Alternative to Neptune Apex?

[noobie]

I've been out of the hobby for a few years.

Starting up a new tank soon and I still have a Neptune Apex and Trident in storage.

Is there any decent alternative to the Neptune system? I'm trying to decide if I want to sell the Neptune for a "new/better" ecosystem.

 

[shanepike]

I have an Apex and a Hydros. Definitely like the Apex way better because you can view and control everything from a web browser, not just an app. It also has great parameter and event logging built in.

 

[siege]

I got my Apex unit as part of a package with my tank that I bought used this January.

I had NO idea what it was or what I was getting, exactly.

I couldn't be happier to have it - especially as someone who ran their first reef tank almost 17 years ago, before there was any such thing. Even more so since I got a huge chunk of experience in industrial automation in the intervening years.

There are alternatives, and I can't say I have any direct experience with them, but nothing I've seen on any of them has convinced me anything else would be noticeably better, and especially not for the money I'd have to spend to get into any of them. I do not have a Trident, though I'm keeping a sharp eye for a deal on one. I do need to replace

I too really appreciate the fact that I can access everything from any web browser or the app on my phone.

 

[billyocean]

If you have an apex....roll with it. I like the hydros but already had an apex.

 

[dball711]

Depends on what you want to do with it, I use a Hydros and for what I use it for it’s great.

 

[noobie]

I appreciate the feedback

Guess I'll stick with the Apex since I already have it. I just saw they have a relatively new NP tester too

 

[noobie]

Depends on what you want to do with it, I use a Hydros and for what I use it for it’s great.

I honestly forgot what I was using the Apex for outside of the trident testing. I'm sure once I set it up again, my memory will be refreshed.

 

[siege]

I honestly forgot what I was using the Apex for outside of the trident testing. I'm sure once I set it up again, my memory will be refreshed.

pH, salinty. ORP if you care.

Big thing? Temperature. Especially if you have an EB8 or EB832, so you can use it to control your heater(s), which has some advantages, such as letting you use heaters without thermostats (like the titanium ones tend not to have) or just not rely on the often imprecise and unreliable thermostats in the heater, which can sometimes get stuck on, in which case as soon as the water temp passes your threshold, the Apex just straight turns off the outlet. This also means the heaters spend less time turning themselves on and off, theoretically increasing their expected lifespan.

Other automation is possible as well. For example, any time either of my pumps turns off for whatever reason, my ATO is immediately turned off, and does not come back on for ten minutes, giving water levels a chance to stabilize, such as if the overflow in my refugium doesn't start to siphon right away, keeping just enough water in it to lower the level below the ATO sensor's bottom and tripping it on. The same delay is also in place after a power loss.

Not to mention it's also great for logging all measurements and other observations.

 

[project1004]

I have 3 bar-8 on my apex JR. At one point I had another apex jr for two separate tank but I’ve joined them together into one system.
(I will be adding Alkatronic and Dosetronic into Apex sometimes soon).

I only use the probes mainly for trends and not for precision. My pH is dropping. -.-



I use most of them on ON because while rearranging, I had to re-plug most of them in other outlets.

 

[noobie]

Oh yea. My memory is coming back now! I think there was a "Feed" button too that I programmed to turn off the pumps/wavemakers for XX minutes. Convenient.

Hopefully my ph/salinity probes are still good. When I put them away for storage, I remember capping them in water.

 

[noobie]

pH, salinty. ORP if you care.

Big thing? Temperature. Especially if you have an EB8 or EB832, so you can use it to control your heater(s), which has some advantages, such as letting you use heaters without thermostats (like the titanium ones tend not to have) or just not rely on the often imprecise and unreliable thermostats in the heater, which can sometimes get stuck on, in which case as soon as the water temp passes your threshold, the Apex just straight turns off the outlet. This also means the heaters spend less time turning themselves on and off, theoretically increasing their expected lifespan.

Other automation is possible as well. For example, any time either of my pumps turns off for whatever reason, my ATO is immediately turned off, and does not come back on for ten minutes, giving water levels a chance to stabilize, such as if the overflow in my refugium doesn't start to siphon right away, keeping just enough water in it to lower the level below the ATO sensor's bottom and tripping it on. The same delay is also in place after a power loss.

Not to mention it's also great for logging all measurements and other observations.

Temperature! I had an inkbird controller with 2x titanium heaters. It was double redundancy with the Apex. I think I programmed the Apex at a lower/higher floor/ceiling, respectively, than the inkbird. That way the inkbird did all the switching, with the apex backing up the inkbird in case of failure.

I also programmed the apex to alert me when one(or both) of the heating elements have failed by detecting power output.