StayPuff

You won't have to though. You could put the wireless router into your stand with the Apex. Then connect it to your network. It can all be contained

The wireless has to be plugged into the jack ya? Or just into electric outlet?  I'm kind of learning all that stuff to had a heck of a time with this cable and net when we installed it.

I keep thinking I put the router in the living room where the tank is but that plug is like 40 foot away from the tank and the apex would need a cable to run over there to that ya?

Tell you what that coral gum stuff is great  glad you posted that to i need some .  It works well when its in the water .. Nothing worse that trying to stick a corol in and have it fall down every 2 seconds.

Thanks again for posting our group buy

EDIT:)

Spelling was bad that's what happens when on a lag fest lap top   Home comp better

You would need to plug the apex into the wireless router, it does not have built in wifi 

 

So if you have a home router you can network your apex with an additional router. So you need 2. You can get an old linksys pretty cheap

wonderful the plug to the tank is still 60 feet away so ill have cables running all over I might have to think about that one bummer to bad they didn't just make it wireless 

You will have to either use a wireless device to connect the apex to the router or run a cable. 

 

I use a wireless device that plugs into an electric socket by the tank, and then another one that plugs into a socket by my router and then into the router to connect my network. Works great and is cheap. Like $20-30 IIRC. Some people use old wireless routers and do that. You can find those at goodwill. 

 well I already have a wireless router down the hall so then I wont need to run no cables down to this thing huh?

Here are some things to think about to I was reading some more reviews and the first few that popped up were not good reviews on this

Again just tossing this out so people can see all options and yea these are good points to.  Who runs 500 feet cable from there aquarium to the tank. I think in a earlier post someone said this is wireless? I just need to find it a port on my wireless router?  I don't want to have to go out and buy more things for the money this system should be plug and play and be done with it.

Jake would not recommend this to a friend

Went on vacation and had a major fail system told me that had a friend go over but even after I explained everything to him it still didn't work out well.

Tank crashed and lost it all its best to save your money on this shaky software and just have someone check on it for you. Even if you do get a alert a problem is going on chances are it wont help unless your close or give people the key to your place.

Save yourself some money after having this for 2 years it has been more of a pain than anything.

flash wouldn't recommend this product to a friend

the directions are terrible (there are none you have to youtube everything )i have had it for 3 weeks now and I'm still not sure of everything yet. it may be a good product after all the aggravation it put me through. And bye the way you have to email for costumer service first. Talking on the phone is there last resort. So no directions and poor customer service

TAL wouldn't recommend this product to a friend

The system was packaged nice and the equipment appears to be durable. However, after spending 3 hours getting everything set up and drilled into my stand, my display screen randomly stops working. Spend the next 6 hours calling customer support. No one ever answers. They have about 3 different voice prompts instructing you to reach out via email instead. In between calls I do this. Receive an auto generated response but no one ever reaches out to me. On the 7th hour (of me calling them) someone finally answers. He takes over my computer screen and tries to fix it on his end for about 4 minutes. He can't fix it. His solution: "take an hour of your time and go to your local post office, pay to ship the item to California, where our technicians will look at it and assess. If it is still under warranty we will fix at no charge to you and reship." My response: "You mean on the unit thats been out of the box for less than a day? I'm supposed to go to the post office and mail it back to you? You can't just send me another $20 head unit considering I spend nearly $2,000 on equipment from you? This isn't worth my time" Response: "Yes sir, that's what I'm saying." What I'm saying to you: Don't be fooled into buying this thing. The head unit is literally a piece of junk. You can tell when you pick it up - weighs less than my TV remote. Defunk literally out of the box. The Apex Fusion software is clunky and not intuitive at all. Have not tried the mobile software but the web version is about 5 years away from being competent (similar to ecotech's if you know what I mean). I bought this thing to give me peace of mind as I left the country for the holidays. Now I'll just be leaving the life in my 180g up to chance. They couldn't just send me a new display and have me send them this one when I got back. Thanks Apex.

Dirk wouldn't recommend this product to a friend

Ive owned this system about a year now.setup or with general questions. , after all this time in development, still feels like a shaky house of cards. The firmware needs pretty frequent updating, and guess what? You have to have a direct wired connection to wherever you chose to install all these modules. So if your aquarium is far from you computer like me, you'll be buying a laptop! Or, you could attempt to update the firmware every time it needs it and risk "CATASTROPHIC" consequences they warn you about on your website. I travel for work frequently, which was my main reason for reaching for a certain level of automation. But with the frequent updates to try and keep this shaky software working, I'm often left away from my aquarium not able to use any of these features because I'm not home to jump through the hoops and get the firmware installed by crawling under my aquarium with a laptop. I only wish someone had told me this before I purchased this.

If you want to plug the doser into the Apex you can get an adapter for not very expensive to handle that issue. 

 

To simplify it, it is like plugging your doser into a surge protector, and then into the apex. It's not complicated when you see it. 

any chance you could provide me with a link of what  adapter I would need

BTW thank you all for the pro and cons here I'm still looking into things and rading reviews and pro and cons and stuff

Weird it worked on like the 5th time.

But i got to be honest im looking at that scratching my head like huh lol i have not got to even dive into all that apex stuff like that.  Gosh i can tell already when i do buy this ill be like a deer in a headlight

 

Most people know this, sharing just in case...

 

There is this great service for apex called reeftronics.

 

http://www.reeftronics.net/

 

If you sign up at reeftronics, they will do allot for your apex including texting you when they cannot reach your apex.  

 

This could be due to power our network issues.

 

You also get some killer history and backup of settings for free.  Here is my current config:

 

http://www.reeftroni...member=theclark

 

I am a fan...

 

Some people don't like sharing that much info.

 

My apex is as some people say.... 'open kimono'...

 

that 2nd link just shows An error was encountered

They can fail when not hooked up to the Apex too

 

Maybe the dosing pumps I use are different but the dosage of the pump is controlled by the dosing pump, not by the Apex. The dosing pump is always on, but it is not always pumping. It monitors and times the dosage itself. The Apex has nothing to do with the amount I am dosing at all. If my dosing pump were to be stuck "on" as in powered it would not change a thing about my system. My dosing pump is always "on" or receiving power. 

Ya if you switch to the BRS 2 part

     ​

BRS 2 Part Doser Specs

• Silent operation
• 20ft max head
• Extremely accurate
• Will not back siphon
• Dimensions: 4" x 3.25" x 4.5"
• 12 month tube life (at 4 hours of use per day)
• 12 month Bulk Reef Supply warranty on pump motor and head
• Includes 17ft of 1/4" OD tubing, mounting bracket, and directions
• Santoprene tube

BRS 2 Part Dosers are intermittent duty pumps and not meant for continuous operation. We recommend on/off cycles under a few hours to maximize life span. You will need two pumps in order to dose both calcium and alkalinity.  When used with controllers like the ReefKeeper or Apex, we recommend connecting these to a mechanical relay outlet, and not a TRIAC outlet on the controller's powerbar. 

I like the sound of these 2 part doser but the whole connecting it to a mechanical relay outlet I'm lost I'm no electrician and I'm lost reading all this stuff as it mentions for this unit only I think that it wont work right with the apex because it needs to be plugged in to this relay and mb8 and mb6 whatever I'm lost on all that stuff to lol

To be completely honest as someone with 15 years experience with seahorses who has bred several species of seahorses the fry you have in that tank have 0 chance of survival and will die. The effort and cost that it would take at this point to raise the fry would be extremely prohibitive. Good news though, if you want to raise seahorse fry, you can likely expect more from that male in 14-20 days depending on the species. 

 

If you want help with preparing to raise another batch, I can share my experiences but the best place to look is on Seahorse.org. I am Kevin on that site

I didn't see the part about the babies missed that part

i use the old drews doser. They were a super cheap buy from a friend so I got them:) when they die on me I will probably upgrade the the BRS 1.1 mL dozers. Been thinking of even using there 50mL doser for auto water changes.

Having high calcium is not a bad thing in my opinion. The one to worry about is alk. If that gets to high bad things happen.

 

 

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If you follow my last couple post they you plug these into a mechanical relay outlet Now this would make the EB8 a joke for the apex.. I think this is why I have read that the dosing at times will not shut off because the way it is made its not made for on off things to much.

On reef central a guy posted this..

BTW SORRY FOLKS I told you I do my research and I nail down problems or could be problems and try to solve them or work on solutions in this hobby looking ahead can save disaster

Ok i found out something that wasnt to nice to read about dosing pump hooked up to apex they can fail

Read this first - Energy Bars and outlets

           One problem with TRIAC controlled outlets however is that they sometimes cannot detect very low power factor devices and as a result may not switch off correctly. They fail in an ‘on’ state. This only happens with very low power devices, < 4-5 watts. So, if you have any device like that, you might consider putting it on EB8 outlets 4 or 8. Dosing pumps and very small power heads are good examples of problematic devices with TRIAC outlets.

NOW that would suck

Where are you located

Controlling the temperature of a seahorse tank is  important. Seahorses prefer cooler water than most tropical aquaria, so the tank should be kept cooler for their maximum comfort. A tank temperature of 74 to 76 degreesF will be good area..

HOB filter hang on the back is the best to use and in most cases that's what you should use.

very little water movement and don't put them in a established tank.

Make sure to house them in a species only tank

if you put crabs in there only do the blue hermits

Hope this gets ya started   Loved seahorses had some few years ago but they can be a ton of work

Just remember that seahorses are not going to be the same as a normal tank and if they get slapped around they can die.   Do up some research as well on them and of course come on back if you have more questions I had a small tank of them years ago and did well with them..

     ​

Home depot has those i seen some but not sure if its the exact ones. They had some nice stainless steel plates that look good to.

I've seen it in person and it is a beauty.  If my tank were any bigger, it would be mine. 

+1 seen it to all them fish are beautiful and very nice system they are in.. The picture doesn't show how awesome it is someone will get a beauty

Home depot FTW

You can get a lot of things there i like going there walking down all the isles and seeing what i can build or be creative doing but sure they have that or something like that

Xenia is like aiptasia not as bad but hard to get rid of maybe even hard than aiptasia.

These can sting your corals to few years ago I had a major fight with these if they get on your main rock your going to have huge problems .

How I got rid of mine was I had to take all my rock out scrub it with a toothpaste then seal the areas with kalk and let me tell you this was not fun but it worked.

This round on my tank I want nothing to do with that stuff. Great for the tank and then can travel across the sand to your rock when you sleep and you wont have nothing to say about it and if you pull them off  to lay seeds parts of it planted.   So kalk paste it.

If you can cut them all off at the stem then super glue that might work to never tried that then give that to someone else.

They are amazing for your tank to start up but you have to control these guys they can turn into weeds.

Just happen to be on google watch this guy get red of XENIA never seen this one before

EDIT I love the do it yourself things

Ok im in all signed up the reward points are nice add on

Awesome man! If you ever wanna talk cameras or pictures hit me up. That is how I have paid the bills for the last 18 years now. I just got back from doing some travel pic's last night. I'll post a few in general once I get the 4,000+ photo's downloaded and sorted a bit. 

sweet you can give me some pointers

I plan to do a lot of hiking this year now that I'm back I hope I can get some good pics out there I would love some pointers

I like taking pics I just don't like being on the other end of them

That looks very nice!!

You need two dosing pumps for water change. One to take water out and one to put it back. The two more for alk and calcium. But yes you could do it that way. It's all about how you program it.

If you go with multi head pumps, that changes it a little and I'm not to familiar with that route.

 

 

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Wont this do alk and calcium and water changes?

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Or would I need to get the slave for it as well.

Or if I don't dos calcium which I don't right now it stays at 550 I guess I could do alk and the water change on this one?

Seems 1 black nob would pump the alk from the cylinder to the tank dosing the alk and when I do calcium the same so I think I do need a slave because ill need 2 for that one?

I was looking at the BRS site for this system what I want is to dose alk and calcium and be able to do water changes with this so I don't have to.

I'm not saying I'm changing what I'm doing now but I like having options and preparing ahead which is the way I'm thinking about going.

Bump lower the price

A UPS is a good way to go, especially if you have a single powerhead you can plug into it. The DC powerheads I use do not take up that much energy so they can run a long time. I do have a powerhead plugged into one of these now, and also a powerhead plugged into another outlet from the rest of the tank just incase there is another GFCI trip again. 

 

The battery I use is meant for photography. It is a lithium battery that contains two plugs. I have multiple replacement batteries for this charged as well. In a pro longed power outage to our area I can run my powerheads for quite a long time with this. Especially if I were to do an hour on and then an hour off kind of thing. 

For my situation since my house has solar panels even if we loose PGE completely I should still be able to recharge those back up batteries during the sun hours and keep my tank going. 

 

Here is a link to what I have as a back up. You could probably get a car battery and a converter for cheaper, but I have the batteries for my day job anyways. 

 

http://www.paulcbuff.com/vm120.php

Funny you posted this about UPS as I was just posting to.

I think I was leaning towards getting         

This actually can save money a year having one of these to there not cheap but can give power due to loss.

or this

  CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS 1500VA 900W PFC Compatible Mini-Tower by CyberPower

I was just thinking if the power outage went out what good is it going to do if the apex goes out it cant send you info so back up power I forgot I have this I actually have 2 of these one I'm not using.

I use this my modem is plugged into it.  So like when my pge went and cut cables outside my place for 3 hours with no warning my back up kicked on to keep my net running.

Might be good idea to plug the apex in here so if the power goes out it can still run.

Now you wont be able to run everything if the power goes out but having the power heads power heads run is a must. Maybe even plug these into the power heads only. During outage water movement is the most important and heat..

I like the idea of having at least 1 power head and the return pump plugged into this.

Granted this will only give you about 2 or 3 hours of back up power..

Now having one for your router and lap top you can run it like 5 hours so its still nice thing to have I know they make the UPS back ups to funny you never think about what if my power goes out.

I think this is one over looked areas in this hobby

APC BGE70 Back-UPS Connect 3-outlet Home Network Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

Look these up