DOS QD during auto water change shorted entire system

[obanarama]

I've got a 10 month old Apex Pro with two EB8's (among lots of other Apex connected things) and a DOS QD.

The DOS has been running for about six weeks doing 3GPD auto water changes on my 180G tank. All things connected to the Apex are on a UPS in our the office where the tank is located, and that's backed up by generator power with an automatic transfer switch.

Everything was going great until a couple nights ago when at 3am I noticed that the DOS QD module had disappeared from Fusion (thank goodness for old-man-middle-of-the-night pees!) I didn't think much about it and went back to sleep. When I woke at about 7:30 all of the Apex modules were missing, which wasn't the end of the world, as I've seen that happen before when our auto feeder fell into the sump. I checked our webcams and the tank looked fine - pumps were running.

However, by the time we got to the tank (its an office tank) at 9:00am both of my EB8's had stopped providing power, so the tank was totally dead - no pumps running. There were no power interruptions during the night, no blips, no nothing. We're a datacenter company so we are alerted when power gets wonkey, and there were no alerts that night.

Fortunately, the first thing we did was unplug the 1Link cable from the DOS and then everything Apex related, including EB8 power and all modules and pumps, came roaring back to life.

I opened a Neptune support ticket who responded with a lame "8 steps to debug which device is causing issues" canned response, which wasn't helpful, as it's clear that its the DOS that has caused the issue. I let them know that the response wasn't helpful but am currently stressed about keeping the DOS plugged in at all during non-office hours for fear of killing the tank. I also posted to the Neptune forums.

The cable looks good, the DOS is plugged back in for now doing an AWC so that we can monitor it while people are in the office, but we're going to disconnect it again at the end of the day.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour? If so you have recommendations? It's quite stressful!

 

[BryanM]

Hoping you'll get a better response from neptune.

Some people here think I'm crazy for moving to Hydros, but this is exactly why.... Their support is not good.

 

[obanarama]

Yeah, I own a hosting company, we do good support, and know good support, and so far this ain't that. That's a waste of both my time and his time.

I'm a programmer and love the Apex otherwise. Hopefully they'll do right be me here.

 

[SaltyBlue]

Still might be worth going through the troubleshooting, I could see them wanting evidence that there wasn’t water in the connector etc. But you’re lucky the entire system didn’t need to be reset afterwards, lots of these stories end that way

 

[Stevorino]

I've never heard of that issue, I'm interested to see what the fix is.

I've been on Apex for a decade or so and I have found their support to be helpful/fair, but it's unfortunately not fast... and yes they do have canned step guides to start support tickets. Once you get past that they have been good to me.

 

[obanarama]

Still might be worth going through the troubleshooting, I could see them wanting evidence that there wasn’t water in the connector etc. But you’re lucky the entire system didn’t need to be reset afterwards, lots of these stories end that way

Yeah, the 8 steps that he sent me were meant to get the eb8's providing power again. Sadly, he neglected to read what I wrote about power coming back as soon as I disconnected the DOS. Oh well. I'd wager we'll get there eventually but his signature said this, so I'm not hopeful for a speedy solution:

"I will be out of the office this coming Wednesday 3/25 through Friday 3/27, and will reply to emails when I return to the office on Monday 3/30."

 

[obanarama]

I've never heard of that issue, I'm interested to see what the fix is.

I've been on Apex for a decade or so and I have found their support to be helpful/fair, but it's unfortunately not fast... and yes they do have canned step guides to start support tickets. Once you get past that they have been good to me.

Ok, that's hopeful. Thank you.

 

[Sdbuehler1]

I've got a 10 month old Apex Pro with two EB8's (among lots of other Apex connected things) and a DOS QD.

The DOS has been running for about six weeks doing 3GPD auto water changes on my 180G tank. All things connected to the Apex are on a UPS in our the office where the tank is located, and that's backed up by generator power with an automatic transfer switch.

Everything was going great until a couple nights ago when at 3am I noticed that the DOS QD module had disappeared from Fusion (thank goodness for old-man-middle-of-the-night pees!) I didn't think much about it and went back to sleep. When I woke at about 7:30 all of the Apex modules were missing, which wasn't the end of the world, as I've seen that happen before when our auto feeder fell into the sump. I checked our webcams and the tank looked fine - pumps were running.

However, by the time we got to the tank (its an office tank) at 9:00am both of my EB8's had stopped providing power, so the tank was totally dead - no pumps running. There were no power interruptions during the night, no blips, no nothing. We're a datacenter company so we are alerted when power gets wonkey, and there were no alerts that night.

Fortunately, the first thing we did was unplug the 1Link cable from the DOS and then everything Apex related, including EB8 power and all modules and pumps, came roaring back to life.

I opened a Neptune support ticket who responded with a lame "8 steps to debug which device is causing issues" canned response, which wasn't helpful, as it's clear that its the DOS that has caused the issue. I let them know that the response wasn't helpful but am currently stressed about keeping the DOS plugged in at all during non-office hours for fear of killing the tank. I also posted to the Neptune forums.

The cable looks good, the DOS is plugged back in for now doing an AWC so that we can monitor it while people are in the office, but we're going to disconnect it again at the end of the day.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour? If so you have recommendations? It's quite stressful!

I have beeen experiencing a similar issue with my apex pro. There is a lot to explain so bear with me lol.

I am running two tanks with similar setups with a dos for dosing and water changes but my newer tank has the apex pro 3 and DOS QD. A couple times now I have woken up to find that several of the power ports on the power bar are off and non functional. Rebooting the controller and cycling the power on the power bar does not fix the issue. I am also running an FMM controller which powers a pmup for ATO and has optical sensors connected for my mixing tank and ro tank. The FMM controller has its own power supply so it stays on even when the power bar is unplugged. The FMM controller is also connected with an aqua bus cable to the DOS for communication instead of running another link cable back to the power bar. I have discovered that when this issue happens I have to disconnect both the power and aqua bus cable from the FMM and then plug it back in and then the power bar ports start working again. I am currently ruling out a bad aqua bus or link cable as well as bad aqua bus ports on the DOS QD. If the problem continues I may have to try replacing the FMM. I did notice that one time the DOS QD was flashing red lights in a weird sequence. I have also uploaded my logs to Neptune as well as sending in the power bar to be inspected but Neptune support has not found anything wrong. I hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck!

 

[obanarama]

I have beeen experiencing a similar issue with my apex pro. There is a lot to explain so bear with me lol.

I am running two tanks with similar setups with a dos for dosing and water changes but my newer tank has the apex pro 3 and DOS QD. A couple times now I have woken up to find that several of the power ports on the power bar are off and non functional. Rebooting the controller and cycling the power on the power bar does not fix the issue. I am also running an FMM controller which powers a pmup for ATO and has optical sensors connected for my mixing tank and ro tank. The FMM controller has its own power supply so it stays on even when the power bar is unplugged. The FMM controller is also connected with an aqua bus cable to the DOS for communication instead of running another link cable back to the power bar. I have discovered that when this issue happens I have to disconnect both the power and aqua bus cable from the FMM and then plug it back in and then the power bar ports start working again. I am currently ruling out a bad aqua bus or link cable as well as bad aqua bus ports on the DOS QD. If the problem continues I may have to try replacing the FMM. I did notice that one time the DOS QD was flashing red lights in a weird sequence. I have also uploaded my logs to Neptune as well as sending in the power bar to be inspected but Neptune support has not found anything wrong. I hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck!

Interesting! Thank you. Tho in my setup my DOS QD isn't connected to a FFM, and there's no power brick involved. It's directly connected to the EB8 with a 1link cable. I think I'll take your lead tho and swap out the 1link cable and see if it crops up again, unless Neptune support comes up with something helpful.

 

[obanarama]

Update: My current theory is that the big Apex power outage was actually caused by the DOS QD itself. I plugged it back in during business hours for two days and it didn't do the crazy-short-everything-out thing again. I couldn't bear the stress of leaving it plugged in at night for fear of it happening while no one was at the office and it taking down the tank, so I bought a new DOS QD - yeah I wanted those auto water changes running again badly. Upon installing the new DOS QD I realized that the *old* one was VERY loud, as the new one is actually, well, quiet! (I've never owned a DOS before)

My current and totally unscientific theory is that one of the heads on the old DOS motors was defective - the loud one - and the loudness was from friction as it spun, and that friction was causing an electrical buildup, which eventually shorted out the entire apex system.

The other reason that I think it was a friction-based electrical event from a bad motor was that it was a cascading situation, not an immediate event like what happens during a short. At 3am the DOS module disappeared from the Apex, at 7am all of the other modules disappeared, and then at 9am both eb832's stopped providing power to all connected devices. And then *everything* came back and started working as if nothing happened the *moment* the DOS was disconnected.

This of course is not scientific at all, but I'm not plugging that old DOS back in to find out. And yes, I am still waiting to hear back from Neptune support, which so far, after being totally unhelpful, is now glacially slow.

 

[Walkadoc]

Very interesting theory,, replace the head and try it?

 

[obanarama]

Very interesting theory,, replace the head and try it?

Well it sounds like Neptune support is going to replace the whole DOS, which I very much appreciate as its a nearly new unit. So we'll likely never know if my theory holds any weight. Good for me, bad for the world of Apex research.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I have to say, I can’t stand some of the things they are doing. But I have had nothing but positive experience after experience with Support from Neptune/Apex/Fusion and Ecotech. Neptune always has gone out of the way. Now, I hate Mobius and I think Neptune is one bad day away from turning Fusion into a subscription service to make up for lost revenue from lack of product being sold due to no R&D. But, they replaced both my QDs last year. All I do is put a ticket in and they hound me for service like no tomorrow. I don’t get why they are hot and cold with some people.