The Apex controller has been around for years, but daily people are asking questions how to program theirs, whether they are brand new users of the product, or people that have owned their controller for quite a while.
John Halsey has created eight helpful tutorials on Reef2Reef, and I'm going to link them here for you (and me):
As many of you know, I highly urge everyone to test their water on Saturdays. I did so that night, and the Elos Alkalinity test kit measured 9.0 dKH. The Trident measured just slightly higher at 9.3 dKH. All is well, everything is running perfectly.
I just opened up Fusion moments ago and noticed that my alkalinity had plummeted to 7.5 dKH, and the graph showed a steady decline since midnight Tuesday morning. Over the past 48 hours, alkalinity dropped 2 full points. I need to create some type of alert in Fusion, apparently.
My 400g reef and the 60g Anemone Cube turned six years old on November 10th. I hope you enjoy this up-to-date tour of where things stand for 2019, and give you a little insight into what makes it work. It's a mixed reef filled with corals and fish, and I try to let it grow naturally instead of constantly pruning corals.
Since 2004, I've used a calcium reactor to maintain alkalinity and calcium in my reef tanks. It's a semi-simple setup, with a few necessary components. I have an article about how it is set up here: https://www.melevsreef.com/articles/how-set-calcium-reactor
Today, the reef hits another monthly anniversary, and in three months there will be a full coverage video update to show all the changes that have happened as the reef turns 6 years old.
We are in August now, which is always the hottest month in Texas. Average temperature tends to be between 79° and 81° daily.
If you want to install some electrical items over open water, such as within the canopy or inside the aquarium stand, you probably have tried a few different options to run wires. It might hold for a while, but what about long term? These inexpensive sticky pads combined with some wood screws can be very trustworthy, and it will look like a nice clean install too.
It's been another month. The 400g has been running for 5 years and 7 months as of tomorrow. I've been dosing 40 ml of Nopox daily for 58 days. It looks like nitrate is finally approaching 10 ppm (looks like 15 ppm today via API), down from 50 ppm. Phosphates measured .1 ppm (Elos)
Other parameters:
Eight weeks ago, I installed the Trident automatic tester to my 400g reef. It is made for the Apex controller. Four times a day, the machine whirrs to life and measures alkalinity, calcium and magnesium. I tend to check the numbers constantly, and know the results are usually less than six hours old. It's allowed me to be "lazy, yet informed" and I love it.
Years ago, our club's president handed me a coral dip sample from Fauna Marin. Turned out to be gold in a vial but I couldn't get more of it. I remember it working so well, but I figured it must have been a one-time thing that picked up zero traction and never made it to market. Fast forward a decade or more, I stumbled upon one of those vials in my massive aquarium-related stash of things. I was in cleaning-mode and threw out a lot of stuff that I'd been hoarding far too long, due to my "what if I need this some day?" mentality.
