My Reef Tank Just Became Not Fun! Apex Crash!

[AKL1950]

Guess it’s inevitable. At some point, something big crashes. Just didn’t expect it so soon. Apex has only been running for 10 months, but it suffered a major crash. Early yesterday, it quite talking to Fusion. Noticed it when I needed to turn the powerheads off for a little cleaning Project. Powered everything off and back on. Apex came back up. Checked it by turning some equipment off. Big mistake! It quit talking to Fusion again and I couldn’t turn things back on. Recycled power again and got all the pumps back on. One by one, Apex stopped talking to anything. By 5:00 PM Apex is just flashing every MX color it has and all the other equipment lights were flashing cause they can’t talk to Apex. Checked diagnostics and noted it had gone off line 55 times in the last 24 hours. Yikes! Went through some checks with the Neptune Rep to make sure it was Apex and not the power bar. It’s Apex. Waiting to talk to Neptune again, but suspect it will be send it in for maintenance repair or replacement.

Got my list together for manual ops and it’s like, oh hell, this sucks. No auto top off, no auto water changing, no auto dosing, no auto chemical checking, no Trident, no feed mode, no temperature control. Thank God the lights and pumps still work with Mobius and the Apex power bars are still working. I forgot how much there is to do without automation. Guess I need to practice carrying 5 gallon buckets of water And hit Amazon for more test kits.

Hopefully the turn time to get it fixed is fairly quick. Anyone with experience in that?

Jetson

 

[blaxsun]

Sucks about your Apex. The turnaround time is usually pretty good with Neptune. I found my biggest issues were with WiFi connectivity causing it to go offline multiple times like yours in a 24-hour period (the fix was rebooting the Apex and my router to clear the shared IP addresses).

 

[vetteguy53081]

Guess it’s inevitable. At some point, something big crashes. Just didn’t expect it so soon. Apex has only been running for 10 months, but it suffered a major crash. Early yesterday, it quite talking to Fusion. Noticed it when I needed to turn the powerheads off for a little cleaning Project. Powered everything off and back on. Apex came back up. Checked it by turning some equipment off. Big mistake! It quit talking to Fusion again and I couldn’t turn things back on. Recycled power again and got all the pumps back on. One by one, Apex stopped talking to anything. By 5:00 PM Apex is just flashing every MX color it has and all the other equipment lights were flashing cause they can’t talk to Apex. Checked diagnostics and noted it had gone off line 55 times in the last 24 hours. Yikes! Went through some checks with the Neptune Rep to make sure it was Apex and not the power bar. It’s Apex. Waiting to talk to Neptune again, but suspect it will be send it in for maintenance repair or replacement.

Got my list together for manual ops and it’s like, oh hell, this sucks. No auto top off, no auto water changing, no auto dosing, no auto chemical checking, no Trident, no feed mode, no temperature control. Thank God the lights and pumps still work with Mobius and the Apex power bars are still working. I forgot how much there is to do without automation. Guess I need to practice carrying 5 gallon buckets of water And hit Amazon for more test kits.

Hopefully the turn time to get it fixed is fairly quick. Anyone with experience in that?

Jetson

I sent mine in Once and had it back in 8 days. In the mean time I used timers and power strip and did some tasks manually

 

[AKL1950]

Sucks about your Apex. The turnaround time is usually pretty good with Neptune. I found my biggest issues were with WiFi connectivity causing it to go offline multiple times like yours in a 24-hour period (the fix was rebooting the Apex and my router to clear the shared IP addresses).

I’m thinking something like that is going on. I got a new iPhone and things started going south about that time. I’ve got a really strong wifi, but I think I’ve got too many competing systems on it. The final straw was using a Bluetooth speaker close to the tank. It started going mustang the next day.

One positive thing, when Apex quit talking to everything, my Mobius started working perfect. That’s been nice.

I’ve rebooted everything several times with no positive results. Hopefully Neptune will get back to me soon with some good guidance.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Maybe if they spent more time on quality and less on trying to make art?

 

[AKL1950]

I sent mine in Once and had it back in 8 days. In the mean time I used timers and power strip and did some tasks manually

Same, getting my flow ready. Still trying to decide on how to manage the water changes and dosing. Since I was doing daily water changes of 1.5%, my dosing stayed fairly low. If I stop the water changes for a while, how much do I increase the dosing to compensate. I guess for a while, I’ll just have to test more often till I find a good rhythm.

 

[blaxsun]

I’m thinking something like that is going on. I got a new iPhone and things started going south about that time. I’ve got a really strong wifi, but I think I’ve got too many competing systems on it. The final straw was using a Bluetooth speaker close to the tank. It started going mustang the next day.

One positive thing, when Apex quit talking to everything, my Mobius started working perfect. That’s been nice.

I’ve rebooted everything several times with no positive results. Hopefully Neptune will get back to me soon with some good guidance.

As soon as I started removing/limiting devices in and around the tank a lot of the unexplained disconnects disappeared. So I try to keep it to my iPhone (only).

 

[vetteguy53081]

Same, getting my flow ready. Still trying to decide on how to manage the water changes and dosing. Since I was doing daily water changes of 1.5%, my dosing stayed fairly low. If I stop the water changes for a while, how much do I increase the dosing to compensate. I guess for a while, I’ll just have to test more often till I find a good rhythm.

I manually dosed (if needed) until unit returned

 

[Double monti 61]

AI cannot monitor your system better then you.

 

[AKL1950]

I sent mine in Once and had it back in 8 days. In the mean time I used timers and power strip and did some tasks manually

Did you get your Apex back or a factory refurbished one? Trying to decide which would be better.

 

[cwerner]

AI cannot monitor your system better then you.

I wasn't aware ChatGPT was running fish tanks now.

 

[vetteguy53081]

S

SAME UNIT

 

[BeanAnimal]

I wasn't aware ChatGPT was running fish tanks now.

AI is a pretty broad term.

Ohh wait you were just being snarky and don't really care what the definition is.

In any case, a run-of-the-mill PLC (ladder logic with branches that react based on inputs) that has been around since the 60's can be considered AI. As can just about any microcontroller that adjusts outputs based on inputs and other logic. Add a but of "fuzz" decision making in there and you have even more "AI".

Don't work so hard to clown people, for you become the clown. To that end ChatGPT makes decisions based on a language model It really isn't that "smart" either. It puts words together based on patterns and known language. It will spew out as much BS as it does fact, including made up sources that "sound" plausible to back up its BS.

 

[JGT]

Technology is great until it isn’t. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Pistondog]

Tank controllers are labor saving devices, we miss them when not working.
Just like washer/dryer or dishwasher, those get fixed or replaced fast.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Guess it’s inevitable. At some point, something big crashes. Just didn’t expect it so soon. Apex has only been running for 10 months, but it suffered a major crash. Early yesterday, it quite talking to Fusion. Noticed it when I needed to turn the powerheads off for a little cleaning Project. Powered everything off and back on. Apex came back up. Checked it by turning some equipment off. Big mistake! It quit talking to Fusion again and I couldn’t turn things back on. Recycled power again and got all the pumps back on. One by one, Apex stopped talking to anything. By 5:00 PM Apex is just flashing every MX color it has and all the other equipment lights were flashing cause they can’t talk to Apex. Checked diagnostics and noted it had gone off line 55 times in the last 24 hours. Yikes! Went through some checks with the Neptune Rep to make sure it was Apex and not the power bar. It’s Apex. Waiting to talk to Neptune again, but suspect it will be send it in for maintenance repair or replacement.

Got my list together for manual ops and it’s like, oh hell, this sucks. No auto top off, no auto water changing, no auto dosing, no auto chemical checking, no Trident, no feed mode, no temperature control. Thank God the lights and pumps still work with Mobius and the Apex power bars are still working. I forgot how much there is to do without automation. Guess I need to practice carrying 5 gallon buckets of water And hit Amazon for more test kits.

Hopefully the turn time to get it fixed is fairly quick. Anyone with experience in that?

Jetson

I guess that's one reason why even though I'm running a GHL controller, all the important tasks are delegated to other subsystems.

Alk control goes to Reeffactory dosers and kh keeper,
Temp is Inkbird
Lights and pumps manage themselves

One giant interconnected system (especially if it relies on a single WiFi access point) can come crashing down.

Similar experience to yours made me rebuild my configuration a couple of years ago.

Hopefully not too long to fix.

 

[BeanAnimal]

What good is the Profilux if it does nothing for you. Why even run it?

I would certainly trust the P4 for temp before I trusted the inkbird.

Don't a lot of folks have issues with the KH Keeper or am I thinking of a different titrator?

 

[Mperry622]

My apex is a piece of garbage in regards to WIFI. i gave up about 6 months ago and ran a hard line. Not one disconnect since. before i would have some major random stuff happening. 1st "fusion heartbeat disconnected" then all hell breaks lose, random outlets go off and power bar cycles itself... once on hard line I haven't had as much as a single issue... lose the wifi and just hard wire it. and just to make it more confusing. i hard wired for a bit to a google router which was wireless meshed, still no issues. :-/.

apex wireless radio = garbage

 

[dadnjesse]

My apex is a point of sale in regards to WIF. i gave up about 6 months ago and ran a hard line. Not one disconnect since. before i would have some major random stuff happening. 1st "fusion heartbeat disconnected" then all hell breaks lose, random outlets go off and power bar cycles itself... once on hard line I haven't had as much as a single issue... lose the wifi and just hard wire it. and just to make it more confusing. i hard wired for a bit to a google router which was wireless meshed, still no issues. :-/.

apex wireless

That's what I would do. Run an ethernet cable

 

[Double monti 61]

What would happen to your system if the internet failed?