Erics red sea xxl 750

[newreef1]

Here is my new build thread for my RedSea Reefer XXL 750! I currently have a 90gl that I've had up and running for over a year now. Love the tank, but after a year of lugging buckets up the stairs, a few water spills, and a loud overflow, I decided I had enough of a reason to build out a new system. Most everything except the sand from the 90 will be going into the new tank.

1/21/19 edit: About 20 days in, and here is where I'm at with the tank:

but before I got to this, lots has gone into the build!

• All photos of this build are housed here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28823275@N06/albums/72157704166244844

Tank came in last week and is currently in my garage on moving dollys (each supports 800lbs, if I had a ramp I could push this in the house myself)

Basement sump setup plan will look something like this:

Peninsula sumps are the way of the future!

so much space for storage!

I currently have about 120lbs of live rock in my 90gl, and will be adding another 60-80lbs of live rock which is in a 20gl tank curing, already packed full of pods. Not sure I could add another lb of rock in there!

Planning on going bare bottom for this build.

Found a place in the living room for the tank. bye bye nice floors!

Walls were taped to mark the tank stand height, tank top, and light height, all so I could get an idea of how the tank will look before I moved 370lbs of glass in place. The floors will likely be drilled closer to the front of the stands so I can keep most of the factory plumbing that comes with the tank up towards the front of the stand, along with the gate valve for easier adjustments.

Stand is built! Lots of parts

Doors to come once the electrician is done and the tank is on the stand. Still need to level it.

Build specs:

• Tank: Red Sea reefer xxl 750
• Corals: planning a mixed SPS / LPS reef
• Lighting: 4 radion XR30 g4 pro's w/ their mounts. The reason I went with these vs multiples of the XR15s is that I already had 2, and picked up 2 more slightly used off the boards.
• Flow: 2 MP40's on one end, 1 Gyre 250 on the other. Also using vivid's dual random flow generator for the return nozzles.
• Main return pump: Abyzz A200
• Sump: Using the 40gl that comes with the red sea tank. It will be in the basement, and more plumbing pic's to come once I get the tank up and running!
• Theiling compact roller matt.
• Life Reef Ca reactor will transfer from my current tank
• Life Reef Media reactors will transfer from my current tank
• Life Reef Skimmer will transfer from my current tank along with the c02 scrubber
• Currently have a 20gl frag tank connected to my 90. If I can fit it on the stand, this will move next to the basement sump.
• Currently have a 10gl refugium connected to my 90's sump. Planning on bringing this over to the new tanks sump, however not 100% sure yet as the new sump has a ton of room as is.
• For control, I currently have a full apex setup on my 90 and will be transferring everything over. Eventually I would like to automate water changes.

Items I need to finalize

• Basement ceiling / floor support. joists are 2x12's and will be parallel with the tank, so I still need someone out at the house to look and confirm for me I'll be good without additional support. Forum posts have gotten me some good info, appears they are good but I'd rather be 100% certain.
• Plumbing: red sea parts are metric, sump is in the basement. Also, Abyzz pump outlet is 1.5", and will need to go up and downsize to a .75" connector.
• Basement sump: will need to verify its enough and won't overflow
• Drilling through wood floors: More to come on this. Already warned the wife, with promises this is for a near silent tank. With that said, hearing others red sea tanks with the sump in the cabinet tells me they are already pretty silent.
• Electrician: Have one coming this thursday to return the living room outlet, adding some in the basement, and putting on their own dedicated circuit
• Tank move plan: Best way to transfer, still need to determine. I think I'll get the new tank up and running, transfer over the inhabitants, bring over the skimmer, Ca Reactor, doser, apex, start testing more frequently until I get the #'s dialed in and go from there.

I already have a RODI station in the basement setup a year ago. I plan to get bigger water tanks for this, add a pump and a line from the basement to the tank upstairs for easier water changes.

Thats it for now! Lots more to come in the next few months! Thanks for looking!

-Eric

Hey I also got a Red Sea 750xxl. I put my next to my stairs that go to the second floor and the rodi fliter is in the basement. I was worried about the weight of the tank+water+rocks/sand. Did you ever worry about that?

 

[bobyboy]

I just read through all of this, such a good build.
Any updates?

 

[ESH]

Aloha, I'll have some updates soon - in short I've been away for work for the last 8 months (I "had" to go work in Hawaii...poor me, on that note, got some cool videos from the ocean I'll work on posting), well really off and on for the last year and the tank responsibilities got handed over to the wife. Tank automation mostly worked - I'll post about what worked and what challenges were faced.

So, the tank is still up and running, thriving actually. 8 straight months without putting a hand in the tank will do that. Lost some corals, some have exploded in growth, pretty cool to see the changes!
More to follow later! Great to be home again so I can enjoy the tank.

Short answer to @newreef1, yes I did have someone look at the floor supporting before setting the tank up. Believe there is a thread somewhere on the forums where structural engineers lurk and help answer peoples questions about tank weight. If I can locate it later on I will send it to you. Sorry for the delayed answer.

 

[ESH]

9/11/21 Update:

Bounce is smaller due to the higher flow but is finally splitting

Side view. Zoa's are taking over free space. Only a few of my scolys are left.

This colony started as a frag in my previous 90gl and is tabling out well. I forget its name but it came from battle corals.

Not everything made it through the time I was away. The two colonies in the middle went sometime in the past three months. Ive broken them up to get some light to the colonies below and then threw a frag of another on top of them in hopes it will take over.

Lots of growth and encroaching. I'll need to do some fragging to open space for the red one.

This lps is slowly taking over the bottom of my tank and is starting to grow over a deceased brain coral. Will be cool when it covers the whole skeleton

 

[ESH]

So in the past, nearly 2 years, the pandemic changes things for work for me. Most people stayed home, somehow work had me traveling away from home for months at a time - lots of quarantining, covid tests, and masking up. Kinda like adding a new fish every place I went. Knowing that I was going to be away, I had to enlist the wife to help out with the tank. She's usually been hands off, simply enjoying it when it looked good. To make things easy, a majority of my tank is automated.
-Lights, programed.
-Feeders, programed.
-Water change, automatic 5 gl a week. All I had to do was teach my wife and create how to instructions for mixing a new 60gl batch of saltwater about every 2 months.
-Testing, Trident. Easy to change out regents through the steps listed in the task list.
-Clean the glass every couple of days.
-Replace CO2 tank for calcium reactor when empty (Airgas store is close by)

For the most part, everything went well.
I even had back up heaters, and other supplies handing in case there were issues.

My first trip away was 2 months. Great way to test the process's out. Everything went well.
Then January - July, I was away. First couple of months went well, then the 4am phone calls started (I was working in Hawaii, tanks in the midwest).

The biggest friction points I had were with the Auto fresh water top off. When the water level in the sump went below the low level for too long or suddenly, it wouldn't run. This would create bubbles being blown into the display tank.
-Work arounds I found: Checking APEX from my phone daily. I could see the sensor levels, and also if the pump was on or off instead of being set to auto.
-At one point, the pump burned out. This required me to have to teach my wife how to manually add freshwater over the phone, at 4 in the AM.
-I learned to use face time instead of just phone calls. For a while my wife kept calling float valves bouy's and at 4am with no coffee in me, I was stumped what she was talking about until she pointed to what she was talking about.

Why was the water level suddenly changing? Well, unbeknownst to me, until I started asking a million questions and face timing to see all the basement tanks, my basement frag tank became refugium #2. Lots of hair algae took over, and was clogging the overflow, resulting in a higher water level which lowered the sump chamber.

Manual removal of the algae didn't work, but what did was using the extra mesh from the tank cover, to basically be used as a net before the overflow. This then also became an in tank algae scrubber. Since Ive returned home this has been removed, but it worked really well, and helped stop the sudden tank level changes.
The other issue I had was with an over night power surge to the house in June. Power went out to the house shortly after. This somehow destroyed the main apex power strip. Lots of trouble shooting over the phone, and internet searches, discovered that it wasn't just the strips internal breaker. It was getting power to all the outlets, but nothing was working. This required my wife to make a LFS trip and buy a new power strip, replacing the old with the new. Luckily I was able to face time and talk her through how to do this.

 

[ESH]

My Apex Auto feeder broke, so I picked up an Avast Plank feeder. Only challenge I had was that I had to modify my tanks screen too as it didn’t fit into the Apex space.

I just set things up today, but I’m pretty impressed so far. It was easy to setup, and is silent.

I’m trying out a Kasa smart outlet to control the auger. Really easy to setup and control via WiFi. About $60 on Amazon. Looks like it allows you to add multiple on and off times, with up to a minute at a time. Currently I have 3, 4 minute feeding times.

 

[Manny’s Reef]

Where are you my friend? Just got through your entire build thread. You still rocking this baby?

 

[ESH]

Thanks for asking. Tank is still up but will be coming down temporarily in a few weeks. This past year, Work unexpectedly sent me away for 3 months and unfortunately the tank crashed, and the last week I was away had a drain malfunction causing an over flow. Water found all the electrical components upstairs frying all the lights, damaged floors in the house and went into the basement. Minimal damage to the basement, and luckily with the basement system I’ll relocate the fish and remaining corals to the 90gl that is down there. I also picked up a redsea nano to house some of the corals and set that up in the basement. Pretty sad to see all the SPS vanish so quickly, but they will be recycled into Ca reactor media when I rebuild.

the good news is despite all the loss, the insurance company is taking care of everything damaged. All the damaged equipment has been replaced Taking the tank down is going to be a pain, along with clearing out the first floor of the house to refinish the floors. No water damage to the stand which was kind of surprising. Definitely Marine grade furniture.

I’ve considered just ordering a different tank, though only 3 some years in there’s still life left in this one. Big question is, keep this one, or get something new?

shot of the nano: was able to save the OG bounce and some of the LPS. Still lots of LPS to move out of the main display.

 

[Manny’s Reef]

Thanks for asking. Tank is still up but will be coming down temporarily in a few weeks. This past year, Work unexpectedly sent me away for 3 months and unfortunately the tank crashed, and the last week I was away had a drain malfunction causing an over flow. Water found all the electrical components upstairs frying all the lights, damaged floors in the house and went into the basement. Minimal damage to the basement, and luckily with the basement system I’ll relocate the fish and remaining corals to the 90gl that is down there. I also picked up a redsea nano to house some of the corals and set that up in the basement. Pretty sad to see all the SPS vanish so quickly, but they will be recycled into Ca reactor media when I rebuild.

the good news is despite all the loss, the insurance company is taking care of everything damaged. All the damaged equipment has been replaced Taking the tank down is going to be a pain, along with clearing out the first floor of the house to refinish the floors. No water damage to the stand which was kind of surprising. Definitely Marine grade furniture.

I’ve considered just ordering a different tank, though only 3 some years in there’s still life left in this one. Big question is, keep this one, or get something new?

shot of the nano: was able to save the OG bounce and some of the LPS. Still lots of LPS to move out of the main display.

Wow man. That's tough. Glad to hear about the insurance though. I actually had a tank crash myself and my insurance 100% took care of me. That's how I got my reefer 750 xxl. Good to have USAA on my side.

Well I am glad to see you in high spirits. That's good to see. I hope you keep updating us. I think any tank will be hard if your job keeps you away for long periods of time. Hopefully things will slow down for you.

 

[ESH]

Ending 2022 with a tank take down.
spent the last two days relocating the fish, corals and inverts to my basement tanks. Most fish went into my 90, a few in the nano, with most live rock in a trash can turned tank. Real pain to do this. On the brite side, the move went well and everything worked out as planned. I’m expecting it to be a bigger challenge moving fish back to the display tank when it’s time to put it back up. Hopefully I’ll be able to work on things between Feb-March.

This coral started as a frag, grew across the glass bottom and lifted right off. Hopefully I can keep it living in the basement tank

Live rock bucket

One last shot before the t

Emptied

 

[newreef1]

Aloha, I'll have some updates soon - in short I've been away for work for the last 8 months (I "had" to go work in Hawaii...poor me, on that note, got some cool videos from the ocean I'll work on posting), well really off and on for the last year and the tank responsibilities got handed over to the wife. Tank automation mostly worked - I'll post about what worked and what challenges were faced.

So, the tank is still up and running, thriving actually. 8 straight months without putting a hand in the tank will do that. Lost some corals, some have exploded in growth, pretty cool to see the changes!
More to follow later! Great to be home again so I can enjoy the tank.

Short answer to @newreef1, yes I did have someone look at the floor supporting before setting the tank up. Believe there is a thread somewhere on the forums where structural engineers lurk and help answer peoples questions about tank weight. If I can locate it later on I will send it to you. Sorry for the delayed answer.

Thank you!

 

[newreef1]

Thanks for asking. Tank is still up but will be coming down temporarily in a few weeks. This past year, Work unexpectedly sent me away for 3 months and unfortunately the tank crashed, and the last week I was away had a drain malfunction causing an over flow. Water found all the electrical components upstairs frying all the lights, damaged floors in the house and went into the basement. Minimal damage to the basement, and luckily with the basement system I’ll relocate the fish and remaining corals to the 90gl that is down there. I also picked up a redsea nano to house some of the corals and set that up in the basement. Pretty sad to see all the SPS vanish so quickly, but they will be recycled into Ca reactor media when I rebuild.

the good news is despite all the loss, the insurance company is taking care of everything damaged. All the damaged equipment has been replaced Taking the tank down is going to be a pain, along with clearing out the first floor of the house to refinish the floors. No water damage to the stand which was kind of surprising. Definitely Marine grade furniture.

I’ve considered just ordering a different tank, though only 3 some years in there’s still life left in this one. Big question is, keep this one, or get something new?

shot of the nano: was able to save the OG bounce and some of the LPS. Still lots of LPS to move out of the main display.

Hey sorry to hear this, what happened with the flood? It was an accidental preventable error or something else? why not keep the tank?

 

[ESH]

Hey sorry to hear this, what happened with the flood? It was an accidental preventable error or something else? why not keep the tank?

Thanks. While I was away from home, the drains accidentally clogged over night causing an overflow. Wife came down seeing some water on the ground and at first thought it was from the fish splashing, only to later see more water that poured through into the basement.

Definitely preventable with sensors and other fail safe options. Looking back to try and understand what happend, my best guess is that it happend due to a toy was shark / boat model on top of the drain cover, so with the overflow grates clogged the water level rose and overflowed. Had that toy not been there weighing it down, I suspect the cover would have floated up, allowing water to rush down the emergency drain.

I do plan to set the tank back up, though im currently indecisive on if I want to set this same one back up or do something different.

Tank and stand just got moved out of the house and into the garage. One of the movers who helped me must of been nervous because his heart rate spiked so much his phone automatically called 911. Luckily he’s good.

 

[Manny’s Reef]

Thanks. While I was away from home, the drains accidentally clogged over night causing an overflow. Wife came down seeing some water on the ground and at first thought it was from the fish splashing, only to later see more water that poured through into the basement.

Definitely preventable with sensors and other fail safe options. Looking back to try and understand what happend, my best guess is that it happend due to a toy was shark / boat model on top of the drain cover, so with the overflow grates clogged the water level rose and overflowed. Had that toy not been there weighing it down, I suspect the cover would have floated up, allowing water to rush down the emergency drain.

I do plan to set the tank back up, though im currently indecisive on if I want to set this same one back up or do something different.

Tank and stand just got moved out of the house and into the garage. One of the movers who helped me must of been nervous because his heart rate spiked so much his phone automatically called 911. Luckily he’s good.

I really hope you get set back up right away. I hate seeing what you've gone through. when I found you build thread, I read it all in one sitting. It was an emotional roller coaster for sure. At its peak, you had such an incredible thank. I'm personally on team set it back up. Cheering for you buddy.