BradB
Well-Known Member
I picked up a Black Friday deal on an Apex, primarily to log pH. I planned to redo my dosing around a DOS, and use my Apex to controller my heaters and a few other things after a Scuba trip to Cozumel in the 2nd half of January. I've been using an InkBird to keep temperature at 77F and it has worked well for the past 3 years or so. I plugged the InkBird into my Apex to monitor power usage and calibrated the Apex temperature sensor to match the InkBird, but didn't give this more than 10 minutes of thought.
Yesterday, on the way to Christmas Eve, I got an alarm saying my reef was below 75F. Apex showed the temperature dropped from 77F to 73F over a few minutes, and that the InkBird, which had been on all day, turned off at the same time. I was a little stressed over the Holiday parties, but didn't panic knowing as long as the tank is above 70F it would be fine when I got home.
When I got home, the InkBird showed my temp at 76.8F with both heaters on. First thing I did was cleaning the apex sensor. This did nothing. Then I cleaned the InkBird sensors, which dropped the temp to 74F (still above the 72F on the Apex). I checked both before I feel asleep about an hour later, and my Apex still said 72F but the InkBird was back to 77F. It was similar when I woke up.
I have a lab grade mercury thermometer, which is accurate but hard to read (6 inches long and it goes from 0F to 200F) but was about half way between 76F and 78F. I calibrated the Apex to 77F and put a small heater under Apex control to turn on at 77F and off at 78F.
Should I leave it like this until I get home from Mexico? If I make an further changes, I want to do it sooner than later. I am hesitant to take the InkBird out of the loop, as so far it seems to be more accurate than the Apex.
Yesterday, on the way to Christmas Eve, I got an alarm saying my reef was below 75F. Apex showed the temperature dropped from 77F to 73F over a few minutes, and that the InkBird, which had been on all day, turned off at the same time. I was a little stressed over the Holiday parties, but didn't panic knowing as long as the tank is above 70F it would be fine when I got home.
When I got home, the InkBird showed my temp at 76.8F with both heaters on. First thing I did was cleaning the apex sensor. This did nothing. Then I cleaned the InkBird sensors, which dropped the temp to 74F (still above the 72F on the Apex). I checked both before I feel asleep about an hour later, and my Apex still said 72F but the InkBird was back to 77F. It was similar when I woke up.
I have a lab grade mercury thermometer, which is accurate but hard to read (6 inches long and it goes from 0F to 200F) but was about half way between 76F and 78F. I calibrated the Apex to 77F and put a small heater under Apex control to turn on at 77F and off at 78F.
Should I leave it like this until I get home from Mexico? If I make an further changes, I want to do it sooner than later. I am hesitant to take the InkBird out of the loop, as so far it seems to be more accurate than the Apex.
