wade January 14, 2015 Share January 14, 2015 The story: Overnight, I started getting warnings/texts from the Apex unit that my temp was low (73 by 6am - usually locked at 78). I went downstairs, but the display was still reading 78.0 (and pH 8.05, which for that time at night is a bit higher than average). I started digging around and realize that anything set to OFF by default (heaters, skimmer, topoff, etc) were not working at all. I then went onto the web portal for it and saw that it was reporting 73.1 and pH of 7.89 which is normal for pH if quite low for heat. I wound up unplugging the display unit from the system and suddenly everything was fine again. The tank is heating up (as fast as 2x300w heaters can swing it) and the other devices are now working fine. I then plugged the display unit back in and it all failed again. SO. Why/how could the display unit cause the entire system to fail? It was non-responsive to button presses and obviously wasn't updating its values either. Anyone else ever heard of an issue like this? I'm going to cross post to Apex's forums and see what others have to say. Pretty sad that the unit isn't even 2 years old and it failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore January 14, 2015 Share January 14, 2015 Mine does the same sort of thing pretty often, about once a month. Usually I have to let it sit unpowered for a few hours to sometimes overnight in order to get it to boot up again. I am going to try upgrading the firmware, but this unit, like yours, is about 2 years old and has worked well up until a few months ago when the crashing/hanging started. Not sure what would have changed to cause that, but could be some sort of firmware corruption. As much as I like technology, it does make me reconsider how much trust I put in consumer electronics to handle something like my aquarium. I don't really have anything critical assigned to the Apex, and I do have it send me "heartbeat" messages so I know when it fails. My most critical control system, temperature, is on a ETC/Ranco controller rebranded for Aqualogic on my heat pump. So far 7 years and no issues there. That box does it's job very well. I can recall only one ETC/Ranco failure in 15 years of using their controllers, and that was on a QT chiller controller with a mfg date of 1999. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wade January 14, 2015 Author Share January 14, 2015 Thanks for the info. I am behind on firmware. I will try to do an update this evening. Updates, since I have to use a laptop are a nuisance on this system. They need to solve that issue like Ecotech has done with their Reeflink so it can be successful via wifi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami January 14, 2015 Share January 14, 2015 I've never had it happen, but you may want to report it to Neptune. Maybe they have a solution. It almost sounds like the failed display (or something) is locking out other (inter-module communications) traffic on their Aquabus, so that your EB8 is not receiving commands from the Apex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wade January 14, 2015 Author Share January 14, 2015 I have also discovered that my CO2 regulator, because it is electronic, shuts off when the power flickers. My reactor has been running tank water for 3-4 days now... which is why my pH is down. darn this technology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wade January 14, 2015 Author Share January 14, 2015 Wow. Neptune responded very quickly. They think its the display is shorting out the bus. I will try to do the firmware update first, see if it fixes anything and then do an RMA on the display if that fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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