While I know Neptune support is far above some of the other controllers, do not feel I can truly trust my Apex like I could my older aquacontrollers. Yes the Apex has more bells and whistles, however it does not have the reliability to truly count on it. The older Aquacontrollers had none of the issues with bootloaders, updates causing all sorts of issues, power outages causing it to lose programming or modules.
Just today at 9:40 am for some reason the temp dropped abruptly from 77.3 to 74.2. The heater outlet turned on at 76.2 not 76.8 as programed. The temp continued to drop and I did not get an alarm txt or email. Problem was I have 2 300 watt heaters on the one outlet, but only one came on. Luckily I have 2 addtional heaters not controlled by my Apex which came on a little above 74 degrees. If I had not happed to look at the display I would not know any of this. My alarm was set to email if temp is below 74.7 with a defer of 10 min, however according to my fusion graph it was below 74.7 for about 15 minuets straight. Also concerning the temp reeding seemed to be 2 degrees low compared to my old Aquacontroller. They were pretty much reading the same not long ago. By feel I thing the Apex is wrong. I have a calibrated thermometer I will have to get out and compare. The temp reading being high would explain why the second heater did not come on. I set my heaters as close to 78 as possible. One think I really like about my Neptune controllers has been the do a much better job of keeping the temp of my tank consistent the the heaters alone ever would. I normally keep my tank at 76.2 to 77.7. Without a separate controller I have seen 3-6 degree temp swings on some tanks.
