Apex !!! WTH are you doing !!!

[BlackGrandPrix]

I still don't understand why people put their tank in the hands of one piece of equipment. Especially electronic.

[slapshot]

I still don't understand why people put their tank in the hands of one piece of equipment. Especially electronic.

I still check everything, but when I'm at work or on vacation it's a God send. I put a red led in the wall and hooked it up so if anything starts to go off kilter the light comes on. Everyone in the house knows to call me if the light is on. Saved me countless times.

[jimsflies]

I still don't understand why people put their tank in the hands of one piece of equipment. Especially electronic.

The key to automation is to build in redundancy and fail safes. For example, Binford's built in thermostats on his heaters should be set barely above the temp that he wants to maintain so that they will not heat the tank beyond that even if the controller is calling for heat. Further, code should be added to the controller to deal with potential absurd (clearly erroneous readings...probe failure). For example, if temp < 60, then heater off and alarm condition. And if he is controlling anything based on pH that should be programmed in as well....e.g., If pH <7.5, then kalk off (and if pH >8.5 kalk off).

[binford4000]

The key to automation is to build in redundancy and fail safes. For example, Binford's built in thermostats on his heaters should be set barely above the temp that he wants to maintain so that they will not heat the tank beyond that even if the controller is calling for heat. Further, code should be added to the controller to deal with potential absurd (clearly erroneous readings...probe failure). For example, if temp < 60, then heater off and alarm condition. And if he is controlling anything based on pH that should be programmed in as well....e.g., If pH <7.5, then kalk off (and if pH >8.5 kalk off).

+1 Jim, issue is that even tho I have programmed the absurd values to send alarms as you suggested which I have done the unit still ignored it's programming other then base commands. Had the unit do the same thing just an hour ago but this time the controller would not recognize commands from the phone or I Pad. Unplugged again and rebooted it,running as it should again. The finnex controller fail safe idea worked exactly as I hoped. I would not recommend dousing with any controller unless it was designed for it. I.E. spectra pure's unit or something similar. Yikes if I used my apex for dousing everything would be dead with how this thing is acting! Lol

If your running any controller and use it to control the heat I strongly recommend a fail safe as I did. If it was not for the chiller I would have 250 gallons of fish and coral soup. I truly got lucky with the chiller being able to handle the temp the way it did. I am now thinking like NASA ,fail safe,fail safe,fail safe......