Getting Ready To Order My Apex...

[DWill]

I'm starting to gather information to make a decision on which Apex to buy.

'm setting up a new tank early this summer, maybe even sooner given we have no spring football this year. The new tank will be a 25-gallon lagoon, undecided on IM AIO or Ext and a sump, but leaning toward a sump. I coach college football so from late July through November or late December I work 100+ hour weeks, which means I'm not home a lot...

I want the Apex mostly as a monitor but I will set it up to control the heater/fan, the ATO and perhaps dosing. I may do auto water changes in the future as well.

I have a few questions to help me decide between the full Apex and the Apex EL. Also questions on the compatibility of some of my current equipment.

Regarding the Apex and the EL version.
From reading forums and talking with an LFS it seems the salinity monitoring is pretty much hit or miss. Anecdotally I'd it seems it's about 50/50 on getting it to work at all and maybe 60/40 on reliability if you're able to get it to work. Monitoring salinity is for me a "nice to have" feature, at least for now. I mean it would be "nice" to get a message if ATO was dumping water in my tank or wasn't working but I can live without it. I have a completely separate redundant system now that will turn power to the ATO off if it gets to a certain level. That's a separate backup to the built-in safeguard on the Tunze Nano. So I can live without salinity monitoring

But.... IF I'm way off base on the difficulty of getting it to work and the reliability please let me know your experience because if I'm wrong I go with the full Apex. I know if I chose the EL I will also lose ORP; but, again to me it's a "nice to have" and not a deal-breaker if I don't.

So my decision is mainly based on salinity monitoring.

This is the shortlist of gear I have that I would like to know is compatible or not in terms of monitoring and control. I go with an IM AIO everything in the "current eq list" will move to the new tank. If I go with a sump only the items with a * after them will move to the new tank.
Tunze nano ATO*
Cobalt Neo-therm heater(s)*
InkBird heat/cool control (not the WiFi version)*
IM Mighty Jet DC pump
IM DC Skimmer*
AI Prime 16HD*

Looking forward to your input.
I'd like to get the Apex ordered in the next week to ten days.

Thank you for your help...

 

[Billldg]

Unless you plan on running ozone, the ORP probe is not a must have. Some people seem to have issues with the salinity probe. I had issues but was able to get it to work and it has been spot on for over a year now. I personally like the salinity probe. At first I was like, it doesn't change so why would I need it. In reality, salinity can and does drift if not monitored. Having the probe allows me to see the drift and correct it when needed. I use a Tunze 3155 ATO and I love being able to program the Apex to turn it off for 20 minutes when I use the Feed mode. The ATO float sensor would go off when I lower the velocity of my return pump as it would raise the water level in my sump. I also use it to control my Finnex titanium heaters, but I would recommend using a t-stat to control the heaters and use the Apex as a second line of defense to turn off the outlets if the tank gets to hot. Putting the wear and tear of turning the outlets on and off will wear out the relays on the EB832.