Apex tried to kill my tank?

[Cooper2]

This is a weird one, so asking if anyone has ever heard of this. I run 5 Apex units from A1-A3 pro. A1 and A2's are hard wired to a hub, and the oldest system, an A1 with an old style EB8 outlet has been running for over 6 years. This morning when checking through Fusion (I travel for work and in Indiana at moment) all of the names and functions of the outlets were wrong. I've never owned a chiller or ozone generator, but there they were on my dashboard. With the configuration all wrong, the return pump stopped and the outlet for my heater (either #4or8 if you know Apex) was now labelled something else and defaulted to on....
yeah...ON FULLTIME. The sump got to 112 degrees near the heater. I'm lucky the return stopped instead of cooking the inhabitants. I was able to recover this system from a hotel room in Kentucky. Killed the heater, jogged the pump for 15 second intervals until seeing temp start to normalize. I've dodged bullets before, but this was a Howitzer from Neptune.

How can an EB8 pick up a configuration I've never had? It wasn't default parameters, it was a tuned, renamed configuration for stuff I don't run.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot!

 

[Chris.Reef]

Dang that’s messed up, is it a pretty large system on one head unit? I was just listening to the reef beef podcast from a couple weeks ago and rich Ross had something wacky happen like that from a rouge module.

 

[Chris.Reef]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Cooper2]

System is a 75G Aqueon or allGlass tank, 40B sump with Fiji Baffle kit, Varios 6 return. It was a very reliable and trusted system, but it seems like data for someone else's system was loaded on my EB8. Again, it didn't default to OEM settings it was some custom arrangement for components I've never owned. I've never given access to my account to anyone, so really baffled.

 

[Joe Rice]

I've had something similar happen three times over 10 years. My memory is that all the programming just seemed random and mixed up and things were on or off seemingly at random. Luckily I was home all three times. A couple years ago the 12v power supply in the EB832 failed - a common problem of the early ones - and I replaced it (the power supply). Hoping maybe that had something to do with it but that's probably just wishful thinking. Now I have my EB832 plugged into a high quality surge protector and the surge protector plugged into a battery backup system. I also have a separate temperature controller between my heaters and my Apex with the Apex really just providing backup in the case the temperature controller fails.

 

[Cooper2]

Interesting. I always feared the self-contained heater types were the risk and went with the titanium types that have become popular. If I can't trust the Apex due to "Sybil syndrome" with dual personalities, I guess integrating an inkbird into it or a self-controlled heater set 1 degree higher than normal might have saved the situation here. Thanks for the idea!

I just fixed an EB832 with a Harry's aquatics kit. Much more robust than the original part. I think this only affected the 120 outlets and shouldn't have created other issues. The leds on mine operated correctly, but all the sockets were dead, and you don't hear a relatively loud click when powered up for that relay that powers the 120V side of things.

Not sure if you recall but bought a large bird's nest from you some ago. It's huge now! Thanks Joe!

 

[Joe Rice]

I use a pair of 300 watt titanium heaters as well. They've been working great for 10 years.

This is the temp controller that I have plugged into my Apex - I dipped the probe in Plastidip:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KMA6EAM

Glad the birdsnest is doing well!