about the pain of setup, and whether or not its reliable and trustworthy.

 

[wangspeed]

Worth every penny to me. Especially when I travel. It has caught multiple issues for me. For example, I got an alert on my last business trip, the first day I’m gone of course, that my Bubble King skimmer wasn’t drawing enough power. From experience I knew this meant a snail probably crawled in and jammed the impeller, so I turned off the skimmer.

It’s also super convenient to trigger actions like turning off the return pump automatically resulting in turning off all the other sump related equipment.

 

[garbled]

I have been an Apex user since they first came out. They will not fix all your woes with some magical computery goodness. However, I find them to be invaluable, and wouldn't run a reef without them.

Pros:

• They can monitor all kinds of various parameters, like ph, ORP, salinity, and tell you when something is out of whack.
• The Fusion interface lets you see this remotely, or sends you alerts when something is not quite right.
• The Fusion interface is *really* nice. Lets me track things like manual measurements, set reminders to change filters. Love it.
  
• Water on the floor sensors, or high/low water sensors tell you when plumbing has gone awry.
• You can write simple code to deal with problems. For example, temperature too high, shut off all the lights and heaters.
• If you are a control freak like me, you can go absolutely nuts with the programming and do all kinds of crazy things with them.
• You can have far better control of fiddly equipment like calcium reactors, rather than sorta guessing at it.

Cons:

• It's a piece of equipment like any other, and must be maintained. You need to clean and calibrate the probes. You need to check that salt isn't getting on the connectors. You need to verify none of the sensors are going bad. This can add to your chore list.
• It's easy to become over-reliant on them, and trust it more than your own eyes. You see the pH in the display as 8.0, but the corals are all sad, so it must not be the pH. It might be the sensor gone bad.
• If it breaks for some reason, you have all this stuff that was automatically controlled and you are scrambling to figure out how to operate it.
• You can become complacent, and trust computers more than mechanical failsafes. For example, you set an ATO up using water level sensors. Maybe you were even smart and put in a few extras. Your programming is flawless, your sensor placement is perfect. But if the sensor fails, you have a flood.

Basically, they are amazing pieces of technology, but don't let yourself forget it's a computer and computers have bugs or break or little bits of electronics die in annoying ways. The pros far outweigh the cons, because most of the cons are your fault, not the computer's fault. For someone who travels alot, I would highly recommend it. Especially if you have a spouse at home taking care of things. You can look at the Fusion interface, and say "hey honey, can you do a <blah> test, or look at this thing?" Or maybe the spouse says the tank looks bad and you can say "oh, the pH is out of whack, go do this".

Recently, mine has saved me from two leaky pumps. Woke me up at 3am once, and another right before I left for work. One of those had the potential to be catastrophic. And because the pump that was leaking was under the control of the Apex, even if I was at work, I could have just shut it off. Easily saved me $1000 in damage that day. Already paid for itself.

 

[fattiremike]

I have been an Apex user since they first came out. They will not fix all your woes with some magical computery goodness. However, I find them to be invaluable, and wouldn't run a reef without them.

Pros:

• They can monitor all kinds of various parameters, like ph, ORP, salinity, and tell you when something is out of whack.
• The Fusion interface lets you see this remotely, or sends you alerts when something is not quite right.
• The Fusion interface is *really* nice. Lets me track things like manual measurements, set reminders to change filters. Love it.
  
• Water on the floor sensors, or high/low water sensors tell you when plumbing has gone awry.
• You can write simple code to deal with problems. For example, temperature too high, shut off all the lights and heaters.
• If you are a control freak like me, you can go absolutely nuts with the programming and do all kinds of crazy things with them.
• You can have far better control of fiddly equipment like calcium reactors, rather than sorta guessing at it.

Cons:

• It's a piece of equipment like any other, and must be maintained. You need to clean and calibrate the probes. You need to check that salt isn't getting on the connectors. You need to verify none of the sensors are going bad. This can add to your chore list.
• It's easy to become over-reliant on them, and trust it more than your own eyes. You see the pH in the display as 8.0, but the corals are all sad, so it must not be the pH. It might be the sensor gone bad.
• If it breaks for some reason, you have all this stuff that was automatically controlled and you are scrambling to figure out how to operate it.
• You can become complacent, and trust computers more than mechanical failsafes. For example, you set an ATO up using water level sensors. Maybe you were even smart and put in a few extras. Your programming is flawless, your sensor placement is perfect. But if the sensor fails, you have a flood.

Basically, they are amazing pieces of technology, but don't let yourself forget it's a computer and computers have bugs or break or little bits of electronics die in annoying ways. The pros far outweigh the cons, because most of the cons are your fault, not the computer's fault. For someone who travels alot, I would highly recommend it. Especially if you have a spouse at home taking care of things. You can look at the Fusion interface, and say "hey honey, can you do a <blah> test, or look at this thing?" Or maybe the spouse says the tank looks bad and you can say "oh, the pH is out of whack, go do this".

Recently, mine has saved me from two leaky pumps. Woke me up at 3am once, and another right before I left for work. One of those had the potential to be catastrophic. And because the pump that was leaking was under the control of the Apex, even if I was at work, I could have just shut it off. Easily saved me $1000 in damage that day. Already paid for itself.

That is kind of my thought process. If it works to prevent just one catastrophic event, then it would be worth it. Thanks for the reply.

 

[garbled]

If you are leaving for a year at a time, one thing to look into are some of the network cameras. A few of them work with the Fusion interface, so you could in theory have a visual check on the tank. If you go find @Terence he has a build thread, where he hooked a camera with night vision up to watch his skimmer. I think that's a brilliant idea. I don't need a camera to see my tank, but one to monitor the equipment, oh yeah. Water on the floor sensor goes off, camera pointed at the equipment area shows me where the water is coming out, maybe I can shut a pump down. Any camera with a cloud service could potentially offer this, and even if it gets hacked, woo, big deal, I can watch your skimmer.

 

[fattiremike]

If you are leaving for a year at a time, one thing to look into are some of the network cameras. A few of them work with the Fusion interface, so you could in theory have a visual check on the tank. If you go find @Terence he has a build thread, where he hooked a camera with night vision up to watch his skimmer. I think that's a brilliant idea. I don't need a camera to see my tank, but one to monitor the equipment, oh yeah. Water on the floor sensor goes off, camera pointed at the equipment area shows me where the water is coming out, maybe I can shut a pump down. Any camera with a cloud service could potentially offer this, and even if it gets hacked, woo, big deal, I can watch your skimmer.

I currently use one of my Arlo cameras. The display is plumbed to the garage. So, most of the likely to leak components are out there where a leak won't matter much.

 

[SPR1968]

I have been an Apex user since they first came out. They will not fix all your woes with some magical computery goodness. However, I find them to be invaluable, and wouldn't run a reef without them.

Pros:

• They can monitor all kinds of various parameters, like ph, ORP, salinity, and tell you when something is out of whack.
• The Fusion interface lets you see this remotely, or sends you alerts when something is not quite right.
• The Fusion interface is *really* nice. Lets me track things like manual measurements, set reminders to change filters. Love it.
  
• Water on the floor sensors, or high/low water sensors tell you when plumbing has gone awry.
• You can write simple code to deal with problems. For example, temperature too high, shut off all the lights and heaters.
• If you are a control freak like me, you can go absolutely nuts with the programming and do all kinds of crazy things with them.
• You can have far better control of fiddly equipment like calcium reactors, rather than sorta guessing at it.

Cons:

• It's a piece of equipment like any other, and must be maintained. You need to clean and calibrate the probes. You need to check that salt isn't getting on the connectors. You need to verify none of the sensors are going bad. This can add to your chore list.
• It's easy to become over-reliant on them, and trust it more than your own eyes. You see the pH in the display as 8.0, but the corals are all sad, so it must not be the pH. It might be the sensor gone bad.
• If it breaks for some reason, you have all this stuff that was automatically controlled and you are scrambling to figure out how to operate it.
• You can become complacent, and trust computers more than mechanical failsafes. For example, you set an ATO up using water level sensors. Maybe you were even smart and put in a few extras. Your programming is flawless, your sensor placement is perfect. But if the sensor fails, you have a flood.

Basically, they are amazing pieces of technology, but don't let yourself forget it's a computer and computers have bugs or break or little bits of electronics die in annoying ways. The pros far outweigh the cons, because most of the cons are your fault, not the computer's fault. For someone who travels alot, I would highly recommend it. Especially if you have a spouse at home taking care of things. You can look at the Fusion interface, and say "hey honey, can you do a <blah> test, or look at this thing?" Or maybe the spouse says the tank looks bad and you can say "oh, the pH is out of whack, go do this".

Recently, mine has saved me from two leaky pumps. Woke me up at 3am once, and another right before I left for work. One of those had the potential to be catastrophic. And because the pump that was leaking was under the control of the Apex, even if I was at work, I could have just shut it off. Easily saved me $1000 in damage that day. Already paid for itself.

+1 to all of this

I went a year with out it, and now would never run a tank without Apex monitoring and control, although I use mine mainly to monitor with some basic control and fail safes in place

When your on the other side of the world, and you can see your tank via HD video (I use separate to Apex) and Apex is saying all is well, this is priceless to me.

And @fattiremike welcome to R2R as well!

 

[cpschult]

From what I’ve seen the apex wouldn’t help indicate an issue with cyano.

I recently got an apex myself. So far I’m just monitoring pH and temp but I’m looking forward to hooking up more modules for remote tracking.

 

[garbled]

It won't directly tell you you have cyano, but it can be helpful in seeing that sort of thing coming up. For example, you can see ORP and pH move in funny ways, because you have huge graphs going back a year to tell you something is odd. If you record events and maintenance into the Fusion interface, you can look back over this for months on end and figure things out, like "every time I do a carbon change, my pH does this." Sure, you can log this elsewhere, but it's a nice all in one place thing to have in addition to the other benefits.

I have flow meters on the return pumps. If I see the graph start to slowly dip, I can tell it's time to brush off the grates on the overflow. This doesn't save me from any disasters really, but it's useful info. Look at the graph, see a dip, remember that maintenance needs to be done. I'd honestly probably forget if it wasn't for the little graph staring at me saying "clean me!"

 

[fattiremike]

Agreed that it won't tell me I have cyano, but it may tell me that my ph is low (for example) and I could contact the wife and have her add buffer. Perhaps this sort of thing would prevent the breakout in the first place. I guess I am trying to be proactive instead of reactive.

 

[FishProf]

I absolutely love the Apex. I had the Neptune Aquacontroller back then, then the Apex classic, now upgraded to the newer model.
Beyond what the other said above, I have to say that their customer support is top notch. If your Apex is connected to the web, they can help by being on the phone with you and examining/controlling your system on your computer [no worries, you are in full control still].

 

[Reeferx]

I absolutely love the Apex. I have the 2016 model. Love i can see what my tank is doing while im away from it. Gives me some comfort.

 

[User1]

Worth it is subjective and also just an opinion - I don't mean that disrespectful by any means because there are those that love them and others who dislike them. I use them and have most if not all of my reef keeping time. So per my note I'm a bit biased and find value in them. If they are set up properly. Like noted above they are another layer of what some would say complexity depending on how you have it set up. It needs maintenance just like anything else but it can be set up to do some basic things and early warning that may help.

One thing that caught my attention is that you are going on some form of TDY. If so then the notifications need to go to other people with a CC to you. If you are out in the field the notification could come at a time in which you can't get it, it is delayed, or Lord only knows what, right? So having said that you need to find a controller that can accommodate that situation because others will need to do something and you just need to be aware in case there is something you need to provide additional information / corrective action.

One thing in any case that you will need, if you don't already have, is a list of steps to do when X, Y, or Z happens along with what to do weekly, monthly, etc. That alone will help 10x more than a controller along with spare parts. Best of luck - I use them, and find use. However, being half way around the world a Apex or Reef Angel notification will probably do me little good and possibly provide more stress on top of what is already there. I've been there before and the list saved me more believe it or not.

 

[fattiremike]

Thanks everyone for the replies. All valid points. I have a running Word document on all of the tanks equipment, water parameters, etc. that I update before I leave for any extended period of time. My wife and I go over it and walk through the whole thing so she is up to speed. She is pretty good about it. She has kept the tank alive through three deployments and numerous schools.

I broke down and ordered the APEX controller package that goes for 799.00, a WXM for my Ecotechs, a flow sensor and a AFS. The real test will be whether or not I am computer savvy enough to get it all set up!

 

[bigroost]

I think you'll be happy, as far as being tech savvy, if you are having trouble getting something to work just put in a ticket they will do the work for you.

 

[tony'stank]

Big roost
What do you mean “just put in a ticket and they will do the work for you”