New apex worth upgrading to?

[Waterjockey]

Thanks for the info. The skimmer overflowing was my one worry, that's why I looked at the controllers but just couldn't justify $600. I then found the "SOS' shutoff/alarm that shuts off the skimmer in case of overflow. I had 1 overflow on the skimmer which dumped a good amount in my stand ( I had waterproofed the stand ) and that was enough for me to figure a solution. For $50 it was worth it and it has an extra probe for sump overflow.
I get that the controllers can monitor all of those devices, just not sure it justifies the price though. I dont run a heater (live in Florida). I have a $20 auto feeder thats worked perfect for 2 plus years.
Maybe if the prices come down with the new release I would look at one, but its still a tough sell, for me.

For sure there are all kinds of devices that do the same things independantly, and each is generally cheaper on their own. The advantage of a controller, to me, is flexibilty and integration....change the way stuff runs with a few minutes of progeam change. Run independant stuff together (ie, shutdown return pump and skimmer and wait 60 sec, then run feeder, after 8 min, start return pump, after 12 min, start skimmer, etc). You can't combine independant pieces of equipment like that without a controller.

A controller certainly isn't a necessary bit of hardware....thousands have run reefs for decades without them (including me...just got mine about a year ago). I agree with you, it's a "luxury" item. I got mine to make it easier for when I am away from home for extended periods. But now that I have one, I am always finding more and more uses for it, and enjoying being able to whip up any kind of control system in just a few minutes.

Does anyone *need* one? No. But like some optional equipment on say a car, it's nice to have sometimes.

Cheers!

 

[Terence]

I appreciate all the feedback guys. Dramatic change and tastes are always hard to get everyone happy on a direction. Regardless I appreciate the feedback and the passion.

As far as the heater question is concerned what I told one poster above is that we have had customers plug heating elements directly into the Apex. This is not a good idea because relays and triacs can and do fail. Also, it is not uncommon to accidentally turn on an outlet manually. For these reasons it is best to always use a heater with its own thermostat as a redundant fail safe. Whether you choose the heater or the apex to be the primary thermostat control is up to you. I have heard compelling reasons on both sides.

 

[Waterjockey]

I appreciate all the feedback guys. Dramatic change and tastes are always hard to get everyone happy on a direction. Regardless I appreciate the feedback and the passion.

As far as the heater question is concerned what I told one poster above is that we have had customers plug heating elements directly into the Apex. This is not a good idea because relays and triacs can and do fail. Also, it is not uncommon to accidentally turn on an outlet manually. For these reasons it is best to always use a heater with its own thermostat as a redundant fail safe. Whether you choose the heater or the apex to be the primary thermostat control is up to you. I have heard compelling reasons on both sides.

Re heater plugged into apex. I have my heater plugged into my apex....but the apex does not control the heater....I use the thermostat in the heater to control temperature. The apex is there for high temperature cut-off incase the heater thermostat sticks on (which I have had a few do iver the decades). If the temperature in the tank exceeds a preset hi temp, the apex will alarm and shut the heater outlet off. It's a redundant safety system.

 

[ImGood]

I'm dissapiinted with the classic as it is now referred to, certainly wouldn't waste hard earned cash on something totally unreliable & no customer service. I use mine now to only display the temp and ph & don't trust those, nothing is plugged into it . Run from this system product and company. Run away. Do not look back. Run. That is my advice to anyone thinking of Neptune apex. The "Fall back to. Off" failed. FAILED .

 

[ImGood]

Re heater plugged into apex. I have my heater plugged into my apex....but the apex does not control the heater....I use the thermostat in the heater to control temperature. The apex is there for high temperature cut-off incase the heater thermostat sticks on (which I have had a few do iver the decades). If the temperature in the tank exceeds a preset hi temp, the apex will alarm and shut the heater outlet off. It's a redundant safety system.

Nope I had mine set the same , the fall back to off part of apex failed run away from it like you would run from a hotel with bed-bugs run away

 

[Waterjockey]

I'm dissapiinted with the classic as it is now referred to, certainly wouldn't waste hard earned cash on something totally unreliable & no customer service. I use mine now to only display the temp and ph & don't trust those, nothing is plugged into it . Run from this system product and company. Run away. Do not look back. Run. That is my advice to anyone thinking of Neptune apex. The "Fall back to. Off" failed. FAILED .

Wow.
Sorry to here about your and Imdamngood's experiences. Mine has been bulletproof for a year now (knock on wood). But every Sun when I do my major tank maintenance I test every switch/float and ensure everything reacts as I want it to.

 

[ImGood]

This unit was connected on March 26 this year It has been a dissapointment. Out of the box it has been totally unreliable. And a disappointment from day one. I could not imagine recommending this to anyone.

 

[Isaac Alves]

You can see my thread for the issues I'm having with the APEX. I did not expect the equipment to be unreliable.

 

[ImGood]

So far. Customer support is nonexistent and no one expects to pay that kind of money for unreliability.and anyone that does recommend apex should be ashamed of themselves if jebao made a controller it would be just as reliable as the junk coming from apex

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Dude, we got your point.

 

[Waterjockey]

So far. Customer support is nonexistent and no one expects to pay that kind of money for unreliability.and anyone that does recommend apex should be ashamed of themselves if jebao made a controller it would be just as reliable as the junk coming from apex

I certainly am not ashamed to recommend the apex based on my thus far 100% reliability. I will only make recommendations for or against a product based on my own experience, thanks.

 

[Isaac Alves]

I'll say that customer service has actually been great in terms of the CRM system they're using and the quick response time of their service crew.

They literally responded to me, personally, only hours after updating my service ticket. Here's the email I got from my rants at 2 am this morning.

So props to them for this. They were super responsive the first time as well. Given that it's a holiday weekend AND they remembered my scheduling issues from before, I'm still impressed with Neptune's customer service.

I hope they help me get this fixed faster. I would be happier if they sent out a new energy bar after our phone session.

 

[ImGood]

Customer service was a little over 72 hrs to respond from Saturday morning until after 11 Tuesday, then this morning before 7 am it shut down again , spent 3 hrs with support to correct the issues again today.so I'm sure you'll understand my scepticism. I cannot in good conscience recommend it

 

[ngvu1]

LOL, I was reading his other post!

Dude, we got your point.

 

[Centerline]

Not to diminish issues others here have had but as someone who runs a classic and a new 2016 on two different heavily automated tanks I have never had a problem with the classic and so far am very pleased with the 2016. I have had to contact customer service in the past for help setting up my Apex and found them to be quick and responsive.

 

[Scott.h]

Not to diminish issues others here have had but I was just reading through this thread and as someone who runs a classic and a new 2016 on two different tanks I have never had a problem with the classic and so far am very pleased with the 2016. I have had to contact customer service in the past for help setting up my Apex and found them to be quick and responsive.

to use an apex to its potential, how complicated is it to properly program for someone who's never touched one?

 

[Centerline]

to use an apex to its potential, how complicated is it to properly program for someone who's never touched one?

Out of the box stuff is simple and fast. Using it to its full potential is a different story.

It can be tough. There is definitely a learning curve but there is good support via the apex user community to. As someone who has written software professionally for the last 25 years it was trivial for me. For someone with no experience it would take some work understanding. Apex could do their customers a real solid by putting together a nice code library (with clearly commented code) for say the top 100 questionsand dedicate someone to stay on top of it.

They could also do some good by moving to procedural nomenclature and having the ability to create and use functions. Easy stuff to learn for the dedicated hydrogeek.

 

[p7willm]

Two things.

One, sometimes it takes a "programming mind" to figure out how to do something involved. Fortunately, if you do not have one there are people willing to write programming to do just about anything you can think of.

Two, it is a process. You don't setup and program it all at once. You give it a shot and you will have some problem or there will be something else you want to automate. The Apex makes it real easy to do that. For example, When I first did the temperature I just did the turn it on at 79 and turn it off at 79.5. That worked fine, until I had the return off for a while and heated water did not flow to the temperature probe. I could crawl around under the tank and move the temperature probe. The much simpler fix was to add a line of code to turn the heater off when the return was off.

I am new to salt water and Apex and when the tank was first set up alarms went off almost every day. Most of them were because I didn't understand the tank or the Apex, the temperature alarm went off while the return was off. But after a while the only alarms I get is when I have to do something, I forgot to check that the ATO water was filled, and the Apex is great at reminding me when I have to do something.

 

[Waterjockey]

Baby steps...you learn as you go along.
You start with simple bits for each device, and there are tons of examples of bits of code to do what you want. Then you discover you would like some additional in that section, and you add a line or two to do it....next thing you know, you've built up each section, utilizing a lot of the potential for the device.

 

[Salty1962]

Unless you have to play with the newest gadgets I would not upgrade. Basically the same functions with a new skin. I have the classic gold and I love it. JMO