Not a problem. Glad to share any info I possibly can.
The Apex was probably the first piece of equipment I ordered aside from the tank itself. I can't say enough good things about it. Of course it's not an absolute necessity. But you can see what it does with lighting.
Here's another thing the Apex does that has really worked out better than I imagined. The Vortechs have a mode called Nutrient Transport Mode that's theoretically supposed to help churn up all the uneaten food and detritus in the tank. I was just messing around with the Apex programming and decided to have it put the Vortech in Nutrient Transport Mode at like 85% power after my "Feed Mode" ends. So... during "Feed Mode A" on the Apex, the return pump shuts off and the Vortech goes into steady flow at like 15% power to give the fish (and hog of a starfish) about seven minutes to eat in peace. During that time, of course, some food settles to the bottom even though I'm careful about how much I feed (even more so after my little algae outbreak). When the feed mode is over, the return pump kicks on and the Vortech REALLY picks up whatever junk made its way to the sandbed. I've learned to feed the two clowns basically right over top of the Vortech so that any uneaten food lands close in proximity to it. When the pump starts sucking up that food and blowing it around, the fish go absolutely nuts like the stereotypical videos of sharks in a feeding frenzy. They probably eat at least 50% of the total food they consume AFTER the peaceful feed mode ends. And what they don't eat gets blown right over toward the overflow on the other side of the tank to get caught in the filtration systems.
The Apex also gives me some basic peace of mind. It'll let me know if my heater dies in the winter and needs to be replaced. It knows when the power goes out and turns off everything that is non-essential to maximize the time that the UPS will run the pumps. It knows if the ATO pump runs too long for whatever reason and shuts it off until I manually turn it back on. It will shut down the ATO and/or DOS pumps if the pH gets too far out of line. I'm running the Aquamaxx HOB-1 skimmer so I added the leak detection module to the Apex as well. If the sensors detect water, they'll shut down the return pump, the skimmer, and send me an e-mail. And I don't pretend to even be using this thing to one tenth of its capabilities. But without question, I can absolutely endorse the Apex. If you end up getting one at some point, I (and I'm sure others in this forum) will be happy to share our programming with you to at least get you started with some samples.
