New Tank! Reefer 170, thoughts?

[abarko]

Been in the process of setting up new tank. I had a reef tank previously (which I got after it was already established) back in 2008 but ended up taking it down due to a series of power outages & winter storms in the Northeast that caused my tank to crash. Almost 10 years later I am doing things very differently now and starting a new tank so everything is new to me again.

Tank: Red Sea Reefer 170 (34 gallon display w/ 9 gallon sump)
Return Pump: Sicce Synchra silent 2.0
Flow Pump: Vortech MP10WQD (controlled w/ reeflink)
Radion XR30W Gen 4 with RMXS mount (also controlled w/reeflink)
Skimmer: Reef Octopus 110SS
Heater: Jaeger 125W
Sand: Tropic Eden Meso Flakes
Rock: Tampa Bay Saltwater
Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro

Tank has been setup for about a month now.
The live rock was placed into the tank about 10 days ago. Very little ammonia spike and I had ammonia & nitrite zero'ed out about 5 days later.
Tons of life on the rocks.. snails, procelin crabs, gorilla crabs (they've been removed), feather dusters, also had a peppermint shrimp come in the rock & a small octopus! The octopus I gave to my LFS since I do not want it in my display tank.

Tank is in corner of my living room. I plan on turning the white blind behind the window which filters light through into a blacked out white blind.

Full tank shot, water was still a little cloudy when i took this.

Trying to figure out the best way to take pictures of the tank. Whats everyone thoughts on my attempt at aquascaping? I've since added another rock to left but its largely the same. I still have extra rocks in the sump, is this a good idea?

Does anyone have any advise on how to consistently ensure that the amount of water removed equals the amount water added back in. I've tried a few things, temporarily marking the height of in the display tank with painters tape to ensure I re-fill to the same spot, thinking i've filled the buckets with waste water to the same height as the water I'm replacing it with.. It still seems that the water level is not the same, or it could be that the valve on the drain line to the sump is finicky.

Let me know what everyone thinks!

Also, thank you for this forum and its members its been an incredible source of information!

 

[Sk8r]

Looking good. Keep the sump enough for the pump but with enough free space to accept a number of gallons from the dt in the event of pump stoppage. In my tank, this amounts to about 5" of free space, of which it fills about 3". You do not want it anywhere near the top of the sump during pump shutdown. figure how much draindown you've got---have a friend ready to cut that pump back on if it gets within 2" of the top of the sump, and then remove some water.

 

[abarko]

Thanks sk8r. I've got the amount of water in a spot to ensure there's no overflow in case off pump failure/ power outage, it just seems that since the automatic top off float valve is in the sump, if there's slightly less water added back in it'll add freshwater until it achieves that same original level. Not sure if that makes sense.. Maybe I'm just trying to turn this too much into into an exact science.