I certainly hope this isn't the case as it makes the apex one of the more powerful platforms in it's market. The graphs are great and I don't think they should stop innovation on this front. They certainly make programming the regular operation of lights and pumps and dosing easy, but if that's all it can do, then there's no need for the apex... You can just program everything independently and let it do its thing.
With the apex I can let my auto water change program run and change about a gallon of water a day, but if it detects that my salinity is getting too high with the conductivity probe then it takes out a bit of tank water and replaces it with fresh water to bring down the salinity. If the salinity is too low then it adds a bit of extra salt water to bring it up.
Along the same lines, I can direct the output of the DOS pump that removes saltwater from my display tank to my quarantine tank. I have another DOS pump that can remove water from the QT so that as water is changed in my DT it's changed in the QT as well. But at times when I'm not running the QT I don't want the DOS pump to attempt to remove water from that tank, nor do I want the QT filter or heater on, so I can set one variable (OK, virtual outlet, but we really need variables) and everything related to the QT is shut off.
For my NSW reservoir I have a float switch at the bottom that detects when the water runs low. When that switch triggers it turns off the AWC DOS pumps and opens a solenoid on my RODI filter to automatically refill the reservoir. When it's full a float switch at the top turns the RODI back off and emails me so I know to put salt in the reservoir and restart the AWC. My ATO reservoir is completely automated. When it gets low the apex turns on the RODI filter to fill it, then shuts the RODI off when it's full... No manual intervention necessary at all.
The ability to do all of that and more is the beauty of the apex and the programming language is absolutely necessary for this. Much more would be possible with an expanded programming language.
Bookmarks