Still at planning stage ...

[Brian24540]

This is less of a build post and more of a planning post.

I had a tropical fish only tank almost 40 years ago in London. In the intervening years the technology has become unrecognisable and has prompted my return to the hobby.

My main objective is to create a tank that can operate during our long winter vacations with only a monthly maintenance visit from my local(ish) fish dealer. (He’s about an hour away in Agen – we live in SW France.) I don’t mind asking a friend to come in to top up fresh water, but that’s about it.

So, here is the plan. Initially I will go FOWLR and evolve into a fish dominant mixed reef tank. The tank will be an Aqua Medic Armatus 375 but with a custom sump. This will give around 420 litres/111 gallons gross and about 350l/92g net.

I plan to build water management system around a Red Sea ReefMat 1200. I realise that this is much, much larger than required (and not available in Europe for another 6-8 weeks), but this extra capacity should ensure that there is no chance of running out of filter roll within the month, even with a heavy organic load in the future.

Similarly, I’m looking at a Tunze 9012 Skimmer with a Holiday Cup so that the skimmer waste can be sent directly to the drain.

I’ll use Neptune Apex for control and, in time, a Trident for Ca, Mg and KH monitoring. The Apex will also control automated feeding and leak detection.

I plan to double up on heaters, feeders and return pumps for redundancy. I’ll have one heater, one wavemaker and an air pump powered from an APC uninterruptable power supply for emergency use in a power outage. We get regular, but very brief (1 second to 10 minutes) outages. In 11 years we’ve had one significant outage which lasted about 6 hours as I recall.

Between Apex, Red Sea (ReefMat and lights) and Aqua Medic apps, I should be able to monitor and control all critical systems, with a webcam acting as final insurance.

I plan to use Nature’s Ocean live sand and a mix of dead and cultured live rock.

I’ll have several large (85l/22g) plastic boxes for fresh and saltwater. I plan to use the Neptune DOS units for more or less continuous water changes – 5% a week initially.

Finally, I’m thinking of adopting Red Sea’s chemical program.

Any feedback will be very much welcomed and I look forward to posting some photos in due course! I'm waiting for a quote for the tank and initial kit, so hopefully won't be too long before I have water!

 

[blaxsun]

If you're going with the Neptune AFS for your feeding, you'll need at least two. I have a pair that each dispense the bare minimum 2x daily (4x feedings in total), and the drums last about 2-3 weeks). This is for 33 fish, of which probably 25% are a good 4-6" in length.

You'll definitely want some sort of ATO system for RO water. My 200-gallon system sees about 7.5 gallons of evaporation every 2-3 days, but this is really dependent on the surface area. If you have a solid lid you can drastically reduce this, albeit at the expense of a lot more maintenance with salt creep.

 

[vetteguy53081]

With a controller and ATO, you are partially covered. I would consider having someone as I do feed in your absence
AFS feeder will last a couple of weeks and should it fall, tank goes hungry
Having someone feed for you, this is where frozen cubes come in handy

 

[Brian24540]

If you're going with the Neptune AFS for your feeding, you'll need at least two. I have a pair that each dispense the bare minimum 2x daily (4x feedings in total), and the drums last about 2-3 weeks). This is for 33 fish, of which probably 25% are a good 4-6" in length.

You'll definitely want some sort of ATO system for RO water. My 200-gallon system sees about 7.5 gallons of evaporation every 2-3 days, but this is really dependent on the surface area. If you have a solid lid you can drastically reduce this, albeit at the expense of a lot more maintenance with salt creep.

Evaporation rates are a major worry. I could potentially have a freshwater reservoir of about 150 litres which, at your rate, would just about cover 4 weeks. However, topping up freshwater with RO/DI supply is the one job I would ask a non-hobbyist friend to do for me. Plus the tank will be in a fairly small room (my home office) which will be kept warm and closed so humidity levels will be pretty high. (I'll worry about the consequences of that separately!)
The salt and freshwater reservoirs are made from translucent, but not transparent, plastic. I'll have to see whether an optical sensor can see through them.
I plan on using Aqua Medics top up system by the way.
Thanks for the help!

 

[Brian24540]

With a controller and ATO, you are partially covered. I would consider having someone as I do feed in your absence
AFS feeder will last a couple of weeks and should it fall, tank goes hungry
Having someone feed for you, this is where frozen cubes come in handy

Interesting that both you and vetteguy53081 mention feeding. I'll certainly have 2 auto feeders and I'm currently investigating liquids that could be dosed. I'll investigate frozen cubes as well.
Another worry (there are so many!) is that in the event of even a brief power outage, the Apex will likely reboot faster than my router which means it will fail to get back online. I must check out the Neptune forum to see what solutions there are for that.
Apart from the aesthetics of a reef tank, the intellectual challenge of keeping these exotic animals healthy and happy is one of the key attractions that is drawing me back.

 

[Brian24540]

Decisions have been made, tank is ordered and stuff being bought.
I decided to go with the Aqua Medic 375 XD primarily because it fits the space I have so well and the extra front-to-back depth (65cm) is excellent.
I went back and added 'front-to-back' to clarify what I meant, as opposed to water depth, which in aquarium speak is, of course, height. English is very confusing on this subject. Length is often the longest side of an object (unless that would be height), but doors always have width, as do seats and the Atlantic Ocean. And we generally think of depth as meaning 'front-to-back' unless we're talking of the Grand Canyon, feelings or water - unless the water is in a tank, in which case it has height (tho' it still has depth in a pool).
It's even worse in French (I live in France) where measurements are given as LxlxH. That's because longueur (length) and largeur (width) both start with the letter 'L'.
On which subject, why is it so difficult to get dimensions on so many aquarium products? By far the worst offender is Neptune Systems. Apart from the Trident, it is difficult to get dimensions on any of their products without a Google search. Aqua Medic take things to extreme. I eventually emailed the company in Germany to try to get dimensions on each of the sump tank compartments. The sales engineer who responded (in English and very quickly) explained that he had had to run a tape measure over a tank in their office. Even he didn't have ready access to the data!
I must say that I'm buying the 375XD despite of, and not because of its sump. I suspect I will soon order a custom version. The Aqua Medic sump is a model of inefficient design which does not lend itself to the current trends for large skimmers and, increasingly, roller filters.
I want to get the Red Sea ReefMat when it's available in Europe, but that doesn't leave me with room for the (huge) Red Sea Reefer skimmer. So I've ordered the ARKA ACS120 instead.
I'm basing a lot on Apex - testing and dosing, water changes and sensor reporting and actions (leaks, optical and flow). However it's much simpler and cheaper to use Apple HomeKit compatible products for remote on/off control and for simple automation tasks like "Hey Siri, feeding time!" to turn off return pumps and some powerheads for ten minutes. $41/€54 for a Meross 4 outlet/4 USB strip v €350 for a second Apex power bar. For example, I plan to have a small powerhead in my salt water reservoir and HomeKit will program it to come on for ten minutes every hour.) And there is a HomeKit-compatible leak detector by the way, which could trigger an instant message to your phone, turn on your lights and stop any suspect pumps.
This capability addresses one of the major Apex challenges for remote control by the way.
In the event of a brief power outage, the Apex unit will reboot much faster than my router can re-establish internet and wifi. This is liable to leave the Apex hanging unconnected indefinitely. Now, after 5 minutes or so (I'll have to test), I can use HomeKit to stop and restart power to the Apex and it should come back with wifi already available and stable.
(And yes, I could have gone for Amazon or Google home automation, but I prefer Apple's privacy policies.)
Anyway, ramble over; hopefully some photos next time.
Huge thanks for all the invaluable information / wisdom / shared expertise on this amazing forum!