Apex (essentially) saved my tank!

ultimatemj

ultimatemj

Active member
I was in California last week and I received a "Below 75deg" low temp alarm from the Apex :eek1:

I called the "tank sitter" and had them put the heater from the salt mixing station in the sump, but it didn't make a difference...the temp was 72 and dropping!!!! :puke:


But wait, the logs and the power draw (amps) were showing the heaters are clearly on...WTF!!! ??Two heaters pulling amps but not heating?? ???Bad temp sensor???


Nope, :sherlock: it turned out the SmartATO (which does not interact with the Apex) had an error and was no longer functioning...


Enough evaporation had occurred that the temp sensor was measuring ambient air temp in the basement!!!​


The Apex was doing it's job, thinking it was below 78 and had the heater cranking! I had the tank sitter put a thermometer in the tank >>> 84.5 :frown:


Good news: From California, I was to figure it all out and have the tank sitter put a gallon (or so) of 70deg RODI in the sump, bringing the temp down to 81, and reset the ATO. From there, the salinity was back to normal and the temp in the basement cooled the tank back to 78 over the next couple of hours.

Dashed line indicates what was actually happening....and that I probably got to it just soon enough to avoid cooking temp!!!

Best news: all returned to normal once the temp probe was IN THE WATER :beer:


Time to rethink my ATO...I've liked it, but now I'm not sure it fits with the rest of the system design.
 
Good catch and great you were able to save it from afar. I've got around a similar problem by putting a second temp probe into the DT. It gives a sanity check for any single probe failure or reading.
 
Both the temp probe and the heater are in the sump, some 30ft away from the DT.

The sump has 10" of water, so even when the evap took it down to 6" the heater was fully submerged.

The Apex is in the basement and I did not run a 30ft USB when I originally ran the Tigerflex plumbing. Not sure there is a way to do a temp/PM1 module wirelessly...and running the cable now would be a PITA :(
 
ultimatemj said:
The Apex is in the basement and I did not run a 30ft USB when I originally ran the Tigerflex plumbing. Not sure there is a way to do a temp/PM1 module wirelessly...and running the cable now would be a PITA :(
Click to expand...

Yeah sounds like a PITA. No, all the apex modules must be connected to the aquabus using their usb cable.
 
You could add a float valve to the sump so that if the ATO stop working, and the water lowers to "X" you get an alarm. Thinking a step further, you could do the same with your ATO Container, to alert you when it's empty.
 
Good idea. The other thing is changing to an ATO that will allow sump float redundancy to trigger it...the Smart ATO is "stand alone".

I had been also toying with the idea of using a float in the ATO chamber to trigger refilling it...and then I thought an ATO to ATO seemed overkill, but maybe not!



Gary said:
You could add a float valve to the sump so that if the ATO stop working, and the water lowers to "X" you get an alarm. Thinking a step further, you could do the same with your ATO Container, to alert you when it's empty.
Click to expand...
 
ultimatemj said:
Good idea. The other thing is changing to an ATO that will allow sump float redundancy to trigger it...the Smart ATO is "stand alone".

I had been also toying with the idea of using a float in the ATO chamber to trigger refilling it...and then I thought an ATO to ATO seemed overkill, but maybe not!
Click to expand...

You can still use a control box and a float valve I believe to turn off/on and/or email alerts based on tank conditions. IE: Outlet turns off if valve triggers or vice versa.
 
You should add a third code to the heater outlet. You will need to find out the room temperature and add that so if the temp probe comes out of the water it would shut off the heaters once it hits room temp. Like this.
f974f9bd84b59456d26be555266dc606.jpg



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Interesting option DJE, but I'm thinking that would make my system slowly cool to the basement air temp.:confused1:

I guess it would be better than my current arrangement that will eventually boil the fish or melt my sump!

DJE said:
You should add a third code to the heater outlet. You will need to find out the room temperature and add that so if the temp probe comes out of the water it would shut off the heaters once it hits room temp.
Click to expand...
 
I think the probe would hit the room temp before your tank water. It's also another fail safe in case you miss something. I also have alerts if my temp drops below 75 I get a text.


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For sure! My issue was that I was a couple of thousand miles away when it happened...so I did get the "low temp" alert.

Difference being is the current set up kept the heaters on vs your suggestion of turning them off.

Both ways would result in a tank crash for me...if I can't get to it in time...but turning them off is probably better than "burning things up".

Thanks for the suggestion~

DJE said:
I think the probe would hit the room temp before your tank water. It's also another fail safe in case you miss something. I also have alerts if my temp drops below 75 I get a text. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
I was in the Dominican Republic in November and had ATO and heater issues. I had a heater in my sump and one in my frag tank. Due to the ATO issue, the sump ran dry so no water was being pumped into the frag or the DT. The frag temp was fine, however, since it had a heater but the DT dropped to 74 degrees. (It would have been way colder than that but my Apex was programmed to turn the metal halides on if it dropped below a set point.)

Anyway, I now have a heater in both the frag and display tanks and none in the sump. To keep the DT uncluttered, I purchased an inline Hydor heater.

Also, I always set the temp on the heaters to 78 degrees so that even if the Apex goes haywire, my tank will not cook.
 
The temp probe is fully submersible. Just drop it in the bottom of the sump tank. Also make sure the temp probe is upstream of the heater (separate sump compartment of possible)

I have my temp probe in my tank overflow. If it goes dry I have much larger problems


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