Or "what salt is the best?"
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I just got my Neptune yesterday. Per the conversations about how poorly written the code is, that is all just personal preference. I highly doubt their codebase is open-source, meaning only an employee of Apex would have access to even see the actual code. To say their code is crap, is just making an 'opinion' off of your own experience. With that in mind, it did take me 2 hours to get the wifi connected properly when setting my system up. So that was not the greatest experience. However, if you want a controller for your system there is not any better option out that at the moment.
To answer if its worth it or not. No one can really answer that question for you except you. For me these are the reasons I decided to take the plunge.
1) Cord Mess - I don't like all the cords. Yes, there are still plenty...but many of the items I can implement with the power supply. In fact, I bought 2 WAVs and plan on selling on my Maxspect Gyres. Loved the Gyres, but wanted one less cord to worry about (hope I don't regret that!).
2) Stability - Allows me to easily control the parameters of my aquarium to keep them a whole lot more stable than if I did not have one. I plan on hooking a solenoid up to my co2 scrubber to help monitor and keep my PH at a very even level. I've also been dosing Kalk through the old fashion siphon method in a jar. I picked up some sensors, and plan on adding my own DIY ATO to does KALK. *KEEPING THINGS MORE STABLE SHOULD DO WONDERS FOR MY TANK*
3) Safety - I've had my tank up for 5 months, and cannot tell you how many emergencies I've already had with the thing. Knock on wood, I think I got all the kinks ironed out; but the Neptune would have saved me many hard aches in the long run. The first two leaks I had were during the first couple weeks. I guess my fittings weren't tighten down all the way and there was a leak that got my carpet wet. HOWEVER, the biggest issue was when my soft tubing popped off my return pump during the night. I woke up with 30 gallons of salt water all over the carpet. The Neptune could have saved me all that mess if I had it! I had to take the day off work to clean up the mess (if I look at it that way, my time off work could have almost paid for it right there!). ** I've install hard plumbing on everything after that.
4) Fun - I'm a computer programmer. So I like nerdy things! What else is there to say
Again, I just got mine setup yesterday. So more than anything these are the things I HOPE the Neptune will solve for me...but we will see. You'll have to figure out why YOU want to add one to your system and determine if its worth it.
Well I ran without Apex for 12 months whilst awaiting the new energy bar for the UK, which never came so I purchased it including various monitoring systems.Almost every high end reef you will see these days has one. It provides redundancy and monitoring of tons of aspects. If anyone mentions reef-pi to compare it- know that the reef-pi is a in-progress DIY controller that does a small portion of these things. It will also cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get anything close to these features, and have a mediocre (but in development) interface.
Some things I have mine do, ill list the "stock" things I use on the apex 2016.
Notification/warning:
Notify me if my skimmer is full.
Notify me if my ATO reservoir is empty
Notify me if my sump water level is low
Notify me if my sump water level is high
Notify me if leaks are detected anywhere.
Notify me if my temperature is out of range
Notify me if my pH is out of range
Notify me if my salinity is out of range
Notify me if any of my devices are using too much or too little power (A fault).
Take action:
Shut power to the heater if the heaters internal temperature controller fails. Common cause of tank crash,.
Turn off my skimmer if the cup is full.
Shut off all non-essential devices if the power is out (I have it on battery backup too run just a wave maker).
When I press one button, all pumps shut off so I can do a water change without fiddling with plugs.
When I press a feed button, the return pump and skimmer shut off for 15 minutes before resuming.
Used as a timer:
Controls the time that my 6 t5 bulbs are on
Controls the time that my 2 t5 bulbs are on
Controls the time that my refugium light is on
Controls the program of my LEDs
Controls the program of my skimmer-cleaner; every 6 hours.
Thats just some of the features I use on the standard 2016 unit. I also have their doser for my 2 part
