DerrickH

I just need something that works... this is getting on my last nerve and Im running out of things to try.

tomato?

Yeah this leads me to believe there is an issue with the AC. Hard reset hopefully will fix it. If not then I really dont know what else to do.

Router was replaced a week ago. The do have a standard cable modem and I can buy my own router. However, I think there is a problem in the Ac. After a factory reset, if it doesnt work, then I will buy my own router. Neptune wants to do a firm ware reflash prior to replacing the unit.

Well no luck. changed ports and same thing. Can connect via lan but no remote access. So figured the router is messed up. However I tried a couple other things. All the PC, phones, wii, ps3 in the house connect wirelessly and have no problems at all getting access to the web. They are all in the DHCP range though. My DHCP range is 192.168.0.10-29. So I set the ip in the apex to 192.168.0.31 and plugged it in directly to the router via lan cable. I can log into the web server using my laptop and make settings changes ect but if I try to send the "test email" it fails. It also will not send txt message warning. With all the other machines having no problem getting access to the net, I think there is trully a problem with the Ac. Im going to unplug it tonight and reset it back to default settings. Then reload the config file. use DHCP in the apex, and see if it will send the test email. If it works then, I will set it back to a static ip. Should I use an ip below my DHCP or does it matter that im using one above my DHCP range? With it having connection via the lan, you would think that It should be able to access the web unless the router is blocking it. Maybe its mac filtering for some strange reason. Ive reset the router as well and still same thing. This is getting very annoying.

Ok even more mess. I talked with Paul at Neptune and have a scheduled tech assist session with them regarding the network issues. However it got even worse today. COULD NOT CONNECT FOR SQUAT. Even rebooting the web server, rebooting the router, gaming adapter, checking all settings, and all ports and still NO REMOTE CONNECT......so set up tech apt with Paul and then proceeded to doing an online chat with suddenlink....well they were blocking the port I was using as of this morning. They did however give me a list of ports that they do NOT block so I can fix it when I get home in the next hour. Talk about pulling my hair out. could connect on the LAN but not remotely like I did before. Im going to use a port 80 redirect and have it forwarded so I dont even have to use a port in the dns addy. Let my dns do all the work. Now the hard part is to work around port 23 being blocked (telnet). Paul wants to do a firmware reflash on the AC but Im willing to bet it will natively look at port 23. Hoping he can get around that. He agrees, there is a software problem on my AC but today it was my sneaky little ISP doing all the damage....dang I miss time warner cable...

Lol, I got my sig working though! Talk about a pita!

Apparently, using the aquanotes app, it taxes out the webserver on the apex to the point of locking up...or so Ive read. I did notice I was having all kinds of problems after installing it on my EVO. I removed it and going to see what happens. Neptune knows about the problem already and Im one out of about 20-30 people that have had this problem. I did notice that my primary dns server were set to the gateway addy which isnt right so fixed them and also pointed my apex gateway addy to the gaming adapter instead of the router's lan IP. Fingers crossed....working on the sig thing now...what a pain.

Apparently Im not the only one having this issue. http://reefcentral.com/forums//showthread.php?t=2046880 Ive emailed Paul at Neptune. I believe its a problem with the web server software. What firmware are you guys using? I have the latest, its what was on it when I ordered it a month ago.

Its some aris one from suddenlink. Modem/Router/wireless all in one. Well that didnt fix it. Still times out. Was working fine last night and now no beuno....Unless my IP changed, which I doubt...the apex base unit is what the problem is.

About 2 weeks ago. this apex is practically brand new. I found out my router uses 10-29 for DHCP so set my gaming router to 30 and my apex to 31 and both of them immediatley connected without issue. So will have to see hwo it fares tomorrow over the web. Seems to be working fine. If I can keep it up and running for a couple days, I'll set up the sig thing. Already created an account, just havent set up the connection. Also, it appears my router does not support DDNS so will have to set up the app on this laptop. All the led are green on the gaming adapter now so thats a good sign!

yeah was gonna set up the sig thing but until this randomness is fixed not even gonna try. Other problem is keeping my ph up. having hell of a time getting into the 8's.

yeah, its already screwed up again. Try to log in from here at work and it just times out.

I did the same thing, it loaded the ip/dns/subnet/gateway so that was fine. Then bought a gaming adapter and its been hell ever since then. Im thinking there is too much DHCP going on...Going to disable dhcp in both of them, set separate IP's out of the dhcp range and redo the port work. This Should help. im not worried so much about the dynamic part, I can get the app that updates noip but need to figure out this other mess first. Cant even connect to the apex on the lan sometimes which is weird since i know the ip, see it connected to router, and using right port, just times out. Reboot the web server and bang it works fine.

yeah, my GF iphone kept stealing the ip for the laptop every time she connected. I figured it was the router and had suddenlink replace it. The router should not be issuing the same IP to two different mac addys. I'll plug the gaming adapter back into the laptop and go through it and see if I can disable the DHCP. The guide says to let the gaming adapter issue an ip to the apex but it seems the router is doing this instead! I havent navigated all the menus with it as I was just following the unofficial guide. Its weird though, my apex always has 192.168.0.16 via DHCP and even when its shown to be connected to the router in the wireless client list, I still cannot connect to it at times via web browser. If I restart the web server, it keeps the .16 ip and then connects no problem. Weird.

Can you elaborate? In the gaming adapter, do I need to do anything for it to recognize the ip I set in the AC? So assuming leave DHCP on in the router. It will issue IP to the gaming adapter but from there? Ive done networking stuff before and never had the problem. Im starting to think its just a problem with the AC since if I reboot the web server it works just fine even with the same IP that the router has handed out. I was under the impression that the gaming adapter would issue the ip to the AC and that it would be a gate between the AC and router. Seems odd that the router can even see the AC. For the port that I use to access via remote web interface, what IP do you forward it to? The gaming adapter or the IP you set manually in the APEX?

Ok, so I went through the unofficial guide and followed it to a T but having network stability issues. Some times I just loose connectivity to the apex via web interface. If I go over to the display, it shows my ip address(lan) and if I log into the router, it shows the mac addy of both the gaming adapter and the AC in the wireless client log. I sent an email to neptune and they confirmed that I should see both the gaming adapter mac and the mac of the apex in the router log. I didnt think that was normal but they do....who knows. Anyways, when it looses connectivity, I have to restart the network server on the apex and then it starts working again. However I have noticed that one of the led on my netgear gaming adapter lights up orange instead of green. If I unplug it and let it cycle, they all go to green and all is well. So far, I havent had a problem with getting the wireless gaming adapter to connect to my router but the apex is a whole diff story. For you guys that have the sig.....do you have dhcp enabled in the apex? Ive read about turning it off and setting an IP manually in the apex thats outside of the routers ip table. like 192.168.0.250 or so. Right now, my router has DHCP enabled and is issuing ip's like 192.168.0.14-18. My PS3, WII, 2 laptops, evo, and iphone all connect without problems. Nothing is lan jacked into the router, all is wireless. What gaming adapters are you using? Im using the wnce2001 netgear. Looks like the orange is for "good" signal. Weird when I power cycle it, it shows green for a while then swaps to orange. Think I will move the router into the living room.

Too rich for my blood. LFS for $75, then again, not this big.

Not sure if I have dino or not but something is amis in my lil piece of the ocean. I planned on coming home from work yesterday and finishing my breakout box for the apex so I can hook up my float switches. Instead I walked in the door and there is the wet side of my MP40 laying in the sand bed, and the motor hanging by the cord. My stepson said he tripped and knocked it loose. Well it didnt burn up but I also noticed there was ZERO water movement in the tank...wth??? The return pump set to off by the APEX?? Nope, it was just locked up.. Took an act of congress to get it out since its external. Had to empty the sump, remove the chiller, remove all the plumbing and shimmy by big *ss inside the stand to remove it. The rotor was locked up solid. Its supposed to be black and the pump body is encased in blue plastic, however all the internals were solid white....CALCIUM! I chipped it all off and cleaned it good and low and behold it fired right back up. Nothing died so not too bad. I did finish my box and now have to cobble some sort of float switch mounting arrangement. going to utilize 4 switches. On in the DT in the event that the drain pipe got stopped up so the tank wont overflow, one in the return sump chamber for ATO, one in the main chamber in sump so if my bubble trap gets stopped up it sends me a message so I know to clean it out, and one in my skimmer cup so it doesnt overflow for some strange reason. Will take some pics of the box but it turned out pretty clean. Used mono headphone jacks, a simple project box from radioshack, a mini din 8 cable.

the big carpet nems are brutal, I had one, he wiped out my CUC in two weeks....Then again he was 10" across...

I hear a johnny cash song...."I took it one piece at a time....n it didnt cost me a dime...."

Also this: http://www.nightsea.com/aquaphoto.htm

Found this on another forum: Posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm by ReefTools I wanted to write a tutorial about taking beautiful pictures of reef tanks. Let me start by saying that it’s not as hard as some people make it out to be. Nowadays, cameras have come so far, that you can take wonderful pictures of your reef tank and it’s inhabitants, even with a point and shoot camera. I also want to say up front, that in today’s age of digital photography, my first advice for taking better pictures is TAKE MORE PICTURES. You don’t have to wait for these to develop or printed, and you can check them and shoot again all day long; so shoot away. OK, we’ll start with some basic photography concepts. The goal of a good photographer is to achieve good exposure. Exposure is a product of 3 main factors: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. These components determine how much light is getting to the film (in traditional cameras) or sensor (in digital cameras). Good exposure is achieved when the desired amount of light hits the film/sensor. Let’s look at each components individually first, and then we will look at how they interact with each other. Shutter Speed Shutter speed simply refers to the amount of time the camera’s shutter stays open when you take a picture. Depending on your camera, shutter speed can vary from a thousandth or a second to a few minutes. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light hits the film/sensor. A shutter speed of 1 second lets in twice the amount of light as would a 1/2 second shutter speed. Shutter speed may also effect the sharpness of a photo, especially when a camera is hand-held, or the subject (ex. fish) is moving. Your fish, for example, don’t exactly wait for you to take the picture. If your shutter is open for a whole second, it will record the fish’s movement and you will get a blurry photo. A short shutter speed (maximum of 125th of a second) is my recommendation for shooting a moving subject. If a camera is held by hand, you must take into account your movement as well. Even the slightest movement can create a blurry photo. Ideally, you want to shoot with the shortest shutter speed possible when shooting a moving subject. So why don’t I shoot at a really short shutter speed you say. Well, because 1/500th of a second, may not allow enough light into your camera, to get a good exposure. Let’s move on. Aperture (f stop) Aperture, refers to the size of the opening in your lens. A large aperture means that the opening is large, and more light will go through the lens. A small aperture means that the opening is small, and less light will get through the lens. Aperture, or f-stops, are given a number, for example 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22. The amount of light doubles or halves as you go up one “stop” or down one “stop”. The confusing part is this: a small f-stop (ex. 2. means a large opening, while a larger f-stop (ex. 22) means small opening. I’m not going to go into explaining why that is (it has to do with f-stop being a ratio), just remember that as the numbers get bigger, the opening gets smaller. The amount of light that enters the lens also determines something called Depth of Field. Depth of field refers to the are “front to back” that is in focus in your photo. The higher the f-stop, the more “in focus” your picture is. A low f-stop (ex. 2. allows more light it, but will have less of your photo in focus. A high f-stop (ex. 22) will let in less light, but will have more of your photo in focus. I like to draw the analogy to squinting. When you can’t see something well, you squint. By squinting, you are making the opening smaller (higher f-stop), and making more things in focus. Remember, with depth of field, we are talking about focus in terms of front to back,. (I’ll add a few photos soon). ISO or Film Speed Film Speed (ISO) is simply a measurement of how sensitive the film, or camera sensor is to light. The larger the ISO, the more sensitive it is. The more sensitive the sensor/film is, the less light is needed to achieve the right exposure. An ISO of 100 will need 2x the amount of light as an ISO of 200, to get the same “brightness”. Why not just shoot at the highest ISO your camera lets you? Well, as the ISO get’s higher, your photos will become more grainy. So as a rule, you want to shoot at the lowest ISO you can. The better your camera is, the higher ISO you can shoot at, and still get photos that are not grainy. Fill the Glass Analogy So what does it all mean? I like to look at exposure as a glass of water. Let’s look at a glass of water as a representation of a good exposure. You need enough water (light) to fill the glass, in order to achieve the correct exposure. So, the length of time you pour water is the shutter speed, and the diameter of your hose is the aperture. If you were pouring water into a glass, and were using a small hose (aperture), you would need to pour it in for a longer period of time (shutter speed) in order to fill it. If you were using a large diameter hose, you would fill that glass in less time. Therefore, as the diameter of your hose gets bigger, you need less time to fill the glass. As the diameter of your hose gets smaller, you need more time to fill the glass. Within reason, any combination of shutter speed and aperture that yields the correct amount of light, will result in a good exposure. Flash DON’T USE A FLASH!! (sometimes you can, but try not to) White Balance for a Reef Aquarium Ok, so I can take, nice, sharp pictures, but the corals don’t look like they do in real life…they are really blue…why? The answer is white balance (or color balance; same thing). White balance simply means that white will look white in your pictures. You camera will most likely have different settings for different types of light (sunlight, fluorescent, auto, etc) referring do different light “temperatures”. In the reef keeping hobby, we are all quite aware of how our tanks look under 10K lighting vs 20K bulbs. The problem is that our camera has no idea what’s going on, and because we normally use lighting that is more “blue” than natural light, the photos come out blue. Our eyes and brain are incredible, and therefore can adjust for this discrepancy, but our cameras need a little help. To the rescue comes “custom white balance”. This is as simple as telling the camera “this is what white looks like under this lighting conditions”; nothing more. Most new cameras will have a custom white balance setting. The procedure for each camera may differ slightly, but basically, you need to set a custom white balance, while you take a picture of something white inside your tank. This let’s the camera (sensor) re-calibrate the colors based on what you just told it white is. I normally do this by putting a white piece of PVC in then going to “set custom white balance”. I can then save that setting and use it in the future. It is important to remember that your reef tank lighting temperature will differ when you have your metal halides and T5, just T5s, just metal halides, etc. Tank Preparation Please remember to clean your glass either earlier in the day, or the day before you want to take pictures. This will ensure that you don’t get Coraline spots in your photos.Turn off all pumps and powerheads, so that any floating particles stay still, your corals are not swaying in the current, and your fish come out to see what’s going on. When taking Full Tank Shots (FTS) make sure that no lights, windows, etc are reflecting off your your tank. Wearing dark clothing will ensure that YOU don’t create a reflection. Turn off the room lights, close shutters and curtains. Try to stay as still as possible. Using a tri-pod is always a good idea for macro shots and full tank shots, but bracing yourself on a stool or any nearby object will greatly help when holding the camera.

Im fixing to build a kalk reactor and use pickling lime. My dkh is low and hard to maintain even with water changes so I need the extra boost along with the Ca. Just need to find some 4" acrylic locally.