Quick Update!
My new gear is starting to arrive at the house. I have finalized my new plan for set up, and it is going to be something special!
Rocks are curing in a 25 gallon container with saltwater and a heater. I added some
Microbacter 7 and Dr. Tim's so that maybe the rocks can begin to accumulate some beneficial bacteria. I haven't seen an example of anyone doing this, but it made sense in my head so here we are lol. I want to make a video of the process, I think it will be really interesting and hopefully inspiring to reefers doing their first tank. Without getting too specific, here is what I am doing.
1) Dual return pumps for redundancy
2) Dual Heaters with one on a lower temp for a backup, and external temperature monitoring for an automatic shut off if one fails in the on position
3) Refugium with reverse light cycle
4) Always On Line UPS that will run critical life support only in a power outage. It will run powerheads and turn on heater if temperature drops to a dangerously low level. The average power outage (excluding major storms) is 112 minutes. With major storms it is 250 minutes. Major storms are not much of a concern where I live, and with major storms there is some sort of advanced warning. I should get around 3 hours of runtime in emergency situations which is what I felt to be a reasonable amount to be prepared for.
5) Automated top off. My wife and I both have our businesses with very unpredictable hours. Many times I am gone for days and weeks (sometimes months) at a time, and her job can require that she is gone from 6am to 11pm sometimes, so we had a really hard time with topping off for evaporation. For some reason, we seemed to lose a lot of water, about 2.5 gallons a week in a 30 gallon system. This extra cost is a trade-off to take care of the tank and the well being of the inhabitants in there. I do not view this as a luxury, but more of a cost of doing business since we want our busy lives AND our reef.
6) Automated WC. Ok, this one is a luxury. Our tank is in our bedroom, and we love keeping an absolutely clean house...like OCD clean...like our closets don't even hide junk, our closets are mostly empty lol. Carrying buckets back and forth, mixing water in the bathroom, spilling water in the bedroom, etc. stressed me out to no end. We spend so little time at home we want to enjoy it and relax when we are there, not do water changes. That being said I am going to change out about a gallon a day with this system. It should also increase consistency in the tank. I have never missed a water change, but this one is simply a luxury, and pretty dang cool.
7) Peace of mind. We will now be running an apex system, and although they have all of their cool monitoring for leaks, I have one better. Our house has a home monitoring system that has the option for water detectors. They are small, sleek, wireless, and awesome. They are meant for under sinks, by water heaters, etc. While I do have them in those locations, I also have one under my tank. If I have a leak, it sets an alarm off in the home, it sends me a text, and operator from the monitoring center calls me. If they can't get in touch with me, they will call my wife. If they cannot reach her they will call a family member I have as an emergency contact. I accidentally got the sensor wet the other day, and within 5 seconds I had already received the text and the incoming call came in.
8) Elegance. With the exception of the lights above the tank, we do not want to see any gear. No pumps, no reservoirs, no anything. We also decided against doing a closed cabinet. Without a fish room or basement, how will we ever accomplish that with so much gear... you'll have to wait and see.
9) Ease of use. I am adding a simple momentary switch that will trigger a 10 minute feed mode. This will turn of pumps for 10 minutes, and the skimmer for 20.
Contrary to what the system above suggests, I really believe in simple, elegant solutions. If my wife and I worked standard 9-5 jobs, we would probably not go as crazy gear wise as what I have outlined. However, I believe (or convinced myself cause I like tech stuff lol) that there are responsibilities with having a reef tank. Since we feel like we can sometimes fall short of these responsibilities, we invested the money in being sure these creatures are taken care of.