Help - Apex Temp (1 Viewer)

[TriggerFan]

I was woken up at 2:35am with an Apex Temp alert. Temp lower than 77 degrees (76.3)
My average water temp is 78.4 and it dips down in the 77s at night.

It was 73 inside the house this morning and I have also removed the Pentair UV I am selling last night which I assume contributed to lower the water temp.
I checked my Finnex 500 watt heater and it was set to 78 degrees. I set the heater to 80 and monitored the dashboard. I could see the power usage (449 watt and 4 amps) but no increase in water temp.
After a while, I noticed the heater temp light turned off and zero power usage. I then set it to 82 and waited. Same thing, I could see usage but this time water temp was 76.4
My mix station is in the garage, so everyday when I turn my pump for water changes, the water temp increases a little but (Still within my range), so I decided to turn it on and perform a water change to see if that helps.
Well, 30 minutes later and heater still set to 82 and water temp is now 76.8. I know it will take a while for the water temp to come gradually up (and that's how it should be anyways), but here's my doubt.

1) My heater output configuration is set to turn on the water heater at 78 and turn it off at 78.5. With this I am attempting to maintain my water temperature between 78 and 78.5 constantly.


2) Is 78 is the proper temperature my heater should be on to work in conjunction with my desired Apex configuration? Is it OK if I set it to say 82 or 84 and theoretically everything should be OK as the Apex should still power the outlet on/off based on my preset temp, right?

3) Do I have the wrong configuration in both my Apex and Heater? I am worried I have this all wrong and this will be my first "winter" with my setup and water temp drops even lower and the heater either does not come on or that it is just not enough to maintain my water temp. (Just in case, I have a Red Sea XXL750 - 160 DT / 200 system)

 

[Fish Keeper82]

You basically have two options when it comes to temp control:
Let Apex control on and off of the heater by setting heaters off temp slightly higher than Apex off setting( I prefer this since Apex is more precise than your common heater ), or setting the Apex off setting higher than the heater setting and using Apex only as a fail safe to turn off heater.

In either case you need to find the correct off temp of your heater since it is turning off to early as it is now. It's common for heaters to be a bit off from their listed set points by a few degrees.

But in short, yes it's fine to set heater at 82 and have Apex control the heater. I would just make sure the heater turns itself off at 79-80 degrees.
Remember than all that heater safety goes out the window if you accidentally set the Heaters Outlet from Auto to Manual On. You'd still get a high temp alarm but you are depending strictly on the heater at this point.

 

[TriggerFan]

Thanks. I have set the heater temp to 82 and it has maintained water temp at 78.6 all day long. Let's see how it does early in the morning (1:00am - 6:00am) and I will report back.