SneakyTortuga
Valuable Member
I know there are many arguments as to why adding electronic equipment to an aquarium only adds points of failure which potentially can lead to a tank crash BUT I can happily say my apex saved my tank from a crash.
I’ve been away from my tank for over a month now relying on multiple people to check on my tank whenever they can and a lfs to do weekly water changes. One week into me leaving I got an alarm that my salinity was high and my ph was low (7.8). I immediately knew something was wrong with my ato. Worst part is my lfs was there that day doing “maintenance”. When my brother arrived there was an audible alarm and It hadn’t topped off in 2 days so my return wasn’t even pumping water at this point. (I immediately fired the lfs) I had the ato reset and it seemed to work fine. I ran into issues another 2 times with the ato not topping off. Since I run kalk this meant my alkalinity and calcium must have been having major swings.
Instead of constantly worrying about the top off I ordered a new one off of Amazon via next day shipping. The day before my new ato was going to arrive I received alarms... my orp shot down to 150, salinity went from 35ppm to 29ppm, and my ph went from 8.1 to 9. My ato went from not working to dumping 10 gallons of saturated kalk water into my 80 gallon sps tank. Without the controller I wouldn’t have been able to act and no one would have went to my house for an additional 5 days for my weekly water changes for my skimmer would have been overflowing for days.
After dealing with this failure I can say with confidence I personally will never run another tank without a controller. It was hard at first to justify spending $1000+ on a aquarium controller/accessories but if I wouldn’t have had one i would have lost $3000+ in coral. It may add complexity to the tank but it also adds redundancy and peace of mind.
So thank you Neptune systems for making a product I can count on. I only hope you continue to improve your system.
Last note.... stop making us wait and just release the trident. It would be the last component needed to give me real peace of mind when away from my tank
I’ve been away from my tank for over a month now relying on multiple people to check on my tank whenever they can and a lfs to do weekly water changes. One week into me leaving I got an alarm that my salinity was high and my ph was low (7.8). I immediately knew something was wrong with my ato. Worst part is my lfs was there that day doing “maintenance”. When my brother arrived there was an audible alarm and It hadn’t topped off in 2 days so my return wasn’t even pumping water at this point. (I immediately fired the lfs) I had the ato reset and it seemed to work fine. I ran into issues another 2 times with the ato not topping off. Since I run kalk this meant my alkalinity and calcium must have been having major swings.
Instead of constantly worrying about the top off I ordered a new one off of Amazon via next day shipping. The day before my new ato was going to arrive I received alarms... my orp shot down to 150, salinity went from 35ppm to 29ppm, and my ph went from 8.1 to 9. My ato went from not working to dumping 10 gallons of saturated kalk water into my 80 gallon sps tank. Without the controller I wouldn’t have been able to act and no one would have went to my house for an additional 5 days for my weekly water changes for my skimmer would have been overflowing for days.
After dealing with this failure I can say with confidence I personally will never run another tank without a controller. It was hard at first to justify spending $1000+ on a aquarium controller/accessories but if I wouldn’t have had one i would have lost $3000+ in coral. It may add complexity to the tank but it also adds redundancy and peace of mind.
So thank you Neptune systems for making a product I can count on. I only hope you continue to improve your system.
Last note.... stop making us wait and just release the trident. It would be the last component needed to give me real peace of mind when away from my tank
