Neptune Systems Insider

Dave and I are not part of the beta testing; however, we would be very interested to hear what people think who are part of it.  It would also be great to hear about the new features that will be coming soon.

Krazie4Acans wrote: Well the first update I was a part of was an update to fusion. Here is a short list of the updates. New Heartbeat feature (get notifications if your apex is no longer connected to fusion) Quick entry of test measurements (one button click to add feature) Default test kit settings (choose what the default test kits you use are so you don't have to select it each time) Updated graphing for input data (brings back some of the features that were changed in the last update) Feature tours (quick pop-up descriptions the first time you use an apex feature) I think that is the ones so far. I'll go double check and see if I missed any. The next one is a new piece of hardware but so far we can't talk about it.

So I've had the next beta stuff for a while and am just getting around to installing them on my tank. This one is a new module called the Flow Monitoring Module (FMM). This module has some interesting options. It has 4 sensor ports, an auxiliary port, and a power port.  The sensor ports support either a flow sensor, upcoming optical level sensor or a leak detection sensor. The aux port is designed for some 24v apex accessories like a solenoid valve or ato pump. I opted for 4 flow sensors. A 1", 2 - 1/2" and a 1/4". These will monitor my return flow to the tank, my carbon and GFO reactors, and my sulfur denitrator. My only issue has been that Neptune made the decision to go with BSP threaded parts instead of NPT which is what we can buy around here. This has made it a challenge to get it plumbed in but I finally got it done. Here is three of the sensors installed on my manifold.

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It's been a super long road trying to figure out how I was going to fit the final sensor into my existing plumbing. I finally found something that would work and got it in place yesterday. It's working well but I have a couple of observations that I thought were important to note.

My setup uses a modified Durso drain setup. It's probably closer to Herbie than Durso. So the main drain is fully submersed in the overflow and there is no air line. There is a gate valve to control the amount of flow. There is a single emergency drain as well. I also run a DC return pump. The return plumbing is all 1" PVC and there are no 90 degree elbows except where the locline is connected at the end of the pipe. Everything is 45's to that point. So here is what I observed.

Prior to installing the 1" flow sensor (on 1" PVC) my return pump was running at 80% and that included the items running on my manifold. It's been running at this setting for 8 months with no adjustment.

After installing the sensor, on a straight run of pipe using only one of the unions that came with the sensor and connecting the other side directly to a true union ball valve that was already on the system, and making no other changes there was not nearly enough flow from the return to keep the main drain under water so the siphon could start.It was just sucking air into the drain. So without adjusting the gate valve I just turned the return pump up to 90%. That helped but the level in the overflow still wasn't at the original level and the drain was still sucking air in periodically as it was creating a vortex in the overflow above the drain pipe. So I turned the pump up to 100%. This raised the level in the overflow enough that I wasn't sucking air anymore but still was not maintaining the water level in the overflow at it's original height. The only way I could get back to where I was running before was to close the gate valve slightly and still run the pump at 100%.

This clearly shows that there is some flow reduction with the sensor even with minimal additional pieces used in plumbing it in. So take this into consideration. Obviously those without a controllable DC pump or a pump that is dialed back with a ball valve may not have the ability to return the flow back to where it was before installing the flow sensor.

The good news is that I totally over sized the return pump on my 90 gallon tank so that even with the drop from the flow sensor and all the plumbing I am still getting 700gph from the return through the 1" pipe. I do believe I have another plumbing job in my near future to replace all of the 1" return plumbing with 1.5" or 2" (pump is 1.5") and get rid of the last 90 degree elbows from the plumbing.

following. this will be a game changer

Well Friday turned into a major mess. The shipping address got typed in one digit off from the correct one, the delivery driver wouldn't take it across the street from the empty lot on the label to my address and reported a bad address. I called Neptune and they had the correct address in the system and the driver was notified in less than 10 minutes. Let's just say that not only did the driver not come back but I wasn't informed that it was back at the FedEx wharehouse at 3:30 and I could have driven to pick it up. Anyway Christmas was definitely delayed...   Until this morning.

Just to keep the heart attacks from happening. These units were shipped out with out a calibration on them and we were asked to run them like that and not focus on the numbers as much as the trends. We will be calibrating them at a later point. lol

Very cool, I hope they work out. I am going to need investing in an Apex soon!

After the initial hiccups the unit seems to be running great now. I've been doing some intentional dosing at specific times to see the effects and to see how sensitive the test is.