I finally got things cleaned up and sorted. Here's what's going on with the tank...
With the Vectra running instead of the Mag 9.5, the tank is much cooler. My skimmer pump is next on my list of hardware to replace, as it's running about 80 watts instead of its prescribed 18:
I've been using a Jebao DP4 for dosing, and I love the thing. My largest complaint is that the indicator LEDs are incredibly bright and act as an unwanted night light. I've created an excel spreadsheet that calculates the amount of Calcium Chloride and Sodium Carbonate that I have to add each week. It accounts for restoring depleted values as well as weekly coral consumption, so my water stays at constant values of 450ppm of Ca and 10dkh week round. This stability helps to keep growth chugging forward.
Here's my reorganized sump and stand. I have both the return and drain open 100%, so the total system water flow is equal to a Vectra M1 on full minus three feet of head pressure. I'm guessing there's around 50 times tank turnover per hour. Water drains through a filter sock to catch snails and microbubbles and enters the skimmer chamber before going through my bubble trap/weirs and into the return chamber. It's easy to clean/remove things, and I have plenty of room for my hugely oversized filtration and return pumps.
My EB8 is slightly broken, so I have a backup power supply plugged into an outlet that's permanently on. Everything else is on a controlled outlet. The lights are on timers, the white channel turns off if the tank gets too warm, and the return, skimmer, and heater are all remotely and independently controllable. I still have to calibrate the pH probe (which shouldn't be far off) and hook up a wireless bridge so that I can ditch the 50' ethernet cable that's sprawled across my floor, but I'm loving the Apex so far.
I have all of my drivers and power supplies on the other side of the stand, and they definitely put off enough heat to keep the cabinet a little warm. Fan installation is definitely on my project list for the near future.
And finally some coral pictures. My yellow hammer has regained just about all of its color:
My rainbow acan has almost entirely turned red/orange, but you can still make out a few corners of color. I need to get these stashed in the shade and see what happens before I bring home any more.
Some SPS:
And finally, an FTS and a top down shot. Here's my usual disclaimer about how frustrating it is to shoot through curved acrylic and a new disclaimer about how hard it is to shoot from the top of a tank when the lights are built into a hood. Now that that's out of the way...