- Hey guys today on Mastering Your Neptune Apex Controller,
we're talking carbon and GFO reactors
with a bunch of quick tips
on things like staying on top of media changes,
dialing in the optimal flow rates,
preventing inevitable leaks,
making your reactor feed pump a whole lot smarter,
and a new concept for how to run
your carbon periodically instead of 24/7,
to save on media life.
Keep more of your expensive foods
in the tank or just scale back
how aggressively you use carbon in your reef.
Starting with the basics.
The first thing we wanna do is set
up your reactor pump on your apex, and it's super simple.
Just plug in your feed pump into an outlet
find that outlet on your dashboard
and rename it something like Carbon RX,
choose advance for the control type
and make sure your fallback is off
and set is on, then push send.
For me, I'd actually use a Pmup instead
of a pump that takes up one
of my eight outlets that I might need
for something more critical down the road.
And it's a lot quieter and far more compact.
In which case you can set up
the Pmup just like we did a second ago
with the same outlet and renaming it.
Or there is one drawback to using the Pmup for the job
and that's using power monitoring or power usage alarms
to know if the pump has failed or died completely.
There's currently not a power monitoring option
for that one link 24 volt outlet
but there is a better alternative solution
I'll share in just a second.
Otherwise, to know the moment your reactor feed pump
kicks the bucket or slow down
because the media or pump is gunked up.
You can set up a quick power usage alarm
by finding the power usage alarm task function,
choosing your reactor pump outlet,
set your min and max ranges and hit send.
As always, this power monitoring function
is best set up after your pump has ran for a few days.
So your apex can refine those min and max ranges for you.
And I think the more accurate way to monitor your pump's
performance and media is to add in a Neptune flow sensor
to your reactor, which will alert you when there's less flow
over time or zero fluid at all.
But along with that, the flow sensor adds the benefit
of being able to fine tune your media reactor's flow rate
for ideal GFO Tumble or a flow rate through your carbon.
That's about once per hour, for example
a hundred gallons per hour for a hundred gallon tank
you will need a couple extra plumbing fittings
to hook up a half inch flow sensor to your media reactors
and the easiest way that I found to get this done
is with a silicone kit for your reactor and a couple
of these half inch by spigot barbed pipe adapters.
Once you get the flow sensor plumbed in
and glued and thread taped to make sure
that it has leak-free connections,
you can plug your flow sensor into an FMN.
Pull the new flow sensor graph down to your dashboard
from your unused tiles and turn on your media pump.
Now you can adjust your flow rate in real time
and once you have it set, head to the task function menu
to find the flow sensor task function,
to set up min in max flow alerts.
Once there, choose your FMN, choose your flow sensor
and sensor size, then adjust your high
and low flow alert parameters and push send.
Just remember that the flow sensors cannot be submerged
which is fine since many reefers typically
mount their media reactors somewhere
in the cabinet or next to the tank.
But that also leads to us solving for potential leaks
that are almost guaranteed to happen at some point
if you think about how many times
you'll change your media in a single year.
If you've seen any of the other Master Your Apex episodes,
you've probably noticed that Neptune leak sensors
make an appearance in almost all of them
because I believe that leak alerts are just as critical
if not more critical as temperature pH issues.
Because the potential for damage goes beyond
just your tank crashing.
Your home could also be in jeopardy.
So with that in mind, you can set up
a leak detection kit or add leak sensors to an FMM
you already have, using the LDK tax function.
Just place your sensors in your cabinet or stand.
Plug them into port one and two.
Find the LDK task function, choose your FMM,
select your sensors and hit send.
Now your email texts and notifications are set up
but there's one more step to add in.
That is to shut off your feed pump
if a leak were to happen.
Which you could do by adding a new line
to your pump outlet that says
if leak one closed then off and if leak two closed then off.
I rename my leak sensors to leak one
and leak two to make sure they're easier to find
which if you haven't done already,
you can easily do by finding that new switch
that showed up when your FMM plugged in,
click the gear icon and rename them.
All right, next, let's talk about another issue.
We've all dealt with running carbon and GFO
which is remembering when it's time to change out new media.
Yes, you can do a white bucket test with carbon
or monitor rising phosphates for GFO to keep track.
But I think it's much easier
to set up a reoccurring reminder instead
which makes this a perfect type
of task to add to the apex calendar.
For me, I typically get about three weeks out of my carbon.
So I've set up a calendar event called change carbon
that reoccurs every three weeks.
It's as simple as that.
All right, so now that you're reactor is set up,
dialed in and protected from leaks.
We are left with a question of,
do you actually need to run your carbon 24/7?
Or is there a benefit to only running it periodically?
I believe there are three primary benefits
for periodic carbon use.
First, It's just an overall less aggressive carbon strategy,
meaning turn it on for an hour or two each day
instead of using less carbon in your reactor 24/7.
Second benefit, is the result
of less aggressive carbon strategies,
which is less frequent carbon changes
and longer lasting carbon.
Thirdly, is saving your expensive foods,
additives, maybe trace elements
from getting pulled out by your carbon.
It's likely that there is some amount
of these additives that are removed, so.
Why not turn off your carbon during feeding
or only run it once or twice a week?
Okay, so if you wanna try this with your carbon,
there's three ways I'd get that done.
Starting with turning your carbon reactor off
when you're feeding or foods or additives to the tank
which we can easily accomplish
by tying your carbon reactor pump
to the same feed mode you use for feeding.
If you watch the Master of Your Apex episode
on feeding your tank, you probably already
have customized feed modes set up.
In which case, all you need to do here
is click the gear icon for your carbon reactor pump
and add a line that says,
if feed A, zero zero zero then off .
The second way to decrease your carbon usage.
It's just, choose a few hours each day
to run your carbon reactor.
Make sure your fallback and set
are both off and add in a couple of lines like,
if time 6:00 AM to 7:01 then on
or if time 11:00 to 12:01 then on.
Not that we change the set line to off
and remove the feed mode line
because the two more or less cancel each other out.
So I recommend choosing one
or the other option that best fits your needs.
You can also lessen your carbon strategy
even further than these two approaches
by manually choosing when your reactor is running.
For example, let's say that I only
wanna run my carbon for 10 hours when I feel like
my tank could use a little polishing or cleaning
all I need to do, is set the reactor pump outlet
to fall back off, set to on, and then add a line
that says when on greater than 600 minutes then off.
Which will run my carbon for 600 minutes or 10 hours,
once I toggle the outlet to auto.
The part I like most about this setup,
is that once my pump has ran for the 10 hours,
it will automatically toggle the outlet to off.
Meaning it won't run again until I physically change
the outlet back to auto and then it runs its course.
Also that runtime is adjustable, all the way up
to around 16 and a half hours or 999 minutes.
I'd actually consider this when online,
as sort of a max runtime safety timer,
which I'm sure you can think
of some very useful places to add it,
like in your self filling water mixing bin station
which I show you how to set up in this video right here
or your ATO reservoir that never runs dry
like this Master Your Apex video that we did down here.
So check them out and see if it changes
the way you fill and drain your ATO
or mixing bin, going forward from here on out.