Need help! Cor-20/Apex frustrations

[Susan Edwards]

I've been trying to get the 2 cor-20 pumps hooked up to apex so flow speed will be set even after a power outage (not default to full flow when power comes back on). Today I hooked them up to the apex, not the energy bar which gave me trouble last time (volt errors). I set them both to 20% in the apex. 1 of them, it was way too powerful. The other, barely flowing into the display! No matter in the Apex what I changed, down to 10, it wasn't right. It pumped the water out of the return section. Removed Apex, then the overflow was too low. Open gate valve, close gate valve.... I gave up! And hours later, just now have the gate valve about right. Almost...

Without the apex I run them at 2 lights on the controller. What does that translate into flow percentage? If each light has 2 settings (bright and faint) and they are each an "8" per neptune, I should be around 16%.

I want to get them tied into the apex, then I'll work on plugging them into the energy bar! Somehow I'm not understanding this... Or do I need to set them at like 4% and work up? The last time I tried, I could not get the IQ set up to work.

Tank is a RS 9003xl. Approx 225 water volume total.

 

[Bob Escher]

Where do you have the aquabus cables plugged too.
Since they have their own power supplies you don’t need to plug them into the EB832 either

 

[Susan Edwards]

I have one cable from the Apex to the cor-20 and one from the cor-20 to cor-20

Good to know on the energy bar but as I'm using those as power strips, I might want to plug in there instead of a plain power strip, unless that makes issues worse. I have 2 of the energy bars so have plenty of outlets to go around. But if it conflicts with the apex, then I can keep plugged into wall outlet or power strip

 

[SuncrestReef]

There's no advantage to plugging the COR20 power supply into an EnergyBar output because there's no need to turn the power adapter off. Instead, plug the power adapter into a regular power strip. The COR20 creates its own ON/AUTO/OFF output slider on your dashboard, so that's where you turn off the pump when needed. Plugging it into an EnergyBar outlet is a waste of a valuable controllable outlet. A good analogy is unplugging your TV to turn it off instead of using the remote control. The TV should always have power, and just respond to On/Off using the remote.

If you do plug into the EnergyBar, be sure that output is programmed for Always ON.

As for the speed setting after a power failure or if the Apex is offline, that's controlled by the Fallback setting on the COR20. Fallback can be set to ON which would result in 100%, OFF which is 0%, or you can use a percentage in between. In order to specify a percentage, you need to go into the Basic view where it shows the program code instead of the graphic schedule:

On this screen, change the Fallback setting to the speed you want, then click the cloud icon to save your changes, then click the magic wand icon to return to the Schedule screen:

 

[Bob Escher]

I have one cable from the Apex to the cor-20 and one from the cor-20 to cor-20

Good to know on the energy bar but as I'm using those as power strips, I might want to plug in there instead of a plain power strip, unless that makes issues worse. I have 2 of the energy bars so have plenty of outlets to go around. But if it conflicts with the apex, then I can keep plugged into wall outlet or power strip

Just for curiosity sake ( and I don’t know) did you try them separately and or adding a separate aquabus instead of together

 

[Susan Edwards]

Just for curiosity sake ( and I don’t know) did you try them separately and or adding a separate aquabus instead of together

I can try not cabling them together next time (need a full day off to mess with tank). I did try them separately. One barely trickled, the other blasted. And then my return section was empty so had to quickly get back back in there!

Here is what I had the settings. Do I need lower? I think I'm just not understanding the process of doing this.

Should I turn them both off. Start them one at a time at like 4% and raise one at a time until the water stays at 6" in my return chamber and then adjust gate valve for overflow?

As for the speed setting after a power failure or if the Apex is offline, that's controlled by the Fallback setting on the COR20. Fallback can be set to ON which would result in 100%, OFF which is 0%, or you can use a percentage in between. In order to specify a percentage, you need to go into the Basic view where it shows the program code instead of the graphic schedule:

On this screen, change the Fallback setting to the speed you want, then click the cloud icon to save your changes, then click the magic wand icon to return to the Schedule screen:

Got you on the energy bar, so will take the pumps off. I didn't try that yesterday so will change the settings on the bar.
So I changed my fallback from off to 20. Or ultimately to whatever flow I'm running/desire. And that is where I'm having issues. How do I dial in the flow rate so I have 6" in the return chamber and water at the correct level in the overflow.

Fallback 20
tdata 00:00:00,0,0,11,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
tdata 23:41:00,0,0,11,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
If FeedA 005 Then 1

and thank you both for helping me. I was beyond frustrated yesterday.

 

[Bob Escher]

I have Fallback Off
And then the rest is for turning off the pump for feed modes.
I would take the twenty out and try tht