Octo Lux T90 - My 48 Gallon return to the hobby

[x19]

Hello everyone! I’m excited to be coming back to the hobby with this Reef Octopus Lux T90. Just under a decade ago I had a custom 75 gallon cube, but after a non-aquarium related plumbing disaster that left the tank in poor shape I broke things down and sold it off.

My goal with this new tank is to move slow, generally do things right the first time, and try to resist constant upgrades to every component (including the tank itself).

After leak testing, aquascaping, and then waiting nearly a week for the water to clear after adding Ocean Direct special grade I started my MicroBacter enhanced cycle today.

After leak testing, aquascaping, and then waiting nearly a week for the water to clear after adding Ocean Direct special grade I started my MicroBacter enhanced cycle today.

Even with the potentially shortened cycle I’m planning to move slow. The first two fish, ORA Snowflake Clowns, should arrive in about a week and a half and will spend a minimum of 30 days in quarantine before moving in.

All in all, I’m excited to be back and get started.

 

[blaxsun]

Looks nice!

 

[x19]

Lights added, 2x Radion XR15 Pro G5. Pity they’ll spend most of their time turned off for a while.

1 week into my cycle with MicroBacter StartXLM and QuickCycle (1.5 ppm Ammonia, .2 Nitrite, and 2 Nitrate). Even with the accelerated cycle I won’t have fish in here for a while, as I’ll be quarantining them first.

Quarantine tank is also setup and cycling for my first fish - some ORA Snowflake Clowns on order at my LFS. Gotta say, hard to tell what the proper approach for QT is as there is a ton of disagreement on R2R. Going to follow the pinned method from @Brew12 in the “new to reefing” forum. I’m not exactly new, but it’s been away long enough that it feels like I am.

 

[jabberkaycee]

Hi, your tank looks good - any updates? I’m thinking about getting back into the hobby and this is the tank I’m considering. I had the 32g years ago and loved it. I look forward to seeing an update!

 

[x19]

Hey man, yeah I've mostly moved over the HumbleReef and post updates there but the tank is doing well. I'm generally happy with the tank, though it's not perfect:

1. the long skinny acrylic overflow cover bowed so I had to make some adapters to hold it in place better
2. the plumbing is metric which requires adapters for any changes here in the US
3. the ball valve it shipped with drifts over time, so I'll be replacing that during the holidays

Number 1 is entirely cosmetic, and 2 and 3 are common with these all in ones. I see the same complaint from folks with Red Sea tanks. In terms of what else comes with the tank, I replaced the sump and the return pump. The sump was fine, but based on YouTube video reviews I thought it was going to be just a tank with manual baffles — so I bought a Fiji Cube sump instead. Once the tank arrived I went to return the Fiji Cube sump but return shipping, and the fact that I had water tested it already made returning it impractical. Of the two, I decided to use the Fiji Cube one.

For the return I mostly just wanted something controllable, and was investing in the Ecotech ecosystem, so I went with the Vectra. It's been great, but because it uses US plumbing I had to mess with adapters and such.

For the tank itself, I really like the overflow design in terms of aesthetics. The glass is clear, the seals good, etc. The tank can be tuned to be almost completely silent but it only lasts a week until the ball valve drifts — hopefully my upcoming plumbing change will solve that.

Right now I have 4 captive-bred fish: 2 snowflake clowns, a red-head goby, and a Molly Miller Blenny. No corals in the tank yet, but I do have several going through quarantine in the basement.

One of my key goals is to automate as much as possible to help minimize the chance of burnout (which is what happened to me a decade ago with my last tank). So I have a 10 gallon auto-topoff reservoir that refills the sump every 30 minutes. That reservoir itself is refilled every 12 hours from a RO/DI tank in the basement. Additionally I'm using a pair of Ecotech Versa's to run a constant water change of about 1.5 gallons a day.

As you can see, my sump is pretty crowded but I still have room for a UV sterilizer on the left, and additional Versa's and chemical reservoirs on the right. Initially I'm planning on just using All For Reef from Tropic Marin to keep things simple.

The front right chamber will be a refugium with an Apex Gro light by the end of the year. As you can see it's a mess with wires, but given the tight confines I really don't think I can doo too much better. Oh the one versa you can see in the picture is the waste water for the water change, it pulls from the drain section and pushes down to the basement. I have another Versa in the basement that pushes fresh saltwater to the return section. All the water additive automations are killed if the Apex sensors show a high water level, and both of the higher volume pumps (ATO and ATO Reservoir) also utilize mechanical floats and another failsafe.

If I was starting over again today, I'd definitely still consider this tank but I'd probably also look at the Waterbox and maybe Cade aquariums (though they are more expensive). I liked this because it really included everything I needed (aside from lights) but in hindsight I would have preferred to pick my own sump, return, and skimmer. Let me know if you have any questions about the Reef Octopus Lux. Happy to answer them.