ApexEL

[SurfTrack]

Is it worth it to purchase the ApexEL? I would only being using what comes in the box, im not paying extra for other things that go with it.

It just monitors temperature and pH?

 

[road_runner]

Is it worth it to purchase the ApexEL? I would only being using what comes in the box, im not paying extra for other things that go with it.

It just monitors temperature and pH?

Depend on what you want? If all what you want is to monitor ph then it's not worth it. You can get cheaper way...

 

[SurfTrack]

Depend on what you want? If all what you want is to monitor ph then it's not worth it. You can get cheaper way...

I know basically nothing about it, just everyone says they could never live without it. Whats so great? What am I missing?

 

[road_runner]

I know basically nothing about it, just everyone says they could never live without it. Whats so great? What am I missing?

The controller is not bad at all. But its build to do many functions. What I am trying to say is: if the only reason you want a 500$ controller is to monitor ph its expensive solution to buy a controller. Any controller that is..
If you want other functions and seek control then look in to controllers. As example if you want to controll outlets...
Basically it's all about what are you trying to do. Decide this then look in to cost vs benifits
If you end up deciding you want a controller, then look in to apex and ghl they both offer functions and pros and cons.
For 500$ cost point some controllers offer more than others, some controllers come with more functions out of the box compared to others. So just do your homework.

 

[sghera64]

. . . im not paying extra for other things that go with it.

. . . Said the crack addict to the dealer.

Once you get into the reef automation stream, it’s hard to stay put. There is always one more thing that just makes sense to monitor, manage, or control. That little devil on your left shoulder can explain all the virtues of why you need that ‘one more thing”. ‘The other guy’ who is supposed to be on your right shoulder never shows up - probably tinkering with his own Apex gear.

 

[road_runner]

. . . Said the crack addict to the dealer.

Once you get into the reef automation stream, it’s hard to stay put. There is always one more thing that just makes sense to monitor, manage, or control. That little devil on your left shoulder can explain all the virtues of why you need that ‘one more thing”. ‘The other guy’ who is supposed to be on your right shoulder never shows up - probably tinkering with his own Apex gear.

Ha ha 100% agreed.
That's why I look for more integration and functions in the controller out of the box as one of the factors.
Compare apex and ghl profilux 4.0 and 3.1..
Pros and cons in both. I own both so my other guy was very strong ha ha
But to your point I also started using stand alone devices to break my dependence in one vendor.

 

[road_runner]

By the way give it a minute and see how confusing this thread will be lol. do your research and decide based on your cost point and requirements

 

[sghera64]

Ha ha 100% agreed.
That's why I look for more integration and functions in the controller out of the box as one of the factors.
Compare apex and ghl profilux 4.0 and 3.1..
Pros and cons in both. I own both so my other guy was very strong ha ha
But to your point I also started using stand alone devices to break my dependence in one vendor.

Okay, now you are on the hook. Since you have both, really, which one would you recommend? Or, if a thief came into your house one night and only stole both controllers and their gadgets (left the watches, jewelry, the keys to your Lamborghini and that $1000 bill on the kitchen table), which controller would you buy back?

 

[sghera64]

I have to admit, I’ve not put a lot of money in to tank automation. Maybe $100 on a couple of PTZ cameras and $25 in resistors, LED’s, level switches (eBay), wires and an old bread board. That rat’s nest of wires keeps the system from running low, running high, and alerts me of any leaks - - including my water heater and sump pump.

It can’t control pH. I don’t want to know how much electricity my 2 1AMP Iwaki pumps are drawing. And the ATO runs off of a 2 homemade Radio Shack (remember them) SPST switches (one to start a drip and one to start a bypass if “dripping” isn’t enough).

 

[road_runner]

Okay, now you are on the hook. Since you have both, really, which one would you recommend? Or, if a thief came into your house one night and only stole both controllers and their gadgets (left the watches, jewelry, the keys to your Lamborghini and that $1000 bill on the kitchen table), which controller would you buy back?

Ha ha ha, no need for this ultimatum. I switched from 5 years of apex usage to ghl recently.
To me the the reasons were
1- ghl gave more functions in one box which meant less modules and less wires. As an example, ghl will give you salinity, ph, temp, orp and leak detection out of the box without the need to buy modules to add.
2- ghl when they release a new function they give it as a stand alone so you do not need to upgrade the controller. As an example I had to upgrade my apex and rip off wires to buy trident which is a test equipment. While ghl released khd which is a test equipment that do test and dose at the same time as stand alone or paired with their controller so no need to upgrade.
3- the ghl gave me more stable reading and reliability. Especially with Ph, salinity, orp probes..with apex salinity and ph was never accurate and aleaus shift.
4- I did not have good luck with some of Neptune functions like the auto top off module atk. The flow meter module fmm, the flow meters themself all had issues that rendered the module unusable to me.

This is the objective said. I had other reasons but can be considered not very objective so will not talk about it.

I now run ghl ony main system and moved the apex to my frag tank..this is to keep comparing for the coming couple of months. I think eventually I will move that as well to ghl.

 

[road_runner]

I have to admit, I’ve not put a lot of money in to tank automation. Maybe $100 on a couple of PTZ cameras and $25 in resistors, LED’s, level switches (eBay), wires and an old bread board. That rat’s nest of wires keeps the system from running low, running high, and alerts me of any leaks - - including my water heater and sump pump.

It can’t control pH. I don’t want to know how much electricity my 2 1AMP Iwaki pumps are drawing. And the ATO runs off of a 2 homemade Radio Shack (remember them) SPST switches (one to start a drip and one to start a bypass if “dripping” isn’t enough).

Ha ha. No shame in that my friend. Not too long time ago we dis not have any controllers in this hobby yet we had great tanks.
Running successful tank doesnot require controllers for sure. Controllers just help us automate to remove some of our daily or weekly efforts and give us remote monitor and control ofcourse. But at the end of the day it's about what you want to achieve..that will decide what's the cheapest option you have available.

 

[road_runner]

I have to admit, I’ve not put a lot of money in to tank automation. Maybe $100 on a couple of PTZ cameras and $25 in resistors, LED’s, level switches (eBay), wires and an old bread board. That rat’s nest of wires keeps the system from running low, running high, and alerts me of any leaks - - including my water heater and sump pump.

It can’t control pH. I don’t want to know how much electricity my 2 1AMP Iwaki pumps are drawing. And the ATO runs off of a 2 homemade Radio Shack (remember them) SPST switches (one to start a drip and one to start a bypass if “dripping” isn’t enough).

Btw controllers will not control your ph..at least not straight forward at all.
I improve my ph by using co2 scrubbers. There are many ways to control or improve ph almost none of them require controller

 

[road_runner]

Just keep in mind what I considered pros someone else might consider cons and visa versa.

 

[sghera64]

Ha ha ha, no need for this ultimatum. I switched from 5 years of apex usage to ghl recently.
To me the the reasons were
1- ghl gave more functions in one box which meant less modules and less wires. As an example, ghl will give you salinity, ph, temp, orp and leak detection out of the box without the need to buy modules to add.
2- ghl when they release a new function they give it as a stand alone so you do not need to upgrade the controller. As an example I had to upgrade my apex and rip off wires to buy trident which is a test equipment. Whole ghl released khd which is a test equipment that do test and dose at the same time as stand alone or paired with their controller so no need to upgrade.
3- the ghl gave me more stable reading and reliability. Especially with Ph, salinity, orp probes..with apex salinity and ph was never accurate and aleaus shift.
4- I did not have good luck with some of Neptune functions like the auto top off module atk. The flow meter module fmm, the flow meters themself all had issues that rendered the module unusable to me.

This is the objective said. I had other reasons but can be considered not very objective so will not talk about it.

I now run ghl ony main system and moved the apex to my frag tank..this is to keep comparing for the coming couple of months. I think eventually I will move that as well to ghl.

Awesome, and thank you for sharing. I hope this does not start some sort of Apex fan-boy war. I really was asking one person for their single perspective. Thanks for sharing and even more important, including your rationale.

I’m sure Fusion fans have things they love and hate. . . And love about their Apex’s. It’s just that we don’t seem to hear much about GHL here in the US (because we like to support the ‘home team’, and the not so subliminal sublime ‘mentions’ it gets on all those BRSTV vids and BRS YouTube live-streams, and BRS sales, and yadda-yadda-yadda).

 

[road_runner]

Awesome, and thank you for sharing. I hope this does not start some sort of Apex fan-boy war. I really was asking one person for their single perspective. Thanks for sharing and even more important, including your rationale.

I’m sure Fusion fans have things they love and hate. . . And love about their Apex’s. It’s just that we don’t seem to hear much about GHL here in the US (because we like to support the ‘home team’, and the not so subliminal sublime ‘mentions’ it gets on all those BRSTV vids and BRS YouTube live-streams, and BRS sales, and yadda-yadda-yadda).

Ha ha yup.
Well in the past I supported digital aquatica which was the USA based controller before Neptune. Then they started messing around, people switched to apex which was and still to a point great controller. They innovated the fusion which was awsome.
To me they started trending down and the web user interface became commodity.

Honestly if you look carefully you see many of the products are clearly built in China just with diffrent logo. You can even see the similarities. But that is diffrent topic.

Ghl now have a great web interface and just make great product. They are big I'm Europe but getting more and more popular in US, still not as big clearly but getting there. Marine depot carry them, brs carry some of theor products. They also have their own distribution that used to be based in florida now In NY I believe.

Another thing I personally feel is that with ghl they are bit simpler and work out of the box which required me less forums searching and asking since there is no coding and programing like in apex.
But as you said, it's all personal preferences.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Is it worth it to purchase the ApexEL? I would only being using what comes in the box, im not paying extra for other things that go with it.

It just monitors temperature and pH?

Hahaha. This will not end there. The breakout box is like 40 dollars. Tell me you wouldn’t want to have an ATO option, along with an automatic notification that your return pump isn’t working for some reason, or an automatic skimmer shutoff when your sump level gets too high, or a notification when your sump level gets too low, to prevent your pump from running dry? ;)

 

[AcanthurusRex]

The "EL" version is only missing the ORP and salinity probes; neither are that necessary.
GHL is Windoz only so it's useless for me. Neptune is platform agnostic; Fusion works anywhere.
Neptune has the tasks to set up most things now. I want to code so I would not be happy if I couldn't write/modify functionality. Not a big fan of the Apex pseudo language, Tcl would be nice.

 

[road_runner]

The "EL" version is only missing the ORP and salinity probes; neither are that necessary.
GHL is Windoz only so it's useless for me. Neptune is platform agnostic; Fusion works anywhere.
Neptune has the tasks to set up most things now. I want to code so I would not be happy if I couldn't write/modify functionality. Not a big fan of the Apex pseudo language, Tcl would be nice.

Hmm. Strange cause I do not use PC at home and setup and run ghl from my phone..just like apex.
Maybe that was the case in the past..not now thu..
Disagree on the salinity agree on orp. Salinity is useful. It's nice that both come for free on the ghl thu..do not u think?
Do not you need to buy a module to add salinity and opr? I do not remember if u need 2 modules or one thu..how about leak detection..do you think its useful in aquariums? Does it come in el by default?

 

[Gareth elliott]

The "EL" version is only missing the ORP and salinity probes; neither are that necessary.
GHL is Windoz only so it's useless for me. Neptune is platform agnostic; Fusion works anywhere.
Neptune has the tasks to set up most things now. I want to code so I would not be happy if I couldn't write/modify functionality. Not a big fan of the Apex pseudo language, Tcl would be nice.

Ghl only kinda needs windows, really just for firmware updates. And hopefully this is changing. A nice part of the profilux 4e is if do want more probes can just buy expansion cards for the unit itself. Instead of adding endless modules. i added a second ph probe to mine, for a carx. The windows computer i use for updates is a really crappy used laptop, doesn’t need to be state of the art.

 

[road_runner]

Ghl only kinda needs windows, really just for firmware updates. And hopefully this is changing. A nice part of the profilux 4e is if do want more probes can just buy expansion cards for the unit itself. Instead of adding endless modules. i added a second ph probe to mine, for a carx. The windows computer i use for updates is a really crappy used laptop, doesn’t need to be state of the art.

Yup, i actually like the ability to bring your laptop next the conteoller and do fw update. Updates used to be pain in my apex classic where I have to take out the whole controller and connect it to the router directly ha ha. This was addressed in the apex 2016 thu so it was only my pain since I refused to upgrade ha ha.
For expansion cards that was a nice feature that you just add the expansion board itself...that being said, So far I did not need expansions which was impressive given the ammount of modules and wires i used to have under the tank..
Fun times yo be reefer.