AquaController Energy Bar 8 for Neptune Apex

This thing is built like a Sherman TANK baby! I'm not kidding either.I had to buy a second one of these in order to split the electrical load and why would I have to do this? Because this switched outlet can handle more power than any UPS on the market today. So to prevent the UPS going into overload shutdown. I had to get a second one to split the load up.On my one twenty gallon tank, I was drawing 4 amps continuous and on start up of my T5 lamps in the morning it would peak at 8 amps causing a 900W UPS to trip and shutdown the Neptune Controller AND the EB8 energy bar after just two days watching my power log it was obvious where the problem was.Since the addition of a second EB8 and UPS the system is working perfect. With a load of both heaters and lamps, I wouldn't expect these 900 Watt UPS to last more than 7 to 10 minutes at the most in case of a brown out. But the tank is isolated from the line which gives me 5 to 10 minutes wiggle room to switch over to emergency generator in case of a winter storm outage. Plus I now have spare switched outlets. Very Handy.

Neptune Customer service is very poor to say the least. I would never purchase another Neptune product again.

Didn't have enough outlets for my aquarium. Had to get a second energy bar and now I'm happy to control all equipment.

I Have 3 Energy Bar 8's and all but one outlet is used. I also have a breakout box, pH probe, orp probe, and two Temp Probes. I have had this equipment for about 3 years now. So far the only thing that has broke is the Apex PM2 box. Other than this everything else is working after 3 years. I did not mind when my PM2 broke because i never used the conductivity probe. It always gave me weird readings and I deemed it useless. The PM2 broke when i was doing a heat test in my greenhouse and the temp was above 100. I have very elaborate programs on the energy bars, and i use all the different outlets to do many different types of tasks. I use one temp probe for water and the other for Air temp. The air temp probe has to be painted white or the heat from the sun will give you false readings of the air temperature. 2 of my Energy bars are installed in the basement of the greenhouse and if they were installed in the top of the greenhouse they might overheat. One of my energy bars is installed in a large box in the top level of the greenhouse. I have the box painted white so the box and energy bar don't overheat. I think the direct sun heat could destroy the Energy bars. I had trouble with getting access to my controller from outside my home and had to have my brother help. I could not enplane how he did it but I do have access from my phone when away from the house. Sometimes the apex is very laggy and it seems that it gets more laggy when I went from 1 to 2 to 3 energy bars. So wile they say that you can have several thousand outlets controlled by one controller I might think twice and do some research before getting a system that uses 100 power bars. I love my apex controller and would recommend it to anyone building a greenhouse with a aquaponics system and i would recommend it for other uses. I use my controller for PH control, auto top off of a sump tank with rising and falling water levels, controlling boiler to heat water, Lights, backup pump that automatically turns on if primary pump stops pumping water, water valves that turn on and off grow-beds, Valves that turn on emergency misting system for cooling, emergency powered exhaust fan, 2 swamp cooler with Hi, Low, and pump control, Dehumidifier, Fans, AC, Turning on CO2 controller when swap coolers are off. You can easily control everything in a greenhouse. I do have relays for the big energy hogs like the ACs swamp coolers and dehumidifiers. Those relays and one power bar are installed in a large box together. One power bar Is Plugs into a large UPS that uses 4 large deep cycle batteries. I have very nice koi fish that I plan to keep alive for the next 50+ years and my apex has not let me down yet.Update. 2/4/16. Today I was running a 4" angle grinder on a separate circuit but same phase as my Neptune controller. When i would let on and off of the trigger of the grinder the number 5 outlet on one of my Neptune power-strips would let enough power go through to power up the relay. This made the swamp cooler bump on and off rotating the motor a couple of degrees every time I let on and off the trigger. It was only on Outlet Number 5, and i don't know why it would chose that outlet over 1,2,3,6, or 7. I fingered the voltage spikes form the ginger was greeting past the Neptune controller solid state switch so i plugged the Neptune into a surge protector and it fully fixed the problem. BTW the solid state outlets 1,2,3,5,6,7 all have a problems of letting small amounts of power though. There is not enough power under normal circumstances to pull in a 15a relay but there is enough power to cause problems for some small air pumps. I used to have a 6 watt air pump hooked up to one of the solid state outlets and the pump would hum but not pump air when the outlet was set to Off.Always remember to plug your Neptune Power-strips into a surge protector.

work for a week and dead.

I love the apex controller on my system. The power bars allow you to take control of anything from anywhere. I run 3 of them on my set up right now. They are well made and reliable. On thing to note is that they are soft start outlets. For most things this is a wonderful feature as it can be much easier on pumps that are being used as a wave maker, etc. But for small loads like a BRS dosing pump or an Agualifter you will have to plug them into outlet 4 or 8 (They are numbered left to right, top to bottom starting with 1). The other outlets will turn on the device, but these devices use so little energy that they will not shut off. It is not a flaw but a conscious design decision. As long as you are aware of that limitation it is easy to plan around it. If you need a lot of tiny workloads, the 4 port power bar has relays on each outlet (at least that is what I understand). I am already saved about 500 dollars worth of livestock since I had a GFI kick and the Apex alerted me that the powerbar was unpowered. That upfront costs seem high but it will pay for itself by avoiding common problems.

Needed to expand on my outlets. Bought another energy bar, plug it in to the surge suppressor, connect it the Apex, and everything is up and ready. I've had my other 2 bars running non stop 3 years now, no issues

Already had one for my apex but needed another for my additional pumps. Works as you would expect and fusion picks it up instantly.