Here's what an alk disaster looks like!

[N4sty T4te]

Hey all! Thought I would share my learning experience. I was in the process of moving and had someone watching my tank. I had an Apex on it and figured "what could go wrong?"

I happened to drive back to my old apartment on a whim to check out the tank and walked in to this. My Apex somehow corrupted it's firmware and was turning itself on and off for 5 mins at a time. My temp was down to 73 and that's almost an entire gallon of alkalinity supplement in the sump! I received no warnings from the Apex. I lucked out and walked in in time and was able to quickly rescue almost everyone. Another 8 hrs and I think the entire tank would have been a goner. Everyone is now moved in to my wet for only 2 days new Reefer 250.

I have mine setup to turn off Alk dosing when they PH is above 8.35, and to turn off Calcium dosing if the PH is below 7.95.

This would have prevented it from going completely nuts regardless the situation. The only thing that can go wrong then is a back siphon. So make sure the container unit is placed below the pumps.

 

[N4sty T4te]

If you haven't already make sure the Neptune heartbeat feature is turned on. If the apex goes offline (forgot the time limit) it will notify you.

Did not know about this feature, just turned it on. I've always thought it was dumb that the unit only notified me when it came back online. So this was music to my ears!

 

[Hans-Werner]

Another 8 hrs and I think the entire tank would have been a goner. Everyone is now moved in to my wet for only 2 days new Reefer 250

Depends from your alkalinity additive. With two/three part additives you can virtually turn your tank into a snow globe without doing too much harm to the inhabitants, with Kalkwasser most probably it would be already dead due to the pH rise.

 

[AcanthurusRex]

I have mine setup to turn off Alk dosing when they PH is above 8.35, and to turn off Calcium dosing if the PH is below 7.95.

This would have prevented it from going completely nuts regardless the situation. The only thing that can go wrong then is a back siphon. So make sure the container unit is placed below the pumps.

Not if the Apex is in la-la land. When my Apex went off into the weeds it was lost, unresponsive to any inputs. Required a power cycle to function again. I took my Apex off WiFi and it has been solid since. Neptune does warn against locating near any 2.4GHz sources such as the bank of ecotech pump modules mounted next to the Apex in my system.

 

[FirstContact]

Add vinegar.

 

[dgragg]

I just think the GHL has a pretty good track record. Extremely reliable.

Jeremy, I had a GHL fail in the on position and dump approximately a half gallon of each; Alk, Cal, and Mag into the tank. It wasn't pretty. Keep an eye on it.

 

[Coronus]

I have read about many tanks crashing as a result of their Apex. I was very close to buying one once. But couldn't wrap my head around it.
I trust myself more than a controller.
Great save though.

 

[North Borders]

I have mine setup to turn off Alk dosing when they PH is above 8.35, and to turn off Calcium dosing if the PH is below 7.95.

This would have prevented it from going completely nuts regardless the situation. The only thing that can go wrong then is a back siphon. So make sure the container unit is placed below the pumps.

So did I. What I'm saying happened was my Apex "lost" it's programming and just started doing it's own thing. I was over an hour from my new place with no "move a tank and critters" equipment with me and was going to try and just see if I could restart and fix the Apex, but I literally couldn't get it to come back online and go back to normal functioning so I had to tear the tank down right then and there and haul livestock that night. None of my shut off commands were working as well as no emergency notifications for temp or pH swing. My temp was down to 73 degrees and I have tank alerts set up to go off at 76.5. I had dosed alk with a program code from reeftronics for over a year. It had a pH kill line in the coding. I literally walked into my apartment, saw the tank and said "what the heck?!" It shouldn't have been able to happen.

 

[North Borders]

I think the thing that probably bought me time and saved the tank was the alk precipitated so heavily in the sump that it clogged off my return line pretty well preventing a lot of alk from reaching the display. My alk in the display was about 10.5 (normally always around 7.2). I didn't even bother wasting a test on the sump as it was clearly sky high.

Not if the Apex is in la-la land. When my Apex went off into the weeds it was lost, unresponsive to any inputs. Required a power cycle to function again. I took my Apex off WiFi and it has been solid since. Neptune does warn against locating near any 2.4GHz sources such as the bank of ecotech pump modules mounted next to the Apex in my system.

I had mine hardwired with an ethernet cable direct into a modem. Are you referring to wifi interference? My Vortech controllers were at least 4ft away from the main Apex brain which was inside the cabinet. I will admit, I was behind on firmware updates with Apex Fusion, so that likely had a lot to do with it, but I don't know this for certain. I don't think that's an excuse for the Apex to go full cray cray like that though...

 

[North Borders]

Add vinegar.

Took a few gallons of this to clean equipment and clean out the sump On a happy note: My girlfriend took the Reefer Nano once we got it all cleaned up and she is making a betta sorority out of it and going to do a sick planted tank with CO2. I've upgraded to a Reefer 250 haha

 

[North Borders]

Tank sitter, of course.

My tank sitter was my dad. When I saw the tank I texted him and was like..."soooo, did you notice anything out of the norm on the tank the last day or two you were watching it?" He literally replied..."well yesterday, the return pump didn't seem to want to come back on, but I didn't want to bother you at your new job, so I just didn't say anything." ;Facepalm;Dead

 

[Radman73]

My tank sitter was my dad. When I saw the tank I texted him and was like..."soooo, did you notice anything out of the norm on the tank the last day or two you were watching it?" He literally replied..."well yesterday, the return pump didn't seem to want to come back on, but I didn't want to bother you at your new job, so I just didn't say anything." ;Facepalm;Dead

Dads, God bless em lol!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

WOW! That's wild!