Apex issue that took out 1/2 my tank

[rtparty]

You run a single 300W on a 250g system with a temp differential of 14dF?

That math does not work homie.

That’s fine. If I still had my Apex graphs I’d post them.

Then you could math your math and see you’re wrong homie

Edit: lookie here! A screenshot from October 30, 2022 showing the 1° difference with one heater on and one off. Sure glad you know more about my system than I do though.

 

[areefer01]

That’s fine. If I still had my Apex graphs I’d post them.

Then you could math your math and see you’re wrong homie

Edit: lookie here! A screenshot from October 30, 2022 showing the 1° difference with one heater on and one off. Sure glad you know more about my system than I do though.

People love that challenge card, right?

 

[rtparty]

People love that challenge card, right?

They sure do and then silence when proven wrong

 

[BeanAnimal]

You run a single 300W on a 250g system with a temp differential of 14dF?



That math does not work homie.

Shall we... homie?

Initial heating from cold tank:
He has 250 gallons of water at 8.68 pounds per gallon (let's call it).

It takes 1 BTU to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit

Therefore, It takes ~8.68 BTUs to raise 1 gallon of seawater 1 degree Fahrenheit ( Let's not quibble decimal places based on mineral composition).

Therefore, it takes 8.68 BTUs * 250 Gallons - 2,170 BTUs to raise the temperature of his tank 1 degree Fahrenheit.
He has a 300 watt heater.

1 W is equal to 3.41 BTU/h

Therefore it take 2,170 BTUs / 3.41 BTU/h = 636 watt/hrs to raise the tank 1 degree Fahrenheit.

636 watt/h / 300W = 2.12 hours to raise his tank 1 degree Fahrenheit with a 300W heater.

Or 29.68 hours to raise it 14 degrees.

*********************************************

But alas - he is not raising the temperature 14 degrees at a time. He only has to maintain the temperature based based on what is lost to the room.

So he has a 300W heater that puts out 1023 BTU/h. Ignoring the heat input from the pumps, lights and other equipment. The heater can maintain temperature of the system as long as it does not lose more than 1023 BTU/h to the room. That equates to about half a degree Fahrenheit an hour of loss that the heater can compensate for.


Let's calculate the thermal loss through the glass of a 250-gallon aquarium, assuming it's a typical glass tank and using a 14°F temperature differential between the room and the tank.

​

A standard 250-gallon aquarium:

• Length: 72 inches
• Width: 24 inches
• Height: 30 inches

Surface area of the glass (ignoring the top for simplicity):​

• Front and back (2 panels): 2,160 in² per panel
• Two sides (2 panels): 720 in² per panel
• Bottom: 1,728 in²
• Total glass surface area: 7,488 in².

Let's work in square feet... to make life easy: 52 ft².


For heat transfer through glass, we use the formula:

Q = U * A * ΔT
Where:

• Q is the heat loss in BTU/h,
• U is the overall heat transfer coefficient for glass (typical value for aquarium glass is around 1.0 BTU/ft²·°F·h),
• A is the surface area in square feet (52 ft²),
• ΔT is the temperature difference (14°F).

Plugging in the values:

Q=1.0 * 52 * 14 = 728 BTU/h
Q = 1.0 * 52 * 14 = 728 BTU/h

From above, our maximum heat load to maintain temp is a loss of 1,023 BTU/h and through thermal conduction we are losing only 728 BTU/h through the glass. So somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% duty cycle with room to spare.

We can do the same for evaporation and if you really want add in convection and radiation... but we also need to consider the heat input by the other equipment. The open top and air interface mean that very little conduction takes place out of the top.

If it is acrylic, then the losses are even less. Lidded? less, etc.

The bottom line, the 300W heater will maintain the system temperature in this scenario with room to spare. If we also consider that the "250 gallon" system is actually more like 225, 200 once rock and other materials (that are heat reservoirs) are contained in the system, then the heater has even less work to do for that room differentail.

BONUS MATH:
Above I used 1.0 for the thermal conductivity of glass. This is an insanely high number to prove a point. For your aquarium that number is actually going to be .58 to maybe .7 depending low iron or annealed and therefore conductivity will be even lower and the heater will have even less work to do.

Have a wonderful day and remember, before trying to dunk on somebody, do your math

I wrote an article several years back that may help you for the next challenge

Thermodynamics for the Reef Aquarist | BeanAnimal's Reef

Why is my fish tank (aquarium) overheating? Basic thermodynamics explained and applied. Answers tp simple questions regarding aquarium temperature control.

beananimal.com

 

[KStatefan]

or you can measure the temperature drop over an hour and figure out how much was actually lost.

Heat Loss (Btu) = Mass*Cp*▲T

I did this on a morning when the house was cold and the dew point was very low due to a arctic blast with out any lights on.

Mine calculated to be 168 watts for my 100 gallon tank

 

[BeanAnimal]

or you can measure the temperature drop over an hour and figure out how much was actually lost.

Heat Loss (Btu) = Mass*Cp*▲T

I did this on a morning when the house was cold and the dew point was very low due to a arctic blast with out any lights on.

Mine calculated to be 168 watts for my 100 gallon tank

Yep - just wanted to lay the proof out there to the homies.

 

[rtparty]

Yep - just wanted to lay the proof out there to the homies.

I don't understand why people have such a hard time believing me when I tell them a 300w heater kept my tank warm enough. I had 2 of them on there just in case the basement got extra cold or one went down. It is a good thing too because one did die but I never even knew for months because the tank kept on going at the normal temp. How did I figure out it died? I was emptying out my sump to vacuum it and when I grabbed the heaters one was slightly warm and the other was "cold". So I grabbed my Apex logs and checked power consumption back as far as I could and found the second heater had no power consumption for months.

Back to my first sentence, do people really think I am looking for cool points or something by "lying" about my heater usage? I stand by my statement that most peolpe use far too large of heaters on their tanks.

 

[BeanAnimal]

As it were a "properly" sized heater would just barely keep up on the coldest day of the year. (as in room delta). In that way it is far less likely to rapidly overheat the tank if it were to stick on for some reason.

Also - fewer ON/OFF cycles is fewer thermal cycles and that means a MUCH longer heater life (for many reasons beyond the scope of this thread).

 

[get-salty]

I came from the freshwater side. ive heard of a temp controller but didnt really care for it. Now that i am mainly salt and having a mixed reef, i have to say a temp controller like an inkbird is an absolutely MUST have along with an automated system like an Apex.

 

[BZOFIQ]

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.

I urge you to heed the advice somebody already listed - get two smaller heaters instead of one.

Set them up in Apex as two-stage system, 2nd stage coming on if the 1st is not keeping up. Even if one was to get "stuck" being a smaller heater it would either not overheat or take very long to overheat your tank. By then you'd get notified.

 

[BZOFIQ]

As it were a "properly" sized heater would just barely keep up on the coldest day of the year. (as in room delta). In that way it is far less likely to rapidly overheat the tank if it were to stick on for some reason.

Also - fewer ON/OFF cycles is fewer thermal cycles and that means a MUCH longer heater life (for many reasons beyond the scope of this thread).

I did exactly that - one smaller and one larger heater, best approach.

The smaller 100W heater (stage 1) runs nearly constantly (winter) while the 200W heater kicks on sporadically.

Of course I took it to the next level so its really 4 heaters (neatly tucked away in the sump) on 2 separate apexes.

 

[BZOFIQ]

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.

In multi-heater systems this is a waste. I have heaters that ran 11 years on my temporary system. Some failed after 5-6 years.

Throwing a perfectly good heater after each year seems extreme.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Even in a single heater system it is a waste (replacing every year) if the heater is taken care of properly.

The "head" of the heater should not be fully submerged, it will eventually leak due to thermal cycling of dissimilar materials.

The heater should also be placed so that ONLY the head is out of the water but in a fixed water level area of the sump so that it can never be uncovered or submerged.

Lastly, the "internal" thermostat should never be used to control the temperature. It should be used as a fail-safe and set just above the normal tank operating point. This way it too never thermal cycles or has electricity arcing over its contacts.

Do this, and they will virtually last forever. Yes the nichrome element does expand and contract with each heat cycle and will eventually fail due to metal fatigue, but if taken care of properly this is decades.

 

[areefer01]

The "head" of the heater should not be fully submerged, it will eventually leak due to thermal cycling of dissimilar materials.

Some heaters are designed to be fully submerged and do not have a built in thermostat. I am guessing you are not talking about these here.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Some heaters are designed to be fully submerged and do not have a built in thermostat. I am guessing you are not talking about these here.

Nope those too. Though many these days are hollow tubes with a plug on both ends. Not a fan due to leaks.

 

[PharmrJohn]

In multi-heater systems this is a waste. I have heaters that ran 11 years on my temporary system. Some failed after 5-6 years.

Throwing a perfectly good heater after each year seems extreme.

And while this is a possibility, heaters lasting a long time, I've had them go out in 1.5 years. The last heater I had went 5 years. But I've been around the block many, many times, and when a company warranties their product for a specific length of time, I listen to their confidence in their own product. Yes, if I get a heater with a 2 year warranty, then 2 years it is. It's a personal choice. And these days? Things are disposable. Long gone are the days of anything electronic lasting as long as they should. I still have a Radio Shack Realistic STA-2000D Receiver from 1980ish. Still going strong. Newer stereos? Ten years at the outside the way I use them. Once I get things up and running again, I ain't putting everything on the line for a $100 piece of equipment.

 

[areefer01]

Nope those too. Though many these days are hollow tubes with a plug on both ends. Not a fan due to leaks.

Hmm... I was not aware of that. I assumed fully submerged is just that. I'll have to take a look now at what I have set up.

Thank you.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

I haven't read through all the different posts, but I can tell you my experiences with heaters and the Apex.

It's not a good idea to let your Apex control your temp. The Apex is a basic on/off switch with a fancy interface for the mobile app or web app. It can work, but it is hard on the Apex to keep switching off and on trying to control the temp. Sometimes temp sensors can get algae and other crud on them and start to read wrong temps.

I've also seen people program the on/off temp into the Apex outlet and set the heater on 90 or higher. This is a disaster waiting to happen. You should have multiple failovers in case they fail.

I run Eheim E-Thermocontrol (https://eheim.com/en_GB/cat/index/sCategory/1952) and have had many years of carefree use from these. I've used Eheim for decades with no trouble. I have tried almost every titanium heater on the market and in every single one, failure.

I use an Inkbird controller for the heater. It's cheap, very accurate, and you can control it with mobile or configure it using the device itself. I set my manual adjustment on my heaters for around 81 to 82 degrees. I set the Inkbird to control the temp between 79.5 and 80.0 and it stays very consistent. That way, if for some reason my Inkbird were to fail, then my heaters cannot overheat my tank as they are set to a degree or two warmer than my setting.

Can anything happen and you get a bad heater? Yes, of course. I would HIGHLY recommend a titanium grounding probe or two installed in your main overflow underwater in the display and also one installed in the sump. I've seen numerous coral and fish retail stores lose everything in their farm systems from a broken heater and everything gets electrocuted. Some don't believe in the titanium grounding probes, but they 100% work and if you don't think they do, use a multimeter to test your Amperage in your system without them and then add them and test. You will have some stray voltage in your system and when you install the titanium grounding probes, it will read 0.

 

[LeleganceCoral]

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

I have lost nearly 2k$ in coral because of trips. Quite the expensive and heartbreaking hobby if you ask me!

 

[Ziggy17]

My guess is that the temp probe is not located on the floor of the sump, so when the socks were changed, so did the water level. I keep my probe on the floor in the return chamber in the sump and the heaters are up stream in the fuge and reef mat chambers. That way even if my return pump chamber runs low, the probe is still covered.

Apologies if this was already mentioned.