What do you plug in and where?

D

Double M

Hey all,

As I continue to sloooooowly finish the stand for my 140, I'm trying to get the remaining planning completely sewn up so I can move more quickly once the tank is in the house.

I would like your advice on device/outlet management. I'll have an neptune apex controller, an american dj 8 switch power center, two standard outlets, and two gfci-protected outlets.

I will (for the time being) be controlling only lights, fans, 3 powerheads, heaters and ATO (possibly) with the apex.

That leaves carbon and gfo reactor pump, turf scrubber pump (unless I decide to plumb it directly from the Tee'd return), skimmer, return pump...other small stuff I'm probably forgetting like grounding probes, etc.

How would you plug all this in? In other words, what types of things would you put on the gfi and what would you leave on the standard outlet, would you control the ato (JBJ with 1 float switch inverted for added in-sump redundancy) or leave it uncontrolled by the apex? My primary concerns are what stuff "goes dark" during a gfci trip and how to balance the system in such an event.

Am I being clear? I feel like I'm not really framing my questions very well...I guess I'm just seeking advice on "best practices" for power management.

Any help is, as always, appreciated.
 
Your question has 3 parts that I have identified... Safety, power management, and redundancy... To completely help with this question we would need to know amps required for each device, and the amp breaker rating... I put everything that is wet on one GFCI breaker... Lights/controller on another GFCI, balance on standard power... I like all of my pumps on the same power supply line, if power goes out, backup will kick in or at least they will all stop running at the same time... I also like all of the items I frequently turn off to clean or refill on the same switch so I don't have to unplug each one individually... However, I did figure out the total load for all devices assigned to each breaker to ensure I was not overloading... There is some merit to putting half of your lights and flow on different breakers so in the event you trip a breaker you still have some light and flow.
 
Unfortunately, I only have one 20A Circuit available for my equipment. I looked into adding another circuit, but it was cost prohibitive, so that's all I've got to work with. I have 2 250w E-ballasts, 2 T5's, 2 Koralia evos (low wattage usage), Mag 12 return, JBJ ATO with an aqualifter pump, Reef Octopus 150 skimmer, 2 250w jager heaters, led moonlights, couple of maxijets, apex controller, fuge light, algae scrubber light...I think that's about it.

Any other thoughts about how to hook this to get a good balance of safety and coverage in the event of a gfci trip?

Thanks,
 
The metal halides I run on 4 and 8 because i believe they are mechanical and can handle the draw but my lumitek Ballast only draw 2 amp each according to the apex.

On the 2 koralias I would just put those on a regular outlet bar and save the outlets on the apex. If you need a wave maker for the koralias I have one you can use if you need.

On mine I also got a break out box to do float switches so my skimmer is on the apex. When my external crap container fills it shuts the skimmer off. And the apex also controls my topoff to but you have n ato but you might want thinkable about a redundancy using the apex if you have any extra sockets
 
Hey Thinh,

Thanks for the offer on the use of a wavemaker...seems like it would be a bummer to have my nice new $450 controller and not use it the wavemaker function, but I may take you up on your offer to test things out. I'm rapidly discovering that 8 outlets on the power bar, seems inadequate. Do you (or anyone else following along) run extra outlets off your controller? In otherwords, take one of your controlled outlets, let's say number 2, and plug in a power strip or something, such that all items plugged into that power strip are controlled via plug 2? Like, say for the sake of argument, I wanted to put my T5's and my moonlights on a strip that was connected to socket 2, such that whenever my controller killed power to plug 2 it turned off both items that were plugged into the strip...do people do that? Or does it create too much of a risk of overloading socket number 2...can that even be done, or do all the sockets, taken together, have a maximum amount of power they can manage and if that power is exceeded they all are rendered useless?

As you can see, I really don't remember a darn thing from middle school science of electricity.

Thanks,
 
When I first got mine I ran both my halides on one and vho and fans on another but decided to separate them to do sun rise and set. It's possible but you
Need to check the amp pull of the items together and give it some room most items pull slightly mire power in startup.
 
When you have completed your setup will you PM me?
I have the Apex too and was waiting to run some CAT5 down the wall for the Web Interface before jumping in to the whole project.
 
T8T,

I will let you know, but in the time being, you might want to check out this awesome link on Reef Central: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1834783

It is filled with info including a comprehensive User's guide that answers most of the questions I've had so far. I also know that there are many folks on DFWMAS with Apexes who probably have more knowledge than I'll ever possess! I, too, plan on running Cat5, but I understand there are issues with ATT U-Verse and the apex, so I'm going to try and figure those issues out before I run the cable.

Anybody else put multiple devices/lights etc on one controller outlet?

Thanks,
 
@Double M wrote:
Anybody else put multiple devices/lights etc on one controller outlet? Thanks said:
That's not a good idea but that also depend's on what you are trying to do.....each outlet can only handle 5 Amps max and the total current draw of the entire EB8 must be less than 15 Amps. I have ran a 2 plug extension for a dual pump skimmer off of one outlet but that was a low current draw item. One thing that you should consider is picking up a used DC8 and connecting that to the Apex, you can find those pretty cheap these day's.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top