Apex issue that took out 1/2 my tank

[Brian283]

Evening fellow Reefers,


I wanted to ask a question about my Apex controller and a recent event where my temperature dropped heater stayed on till it reached 90 degrees.

I have a Red Sea G2. 65 gallon display and 20 gallon sump. I changed out my glass heater 2 months ago as it was approaching 12 months old. I replaced it with a BRS Titanium 350w heater. Everything was working great until last Thursday.

I have the Apex programmed to keep the temperature between 77.5 and 79.0 degrees. Heater is plugged into the Apex Power bar and controller turns the heater on and off as needed. I haven’t had any issues with the Apex system for over 10 months.

I travel a lot for work and last week I was in Europe. I came out of a meeting and saw I had a major temperature swing in the last 12 hours. The swing was 73.5 to 90.2 degrees. I turned the heater off using the Apex app on my phone. One challenge was it was 2 Am in the States so didn’t call my wife that early.

Over the next few hours I watched the temperature slowly drop down and at 6 am I called my wife. She went and looked at the tank, two fish were already dead along with a fire shrimp. Tank was cloudy. LPS were stressed.

My wife called our local Reef store who maintains my tank and he was able to come over that afternoon between servicing other customers tanks.

He put a new large bag of carbon in the sock as he could tell all the corals were very stressed. He recommended waiting 24-48 hours before doing a water change as everything was already stressed enough. And changing the carbon bag every 24 hours for the next few days.

I returned home Saturday afternoon and did a 15 gallon water change. Changed out the carbon.

I lost 2 large SPS colonies, 7 SPS frags, large frogspun , 2 hammers and all the remaining corals both SPS and LPS show signs of stress and now STN.

Apex seems to be working fine currently. But my reef maintenance guy is guessing that Apex could have pushed a software patch as they are normally sent at night. Patch could have temporarily caused my heaters to not turn off once the water temperature reached 79.0 as per the setting I have it on.

Two most frustrating things about this is, I had just turned the corner and with my reef shops help, my tank was doing fantastic for the last 4-5 months. I finally had the Nitrate / phos ratio where we wanted it and the doser was dialed in, corals were going great. Second frustration is I lost about $750 in corals and fish. I don’t know exactly why.

I have already submitted a trouble ticket to Apex. I would like to know what they can see in their system and if they know what the happened.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks

Brian

 

[Jamie814]

To prevent this issue, set the heater a couple degrees higher than the apex's setting as the backup. Additionally, why do you replace the heater every 12 months? I have been running the same eheim jager heaters for over 4 years on my apex this way with no issues.

I've never experienced an automatic update on my apex; it always notifies me when an update is available, which I then have to initiate manually?

Looking at your graph it looks like your temp probe could have been out of water causing the heater to kick on then it was put back in the water after a while with the heater on and read the current tank temp at 90. What time of day did this happen? Was anyone around the tank at this time?

 

[leepink23]

Sorry that you experienced this! You have to download apex firmware, it doesn’t automatically go through. Also I always like to have a second control on my heaters. I bought titanium heaters that had their on controllers. Hopefully apex can help you get to the bottom of what happened.

 

[Ironwill723]

Why are you running a 350w heater on a 65g tank? Two smaller heaters are usually better. Can't cook your tank that way.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Are you running a controller between your heater and apex? I am sorry this happen, I had this happen once too. I run at a minimum at least a controller between my heater and my apex, with Apex being the redundancy. As I change heaters out, I am getting out of the titanium heaters and going to Eheim glass heaters, this way, I will plug that into my controller then my controller into my apex.

 

[SliceGolfer]

Absolutely put an Inkbird or similar inline between the heater and the Apex for safety and backup. The Inkbird does the heavy lifting, saving wear and tear on the Apex relay. Dual temp probes and two means of control add redundancy. Control with advanced programming and alerts.

By the way, was your heater plugged into outlet 4 or 8?

 

[SliceGolfer]

Coincidentally, listed as recent topics only a few threads apart

clarification on how an inkbird 306T works

need a little clarity on how the inkbird works and it's ultimate purpose. i currently have two eheim heaters connected to one inkbird 306t (non wifi version) i have the inkbird set at 79 and the heater at 78 my understanding is, is that when the inkbird temp probe senses a temp above 79 it...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Can you share the code you have saved in your heater outlet?

I would lean towards to logical explanation.

I've seen it many times when a slider gets moved from auto to either on or off.

It's far fetched to think that if apex was accurately displaying the temperature that it would not run the program you set.

 

[Brian283]

Absolutely put an Inkbird or similar inline between the heater and the Apex for safety and backup. The Inkbird does the heavy lifting, saving wear and tear on the Apex relay. Dual temp probes and two means of control add redundancy. Control with advanced programming and alerts.

By the way, was your heater plugged into outlet 4 or 8?

inkbird ordered last night. And I am only using one heater for now. Sump heater turned off. I appreciate everyone’s feedback. It was mentioned above, looks like temp prob came out of the water. I think that was the key the more
I think about it.

Looking at the filter sock and sump water flow. I think the sock became clogged, restricted the water Level in the sump, temp prob came out the water, temperature dropped and turning on the heaters, heaters ran until I saw it heat 90 degrees and turned them off but by then it was too late.

 

[Doctorgori]

I will be way outside the sample of advise here but I have to ask what are your house thermostat setting year round for New Mexico?
The question is relevant for a tank your 65g, that size is close to a size that is relatively temperature stable against ambient room temps.

I’m basically saying if you keep your home thermostat within a few degrees then your tank will stay pretty close to that temperature. Trust me anything above 70F but under 84F or k’s just fine most any fish of coral.

I’ve had heater failure before and I’ve lost entire tanks.
So what are the risk your house temps will drop to fatal levels vs the odds of a heater failure?

Ask yourself Why do I have or need a heater on this tank?
…. There is zero proof a 1-2 daily temp swing harms corals
…. There is zero proof 78F is a required stable number or that that temp is universally ideal for each and every fish and coral from around the world…78F is parroted

None of my tanks have heaters anymore

 

[Northern Flicker]

Why are you running a 350w heater on a 65g tank? Two smaller heaters are usually better. Can't cook your tank that way.

I run 400W worth of heating on my 60B because it's in a Canadian basement.

 

[PharmrJohn]

To prevent this issue, set the heater a couple degrees higher than the apex's setting as the backup. Additionally, why do you replace the heater every 12 months? I have been running the same eheim jager heaters for over 4 years on my apex this way with no issues.

I've never experienced an automatic update on my apex; it always notifies me when an update is available, which I then have to initiate manually?

Looking at your graph it looks like your temp probe could have been out of water causing the heater to kick on then it was put back in the water after a while with the heater on and read the current tank temp at 90. What time of day did this happen? Was anyone around the tank at this time?

The reason to replace the heater is that it is cheap and it's a major part of maintaining your ecosystem. I plan on replacing mine yearly.

 

[Brian283]

I will be way outside the sample of advise here but I have to ask what are your house thermostat setting year round for New Mexico?
The question is relevant for a tank your 65g, that size is close to a size that is relatively temperature stable against ambient room temps.

I’m basically saying if you keep your home thermostat within a few degrees then your tank will stay pretty close to that temperature. Trust me anything above 70F but under 84F or k’s just fine most any fish of coral.

I’ve had heater failure before and I’ve lost entire tanks.
So what are the risk your house temps will drop to fatal levels vs the odds of a heater failure?

Ask yourself Why do I have or need a heater on this tank?
…. There is zero proof a 1-2 daily temp swing harms corals
…. There is zero proof 78F is a required stable number or that that temp is universally ideal for each and every fish and coral from around the world…78F is parroted

None of my tanks have heaters anymore

That is absolutely valid. I will be able to get there in a few years but currently my wife wants the A/C set on 65 at night. Which is when the issue happened. Daytime 72 currently.

 

[KStatefan]

inkbird ordered last night. And I am only using one heater for now. Sump heater turned off. I appreciate everyone’s feedback. It was mentioned above, looks like temp prob came out of the water. I think that was the key the more
I think about it.

Looking at the filter sock and sump water flow. I think the sock became clogged, restricted the water Level in the sump, temp prob came out the water, temperature dropped and turning on the heaters, heaters ran until I saw it heat 90 degrees and turned them off but by then it was too late.

What caused the temp sensor to move back into the water?

 

[dwest]

You have some good advice above and are being thoughtful about the process. Heater “malfunctions” are likely the cause of many system failures. I’ve been reefing for 30 years and I highly recommend 2 smaller (100 watt ish) eheim jager heaters set a degree or two above your set point, then backed up by apex. Others might recommend more reliable external controllers but the system I mentioned seems to be quite good.

Good luck and sorry!

 

[PharmrJohn]

You have some good advice above and are being thoughtful about the process. Heater “malfunctions” are likely the cause of many system failures. I’ve been reefing for 30 years and I highly recommend 2 smaller (100 watt ish) eheim jager heaters set a degree or two above your set point, then backed up by apex. Others might recommend more reliable external controllers but the system I mentioned seems to be quite good.

Good luck and sorry!

Yes!!!! Forgot to mention that. I'm also going to run a redundancy.

 

[Doctorgori]

Just saying there are risk with any electrical equipment submerged in water and I think heaters should be treated as”situational” which is also essentially what a controller/thermostat is supposed to do…
But as we see, those can fail also…

I also have enough sample to say small daily temperature fluctuations are harmless, and perhaps “seasonal” fluctuations might even be ideal if not essential for things like breeding…

..a dead on 24/7/365 78F is parroted as essential biological fact, and it isn’t

 

[Brian283]

What caused the temp sensor to move back into the water?

My wife Changed the filter sock. I normally get 6-7 days between changes. For whatever reason, I got 4

 

[KStatefan]

My wife Changed the filter sock. I normally get 6-7 days between changes. For whatever reason, I got 4

Change the location of the probe so that can not happen.

 

[landlubber]

sorry to read this.
While it's clear that not everyone's set up is the same one thing i've found that could help others avoid the same probe issue in the future is to set up the probe holders over the bubble trap.
Its an area that protects the probes from moving and anyone that has cleaned or moved their sump will realize It's an area that still holds water weeks after the tank has stopped running and has to be siphoned separately to empty which means it never gets exposed to air