PH level alarm for Apex driving me nuts

[Brockly]

So I am brand new to apex. I have an alarm set up for above 8.40 and below 7.80 to let me know. And I keep getting notifications thst is is out of the ranges. But when I look at the monitor it is never out of those ranges. What am I missing. It’s driving me nuts.

Two pictures attached showing it

 

[mikus]

Mine did the same thing, but on the low end. I always got alarms when my ph would drop below 7.8. The lowest it drops is 7.79 - 7.78, which was truly annoying. Sump and display are in the basement game room, so always low ph, but the tank is doing great. If your tank is doing good with those maintained ph levels, change the alarm to notify at a higher ph than it is set for currently.

 

[Brockly]

Sure I could Chang it. But it is set for 8.4 and saying in the alarms it’s 8.48 or whatever. But when I look at the probe history it has never been above 8.17 that’s why I’m confused

 

[Brockly]

Does it have something to do with temperature compensation. Found this in my PH alarm settings, it’s disabled. Do I need to enable it?

 

[mikus]

I have never seen that notification before, check to make sure the temp probe is connected and working properly and then enable it. I'm not an apex expert, but I would imagine the temp and ph probes work together in their data outputs. I also double checked my PH log to make sure it was showing low levels when I received notifications, and it is...not sure why yours is not registering on the log.

 

[Brockly]

Yeah here is the log it only goes up to 8.17 it not showing what the notifications are saying at all

 

[mikus]

Are you using a PH buffer? The first part of the graph shows a level above 12, and I can see your max PH is 12.4, which looks to have occurred within a day of the 8.12 reading.

 

[Brockly]

That reading was probably when I calibrated it with the 10 and 7 buffer.

I dose 2 part.

 

[ca1ore]

I cannot explain the historical graph, but is your ph probe close enough to where you dose to be impacting the readings. In both the cases you noted the high reading was exactly on the hour, every two hours and very brief. Does your alk solution dose at 5, 7 and 9 am?

 

[Brockly]

You might be on to something thst is when my two part doses and they are right next to each other

 

[GK3]

So I am brand new to apex. I have an alarm set up for above 8.40 and below 7.80 to let me know. And I keep getting notifications thst is is out of the ranges. But when I look at the monitor it is never out of those ranges. What am I missing. It’s driving me nuts.

Two pictures attached showing it

Your PH probe takes a reading like every 10 seconds (something like that, I can’t remember exactly) the historical data logging graph does not record a data point every 10 seconds. It’s on the order of minutes. So what is happening is your pH probe reads 8.46, which is above 8.4 and triggers you alarm. But this isn’t on a cycle of when your logger is storing a data point. So that’s why you don’t see it. If you want to get around this, you need to write a line of code that basically requires your PH probe to read 8.46 for longer than one measurement before it sends an alarm notification.

You can do this similar to the following

If ph > 8.4 then on
If ph < 7.8 then on
Defer 00:20 then on

This will require your PH to be in the alarm condition for 20 seconds before it turns on the alarm and shows you a notification.

Also-if you ph is reading 8.1 and then jumping to 8.46 and then dropping back to 8.1 (or something similar) i would look into your probe as something seems wrong with it.

 

[Brockly]

I will have to move the dose. So it’s a false reading. But for the actual chart it must use normal timed averages so it is always normal. Thanks for the thoughts that has to be it

 

[Brockly]

Perfect yeah that’s what I figured the probe and dosing line are right next to each other so the actual ph is inline with 8.1 but when the doser kicks it drips 10ml right by it and as it disperses in the water causes the higher reading. It is in direct current so the reason drops back down very quickly. So I think the delayed code is the way to go

 

[Brockly]

Ok shoot , were does the code go. I can’t find a place to input code on the alarm

 

[ca1ore]

You might be on to something thst is when my two part doses and they are right next to each other

Then that is almost certainly the ‘problem’. Just move either the dosing line or the ph probe ..... or add the defer command to your alarm programming.

 

[ca1ore]

Ok shoot , were does the code go. I can’t find a place to input code on the alarm

You have to set up a virtual outlet for the alarm (or maybe your apex already has ‘alarm’ as an output) rather than using the max/min radio buttons. Code goes into that output.

 

[Brockly]

There is automatically an “emailalm” “sndalm” wrnalm not sure what any of them are for but they do have empty code things available

 

[ca1ore]

Yeah, just use one of those. I just renamed mine. Just remember to uncheck the ph probe raio buttons othewise the alarms will continue.

 

[Brockly]

Cool thanks

 

[Tastee]

I don’t know how your sump is configured but I would move the dosing line. My setup (RSR 250) is overflow into a chamber full of MP balls, through filter socks and into Skimmer chamber, through baffles and a sponge into return chamber and back to DT. My probes are in the skimmer section and I dose into the return chamber. So my probes only ever test water that is well mixed.