Killed my tank.....

NASAGeek

New member
Oh my God..... everything is dead....

The Neptune Apex temperature sensor appears to have failed.... it thinks my tank is at 77 degrees..... it's probably over 100 degrees..... heaters have been on since 7:00pm last night. All my fish... all my corals.... boiled.

I am so frustrated. Yeah, obviously.... going to architect in an independent temp controller now..... but damn.... Neptune Apex reliability seems to have tanked.... A few weeks ago I had a brand new energy bar 8 die on me.... now this.

So very disappointed.

I am starting to have trust issues.... do I buy a new temp sensor.... or a new unit.... if I have to buy a complete new control unit... do I stick with Neptune Apex or go elsewhere??? I am still in shock.... my whole tank is DEAD.

I've loved my Apex for years.... but oh my God... two failures in a few weeks.... my Christmas was just obliterated. So disappointing.
 
First and foremost sorry for such a devastating loss! I haven't had a failure with my Apex equipment, but like anything we buy that's electronic failure is a possibility. I'd say buy a 2 new sensors and run them redundant so as to add an additional failsafe.

Is anything salvageable, do you have pics?

Reef keeping is life!
 
Looks like the controller itself is the problem..... still diagnosing.

This is a relatively new tank I am building up.... I hadn't gotten around to tuning the heater fail safe settings.....

Still is shock.... thanks for the support.
 
If you set your heater 81, they should have served as a fallback if apex sensor went bad. Worst case, your tank rose a few more degrees
 
I feel your pain. My Apex probe went bad too. I guess that's why they sell replacements.

Thankfully My Chiller does heating too. Also keep a small digital temp gauge in sump. It was the one thing that told me my chiller/heater was accurate and Apex probe was shot.

Went into Apex and recalibrated the probe. Well, that only was accurate for about a day.
When the Apex temp probe gets off it's pretty much garbage.

Sooo Sorry for your loss and heartbreak.
 
Sorry for your loss, recently the cord on my temp probe fried (my fault) and the apex thought my tank was in the 70s. But the controllers on the heater shut them off at 80.


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Oh my God..... everything is dead....

The Neptune Apex temperature sensor appears to have failed.... it thinks my tank is at 77 degrees..... it's probably over 100 degrees..... heaters have been on since 7:00pm last night. All my fish... all my corals.... boiled.

I am so frustrated. Yeah, obviously.... going to architect in an independent temp controller now..... but damn.... Neptune Apex reliability seems to have tanked.... A few weeks ago I had a brand new energy bar 8 die on me.... now this.

So very disappointed.

I am starting to have trust issues.... do I buy a new temp sensor.... or a new unit.... if I have to buy a complete new control unit... do I stick with Neptune Apex or go elsewhere??? I am still in shock.... my whole tank is DEAD.

I've loved my Apex for years.... but oh my God... two failures in a few weeks.... my Christmas was just obliterated. So disappointing.

Whatever you do, don't use "dumb" heaters again... Get a good heater with it's own thermostat and set it just above the temp you set in your controller. That way if your controller F's up, you have a failsafe on the heater itself.

Also, another thing I like to do is set one of the two heaters to come on about 2/10ths of a degree lower than the other. So, in other words, the second one only comes on if the first one can't keep up. That also minimizes the chances of ending up with 2 heaters stuck on, and saves energy as well. Most of the time both aren't needed.
 
Well..... turns out my Apex and my temp sensor were both innocent.....

The culprit is a fundamental design flaw in my set up.

My sump has two return pumps.... one for the Display and one to my refugium, chiller, GFO/carbon, etc. My sensors are in the refugium. The heaters are in the sump.

So.... the pump to the refugium failed. Thus, no water flowing to the refugium..... and that water started cooling down to ambient temp. The sensors accurately caught the temp falling and signaled the heaters to come on. BUT.... since the heaters are in the sump.... the sump and display started heating up..... not the refugium because the refugium pump had failed.

Lesson.... heaters and temp sensor MUST be in the same tank.... UGGGHHHHH.....

At least, I've solved the problem. I am putting an independent temp controller on the heaters as well.... and fixing the colocation of the heaters and sensors.
 
Well..... turns out my Apex and my temp sensor were both innocent.....

The culprit is a fundamental design flaw in my set up.

My sump has two return pumps.... one for the Display and one to my refugium, chiller, GFO/carbon, etc. My sensors are in the refugium. The heaters are in the sump.

So.... the pump to the refugium failed. Thus, no water flowing to the refugium..... and that water started cooling down to ambient temp. The sensors accurately caught the temp falling and signaled the heaters to come on. BUT.... since the heaters are in the sump.... the sump and display started heating up..... not the refugium because the refugium pump had failed.

Lesson.... heaters and temp sensor MUST be in the same tank.... UGGGHHHHH.....

At least, I've solved the problem. I am putting an independent temp controller on the heaters as well.... and fixing the colocation of the heaters and sensors.
Thanks for your honesty!

Failure is not making a mistake but out right quitting on a thing you wanted to accomplish.

We've all been there! One day you'll be able to show someone not to do and why.

Regards, GoVols
 
I have my apex set to turn the heaters off if the temp falls below a certain point and to send me an alarm. That way if the probe fails the heaters don't keep going.
 
use a Ranco controller for temp probe. industrial standard probes. much much more reliable than APEX probes. only cost $100. I use Ranco to control temperature and APEX to monitor temperature.
 
I actually have 2 temp probes with my apex. But I also have no heater on my set up. I have one in storage, just not hooked up. I haven't had a heater for several years.

Sorry about your loss OP. I am thankful I've not had to put a heater on my system. They seem like one of the equipment items that will destroy your tank if you don't have redundancy built in. That's for being willing to share your mistake. I bet someone else reading this thread has realised they had that same issue and is correcting it. Good luck rebuilding the system.
 
Another option is to put the temp probe in the display. I find, to keep my DT at 78, I need to run my return chamber of sump a couple degrees higher. I get it, no probes in the DT, but at least I know what my Apex thinks my dt is and is regulating to that
 
Tank disasters are hard to deal with, and to have the loss at this time of year! I hope you find 2017 treats you a lot better.

I had a 180g DT spring a 30gph leak at 5am back in August. It took a month to get the new tank set up and running. I lost almost all my branching sps corals (50% of my tank). And a friend of mine just had his 2nd 220g tank break a pain of glass and instantly drop all the water in the living room which then flowed into almost every room in the house (on a concrete slab). Hope things work out for you.
 
Wow, awful, awful stuff. I wish you all the best. All of us know how it feels to suffer loss in this hobby to various degrees. I'm glad you discovered the source of the problem and I hope your next tank is just amazing.
 
Had a similar problem where my probe popped out of the water and the heater ran continuously. If not for my chiller, I would have been in the same situation as you. I'm not saying this is the best reason to buy a chiller, but it is a consideration. When I come home and see my chiller on any time other than summer, I immediately go to my heater probe and check if it's still submerged.

I've also had a tank crash, and lost a majestic angel, semilarvatus butterfly, and lots of other fish. It's the worst!

Bruce
 
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