Apex broken?

[matlet]

Hi,
I purchased my Apex used and am recently trying to set it up for my heater. I am using APEX Fusion even though I have also used the direct interface over my home network. Neither setup seems to work.

My heater is set at around 84 degrees and I want the Apex to control it. I want the temp to be no colder than 79 and no warmer than 82. However the Apex will let the temp climb above 82 and also sometimes not turn on when it is 74. Here is a simple screen shot below.

I can't seem to figure out what I might be doing wrong.

Thank you for any advice,
Mark

 

[lmm1967]

Are you sure it's registered properly with Fusion?

Have you attempted to connect directly and do your programming that way?

 

[elfloyd]

Is the heater plugged into the correct outlet?

 

[matlet]

All good questions. Yes, I verified the heater plug in the EB8 by using a lamp to verify ability to turn it on and off manually.

I believe I do have Apex Fusion set up correctly because I get all the nice graphs of the temp and ph going up and down. Fusion would show the heater as "off" when it got too warm, but yet the heater itself still had its "heating is on" light visible. Same thing that sometimes the water is cool and Fusion says the heater is on, yet the heater is off and there is no heat when I hold it in my hand (under the water of course).

I did use the direct method and no better response.

Mark

 

[bcavalli]

What temp is you Heater set at? Is it possible your heater is malfunctioning?

 

[myreefclub0070]

it could be that the heater set temp is not the actual temp and the apex probe might need to be calibrated to the actual heater temp, not the set temp, if that makes sense to you.

 

[matlet]

The heater is brand new. It is an Aqueon Pro (thermal plastic cover, not glass) submersible 250 watt for a 75 gallon tank. I have the temp set at 84. Since I already suspected the Apex to have an issue, I didn't want to set it too high. The heater has an indicator light - red=heating, green=target temp.

This is the second one I bought (returned first because it could not heat the tank at all). The heater could be an issue, but I don't think so.The Apex has allowed the tank to get too cold and also too hot. Even when the Apex dashboard has said the heater is off, I have seen the heater indicator light on red.

The heater is plugged into the #5 slot. You can see in the attached picture that it is the lower right plug (with the red tag). I have the heater in my sump next to the return pump so that water is pulled across the heater.

The temp probe is also in the sump, but it is on the opposite side with the skimmer, where there is a constant height of water.

I'm not sure about the probe and calibrating it. I'll do some research. Of course, the Apex has allowed my temp to dip down to 72 degrees and as hot as 83 before I made adjustments (unplug to cool tank or plug into alternative outlet to heat).

Maybe I should try one of the other plugs to drive the heater instead of the one labeled for the heater.

Thank you for all your insights.

 

[elfloyd]

Hi Mark.

Scratching my head on this one. Two suggestions. (1) Confirm the temperature of the tank with a good quality digital cooking thermometer. I use one from Bed, Bath, and Beyond ($20). This is also how I calibrate my Apex temp probe. (2) Post the problem on the Neptune Forum (https://forum.neptunesystems.com">https://forum.neptunesystems.com</a>).

And one long shot... reboot the Apex (power down / power up).


Larry

 

[bcavalli]

Great suggestions Larry! One other suggestion might be to try advanced programming and program it. Possibly check that your eb8 module is updated. Might be a glitch in the programming for some strange reason.

 

[ff337]

Turn the heater to 78. If the outlet fails on, the heater will stay at 78. If the heater fails on, the apex will turn it off when the temp is 78. Or whatever your desired temperature is.

 

[rdnelson]

This doesn't address your stated problem but I notice you said you have the heater in the return pump compartment and probe where the level remains constant. The heater should be where water level remains constant as well. If the heater is not submerged it could burn up.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[rdnelson]

Also, better to use two smaller heaters than one big one. Temp swings won't be as big and if one fails you still have some heat. Set one a little higher than the other.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[matlet]

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice. I did switch the heater to a different plug port on the EB8 and the temp level seems to be properly bouncing between my lower and upper limits since Sunday. I will continue to monitor it to be sure. I'm not hurting for plug ports, so this workaround will be fine. I think I only need one more opening for an ATO once I set it up.

I guess the old plug port could be bad (Apex tells it to turn off/on and it ignores the message) or the Apex is hosed with respect to that port. I've done reboots and resets on it before with no improvement. I wonder if there is some old programming still stuck in there.

Thanks again!