Please Help! Apex trying to kill my tank

[Spyderturbo007]

I hooked up my Apex last night and everything seemed fine. I went to bed and was woke up by my wife telling me the tank temperature was low. I came downstairs to find everything off and a tank at 76.5 degrees. The display was still lit.

I unplugged the Apex and plugged it back in again. At this point everything was all messed up because it decided to add another EB8 and disregarded the previous EB3. After about an hour of messing around, rebooting, resetting, etc. I finally was able to delete all modules and get it working again.

How do I find out what happened and prevent this from happening again? I just don't understand why a $500 piece of hardware would act this way.

Shouldn't the fallback commands handle keeping things on if connection is lost?

Also, if I try to do anything with pH, such as

If pH > 8.5 Then OFF

As soon as I update the outlet and come back to the page, it changes it to:

If Temp > 08.50 Then OFF

It shows the probe as pH in the probe setup section.

Here is my code:

ATO

Outlet (3_1)

Fallback ON 
Set ON 
If FeedB 000 Then OFF 
If FeedC 005 Then OFF

Lights

Outlet (3_2)

Fallback OFF 
Set ON 
If Temp > 84.0 Then OFF 
Min Time 005:00 Then OFF

Circulation Pump

Outlet (3_3)

Fallback ON 
Set ON 
If FeedA 000 Then OFF 
If FeedC 000 Then OFF

Return Pump

Outlet (3_4)

Fallback ON 
Set ON 
If FeedA 000 Then OFF 
If FeedC 000 Then OFF

Heater

Outlet (3_5)

Control Type = Heater
Fallback = Off
Probe Name = Temp
On Temperature = 79.5
Off Temperature = 80.5

GFO Reactor

Outlet (3_6)

Fallback ON 
Set ON 
If FeedC 005 Then OFF

Skimmer

Outlet (3_7)

Fallback OFF 
Set ON 
If Temp > 84.0 Then OFF 
If FeedA 005 Then OFF 
If FeedB 180 Then OFF 
If FeedC 005 Then OFF

SndAlm

Set OFF 
If Temp > 84.0 Then ON 
If Temp < 76.0 Then ON

SndWrn

Set OFF 
If Temp > 84.0 Then ON 
If Temp < 76.0 Then ON

I think I have the right firmware. If I go to the XML Program Page it says 4.12L_5A12. Hardware = 1.0

It looked like something happened around midnight because it stopped recording data. I went to be around 12 or 12:30am and I know everything was on when I went upstairs.

 

[aquamanic]

Contact Neptune support on the phantom EB8 problem. They can telnet into your system and adjust some settings to prevent it from happening again.

Did you rename your pH probe at any point. That pH/Temp parsing issue is a known bug but hard to reproduce. You can work around by simply doing it twice. The second time and from then on it should behave properly.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Ok. I sent them an email. I just don't understand why they wouldn't make these "adjustments" prior to shipping. Why wait until someone almost kills all their livestock and wastes hundreds of hours of time before something is done?

 

[Spyderturbo007]

It did it again last night. Looks like it said the power failed at 4:41am. I woke up this morning to everything being off and another ghost EB8. I had to take time off work to get it fixed.

It's a shame that my defenseless animals have to be beta testers with their lives. I thought it was bad when Microsoft made the end user a beta tester.

How disappointing.

They are going to take control of it today and attempt to fix the issue.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Paul from Neptune Systems was able to take control of my Apex this afternoon over my lunch break and made his adjustments. He called me a few minutes later, explained the issue and apologized many times for the inconvenience.

Based on the fact that the controller would go off each night, I'll know tomorrow if things are now fixed and functioning properly. He told me that I won't have these problems again.

Thanks to Paul for such a quick reply and fix. I'll update this thread tomorrow.

When working, the controller is a pretty sweet device. I'm not using it to its potential by any means, but it makes things like feeding, changing filter socks, etc much easier. It also keeps the temperature much more stable than the heater did on it's own.

 

[tmcasper]

Would you happen to know if there is a resolution to this that can be done without tech support, perhaps posted here on the forums? I am having the same issue, basically the controller has decided to add about 10 'phantom' EB's over the course of the month. At this point I have not been able to use it because I can't trust it being away at work all day. I will also reach out to tech support.

 

[aquamanic]

You can delete the phantom EB8's but unless the underlying problem is fixed, they will return. Only Neptune can go in and adjust the settings that are causing this.

 

[tmcasper]

Yeah, thanks. I've already been contacted by Paul about it.