Finally an update. I was gone almost the entire month of July. It was great to just let the tank do it's thing without me messing with it everyday, but a few corals got flipped over, knocked down, or pushed under rocks. All in all nothing major like I was expecting.
I have the apex up and running on a very limited scale. At the moment it's just turning on and off the lights and turning the return pump off for the automatic feeder for 20 min a night. I took the feeder off and I'll do bigger feedings maybe twice a week now that I'm back.
The livestock so far consists of a tail spot blenny, cleaner shrimp, decorator crab, dartfish, emerald crab, a bunch of little feeder shrimp, hermits, and various snails, mostly nassarious. I have one dwarf moray eel hanging out in briansrocks' sump that I need to go get. That'll be my next addition. I'm disappointed in the dartfish. I've only seen it out once for a second. I know I shouldn't be surprised but I figured with no competition and having been in there a month, he'd come out once in a while. It was from divers den. I can always see his eye in the hiding spot under the rock. It was actually a trio but I assume the other 2 might be dead, although they could certainly be hiding as well. The blenny is awesome though. I figured he'd be the one I'd never see but he's always out chilling on a rock somewhere and swimming around. Cool little fish, not too small at all for this size tank!
One big problem/dilemma I'm having is about the shrimp and decorator crab. They are both the stars of the tank right now, especially the crab. Always walking around doing something my son and husband enjoy. Problem is they are tearing up my dendros, fungia plate, and constantly moving anything on the sandbed around. Flipping them over, burying them, etc. I set this tank up for my boys to enjoy, which means mostly fish and critters like that, but I can't resist putting corals in there. I need to decide soon what I can give up.