Stupid Stupid mistakes....

[BigDog]

So I went away for the long weekend.... left my windows cracked a bit to get some fresh air in the apt while away....

Weather in chicago was miserable.... 40-50's.... and I turned the apt heat off....

Needless to say, this is the weekend my heater decided to misbehave... come back and see my tank temp was 73 deg (thankfully i had a backup heater), and seemed to have lost my yellow tang....

Slowly raising the temps... was up to 76 deg this morning (12 hrs later).... fish seem a bit stressed, corals seem stressed...

really kicking myself that my stupidity caused my yellow tang to pass

[SVTour]

Wow, sorry to hear for your loss

Changing temps always create issues for my tank. It's hard to tell when I should have the AC on, open a window, or run the heater. And having days in the 80's to the 50's like this past week really make you stay on your game.

If it makes you feel any better, I've done much stupider stuff than what you've listed above.

[jerpa]

I unplugged my heaters and plugged in my sump fans due to a hot day last week. It went into the 40's that night. Tank was at 72 from 82 the day before. I didn't lose any fish but a few corals are not happy at all.

If it makes you feel any better, I've done much stupider stuff than what you've listed above.

+1

[BigDog]

I do appreciate the input guys

One thing I learn more and more about this hobby is its just as much of an art as it is a science... always learning new things!

[worm5406]

I have an Apex Controller and enjoy the ability to see it and have it tell me things when I am not at home.

[doakota1]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I have an Apex Controller and enjoy the ability to see it and have it tell me things when I am not at home.

I to have an apex controller, but when the power goes out, it does not read the temp probe, the other day our power went out, when I got home water temp was 90 degrees. I lost about 800 dollars worth of coral

[aandfsoccr04]

Originally Posted by doakota1

I to have an apex controller, but when the power goes out, it does not read the temp probe, the other day our power went out, when I got home water temp was 90 degrees. I lost about 800 dollars worth of coral

If you have an apex you should set it up to email you or text you when the power goes out so you know and can react.

[worm5406]

I subscribed to http://www.reeftronics.net/ and it will e-mail/text me when it can not communicate with the controller.

Go there and look for worm5406

[tanked37]

Originally Posted by doakota1

I to have an apex controller, but when the power goes out, it does not read the temp probe, the other day our power went out, when I got home water temp was 90 degrees. I lost about 800 dollars worth of coral

Hmm, shouldn't your heaters internal thermostat turn itself off? If you run a heater on an aquarium controller (like myself), then you should set the heater to 1-2 degrees above target aquarium controller temp to avoid this. Or, did something else happened that caused your heater to cook tank?

[Spyderturbo007]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I subscribed to http://www.reeftronics.net/ and it will e-mail/text me when it can not communicate with the controller.

Go there and look for worm5406

How does that work? That is the only thing I'm missing since I don't have a battery backup for the Apex. I have a generator, but if I'm away from the house and don't manually check in with the app on my phone, I have no way to know it the power is out.

[worm5406]

Go there and look me up. You will see both status and history.

There is a network tester also on their page.

BUT... Sign up. free service, it tracks and lets you see in a graph format for up to 30 days your stats.

Makes it nice and easy to point someone to it when you need to show something.

I like to see it there also so I can see a trend.

If you look at mine you will see some spikes over the weekend.. I swapped out my sump for the new baffled one so I had some of the probes out of the water for a few minutes during the swapp.

[jaynigz]

your heater should have turned off when your controller lost power or when it lost network if you have a fallback such "when temp > 81 degrees then OFF"

never had temperature problems with power outage because even if I lost the network, every single one of my pumps have auto fallback when temp reach a certain level. And if power never comes back on, you should always have a back up power source to run your powerheads. Corals and fish can go days without lights, but they need constant flow.

[SVTour]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I subscribed to http://www.reeftronics.net/ and it will e-mail/text me when it can not communicate with the controller.

Go there and look for worm5406

Would have been nice to know this years ago...I've been doing it the hard way since I got my unit.

Signing up with them now.

[Cloudburst2000]

I'm getting the feeling that Dakota's power to his home went out and that the ambient temps in his house got too hot which led the aquarium to overheat...not that the heater malfunctioned. He just didn't have air-conditioning due to no power.

[bnumair]

honestly 73 is not drastic to kill a fish. i am sure it didnt drop from 80 to 73 in split second, surely over hours and maybe over night. that is a very slow drop and it should have not killed a fish. some areas in reef are 74F and fish thrive there. i would look into a problem somewhere else. just my professional guess.

[worm5406]

Originally Posted by SVTour

Would have been nice to know this years ago...I've been doing it the hard way since I got my unit.

Signing up with them now.

I saw it a good while ago.

Russ has been making updates and adding features over the years. The number of people signed up has been increasing each month.

I like it to be able to look, in one place, the status of not only mine but othes that use it also.

Just hover your mouse over a name and a list will pop up. Not only does it work for apex but quite a few other manufactures too. It will even show if there is an active webcam setup with thhe profile, and let you view it.

one2manyfish, from here (RC), is on there and that is one of the places I first saw his web cam.

It is best to use the tool on the right hand side to test your network communications. I then got a dydns account and it updates even though my provider changes my IP address regularly.

[doakota1]

Originally Posted by Cloudburst2000

I'm getting the feeling that Dakota's power to his home went out and that the ambient temps in his house got too hot which led the aquarium to overheat...not that the heater malfunctioned. He just didn't have air-conditioning due to no power.

I have a generic hole house generator as soon as the power goes out, within 10 seconds the generator kicks on, its large enough to run the entire house.

But for some reason the apex looses the network and then does not recognize the temp probe

Sorry do not mean to hijack your thread

[aandfsoccr04]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I saw it a good while ago.

Russ has been making updates and adding features over the years. The number of people signed up has been increasing each month.

I like it to be able to look, in one place, the status of not only mine but othes that use it also.

Just hover your mouse over a name and a list will pop up. Not only does it work for apex but quite a few other manufactures too. It will even show if there is an active webcam setup with thhe profile, and let you view it.

one2manyfish, from here (RC), is on there and that is one of the places I first saw his web cam.

It is best to use the tool on the right hand side to test your network communications. I then got a dydns account and it updates even though my provider changes my IP address regularly.

What do you use your apex for?

[worm5406]

Originally Posted by aandfsoccr04

What do you use your apex for?

• I have two mp40's being controlled with time of day (ToD) events.(2)
• I have two heaters that are controlled(2)
• I set up my skimmer to not turn off the two recirculation pumps until 10 seconds after the skimmer feed pump is off, this is to prevent the water level being higher and running up the air intakes, even though they are as high as they will go.(3)
• I have an algae turf scrubber (ATS) that it cycles the light in it so that I am not getting too much growth or throwing off the day/night pH balance. Controls that pump also.(3)
• Return Pump(1)
• GFO(1)
• Carbon(1)
• Sump Light opposite schedule as DT lights (1)
• ATO (1)
• Radion's in the event that it gets too warm to shut them down (3)
• A PH in the sump to keep a high mix flow where skimmer (in/out) and DT mix (1)
• APEX Moon light

I have three EB8's

That enough?

Ohh and the alarm feature if the ATO is running for more than 10 minutes (ATO empty or skimmer runs overboard)

Here is a listing of all my outlets:

http://www.reeftronics.net/worm5406/apex-status

[duganderson]

Originally Posted by worm5406

I subscribed to http://www.reeftronics.net/ and it will e-mail/text me when it can not communicate with the controller.

Go there and look for worm5406

Very cool. Now I'm getting a controller for sure.

Do you need a controller with an ethernet connection for this service or is a wireless connection to the controller fine too?

Thanks

[dkeller_nc]

Originally Posted by doakota1

I have a generic hole house generator as soon as the power goes out, within 10 seconds the generator kicks on, its large enough to run the entire house.

But for some reason the apex looses the network and then does not recognize the temp probe

Sorry do not mean to hijack your thread

I'd go to staples or office depot and get a very inexpensive UPS. Since capacity is not a concern for you (with the generator), one that will prevent your controller from resetting will cost about $50.

[worm5406]

Originally Posted by duganderson

Do you need a controller with an ethernet connection for this service or is a wireless connection to the controller fine too?

I am an IT guy, I ran a cable from the apex, put a small 4 port hub there, and connected the apex.

[SVTour]

Originally Posted by duganderson

Very cool. Now I'm getting a controller for sure.

Do you need a controller with an ethernet connection for this service or is a wireless connection to the controller fine too?

Thanks

I run an Ethernet connection to a wireless internet adapter (NetGear WNCE2001) and run mine wireless from there, as my fish room is 70 feet from my computer.

[SVTour]

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

I'd go to staples or office depot and get a very inexpensive UPS. Since capacity is not a concern for you (with the generator), one that will prevent your controller from resetting will cost about $50.

Agree with this, I run a small APC unit that can give me an hour with one of my power heads...however, I don't thing I could hook up my controller to one of these (not sure about the apex), but DA-RKE powers off a bus cable that would need to tie in the entire system.