Well dang. I was driving home from work today and got a call (I know, but it was an important call) from Neptune. Based on the follow up with my ticket including the new details learned, and he said that the engineers had determined it was something wrong with my Icecap ballast. Radio frequency interference which I’ve never heard of before or at least don’t recall causing issues. I swapped out the 250w Icecap for the 400w Icecap select a watt and tried it first on a separate outlet from the Apex and no issues with the power readings. I then plugged it directly into the Apex and still no issues. Wahoo! But there is more to this story. After the call with Neptune I researched RFI from metal halides and although I couldn’t find a lot reef related, I did find quite a bit from pot farmer websites and so I checked out the info on their forum. OMG. They kept referring to Comcast/Xfinity coming knocking on their doors. Post after post. They were talking about the dreaded RFI that would cause them to get home visits from Comcast. They were all paranoid and saying they (Comcast employees) get bonuses for any tips that lead to an arrest. They also mentioned having their service shut off as well. NOW, the funny part. Around the time I hooked up my Apex so I could get everything dialed in and familiar with it, I got a visit from Xfinity. He kept saying that they were getting interference from my house. He asked some questions that seemed odd. I told him I had just hooked up a controller for an aquarium and he said that likely wasn’t it. I invited him to look in my basement but do to Covid he couldn’t. I remember feeling like he was suspicious which is why I invited him to look. He was talking something about how if the neighbors complained potentially having to replace the underground line,(said he determined it wasn’t coming from inside the house) and how I might loose service. I saw him later in the week visiting neighbors houses also. Earlier this week my internet was shut off by my Xfinity modem. I spent a day figuring out that the modem was kicking us off internet every time my network came online and that the modem had apparently decided that my security system was causing an issue and when it was plugged in my whole network would be taken offline. So, after having fixed the issue by removing the 250w Icecap, I rebooted the modem again and plugged in my security system and viola!! Neptune has also resolved my major issues related to my home network and security. Now all my families WiFi has been restored and there is much rejoicing. Now I can move on to aquascaping and control board. Thank you Neptune and support team!
