Erics red sea xxl 750

[ESH]

Didn't get around to moving more rock over, but I did get the mini stand done

And since the cordless drill wasn't really made for going into concrete I got a hammer drill so I could wall mount the electrical box

I found using my level to draw straight and level lines on the wall an easy way to mark where I want holes. I have a laser level somewhere, but it doesn't stick to concrete.

I picked up one of the Marine Depot electrical boxes. Neat way to organize your stuff. Now that I'm figuring out how to build things like this on my own, I likely could of built something identical, so Im not sure if they are worth the price. In fact, I saw an outdoor electrical box at home depot that was about the same size for half the cost. So if I did it over again I wouldn't get one of these. Not sure what these things are made of, some kind of pvc fiber or something, but either way they are well built. The one thing I dislike about them is that once setup, the only way to access anything inside of it would be to unscrew everything and take the panel off. If I have my APEX, all the components, and my Abyzz controller, plus wires, thats alot of weight. So my solution to this is that I put some hinges on it. Works great. I will likely still use a few screws to hold it in place, but at least this way I can get better access.

Due to the filter components, I had to off center it. Still works great!

Lots more to do!

 

[erichuyn]

Nice build, subscribed! Now I miss having a basement.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Very nice! Looking forward to seeing it stocked up!

 

[Blackice615]

Looking great, following

 

[ESH]

In my 90, while I spent a lot of time organizing cables and using velcro ties to wrap everything together, this sort of became a mess taking apart, resulting in me missing some critical things while taking things apart piece by piece, such nearly having my doser go onto my floors, though luckily, not only did the doser line pop out of the sump, but I also knocked the power cord out. Things luckily worked out, however, I didn't notice this for a few days, and while being too focused on the new tank lost a few coral frags in the frag tank, not cheap ones either, and the alk shift appears to have caused some of the others in my display to start fading out. So, I moved everything over to the new tank tonight, pictures hopefully tomorrow!

 

[ESH]

I made the mistake of not taking any final pictures of my 90 before transferring everything over... not even thinking about it until all that was left is the sand and the lights. Lots of great memories, time to move on!

Anyone in the Western Chicago burbs needs live sand, let me know, I'll likely keep the tank running for the next week and then take it down completely.

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Before I got all of the rock, coral fish and inverts over from my 90, my initial aquascape with some of the new rock was this. Idea was a long slope starting in the right corner, that decreases in width and height to the left, with a separate island in the front left.

That plan goes away as soon as I realize how much rock was actually in my 90 - about 120lbs or so. Aqua scaping with a ton of life already on your rock significantly more challenging and is going to take me some time to figure out. What was nice, is that I was able to get rid of some critters that have been terrorizing my 90.

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No clue what the centipede like worms are - found 2. Also a bunch of gorilla crabs, and snapping shrimp. The shrimps were pretty cool, but needed to go as their popping was driving me insane.

Post move, some initial aqua scaping, here is where the tank is now. I still have to move rocks around, some will get relocated to the fuge / frag tank.

So far everything made the move fine. During the aquascaping process I did a bunch of accidental fragging and just jammed the frags in the rock work.

 

[ESH]

one of todays projects... get the wiring up on the board!

The small cabinet housed all the electrical for my 90, so rather than unravel everything upstairs, I just moved the whole cabinet for the time being, then took it apart in the basement. The lower part housed my 10gallon ATO. I was smart and took that out before the move, but didn't think anything of my DOS.. Big mistake. While moving the cabinet, I tripped over a tube on the ground, cabinet crashed, spilling about a liter of kH solution and mG all over the floor, which instantly created a nice chemical slush. Luckily this was on my basement floor, some paper towel rolls and a mop later things were good. My DOS containers didn't survive the crash. One container has a huge crack in it, the others sensor post broke off. on the plus side, prior to this one of the DOS sensors appeared to stop working as I wasn't reading fluid levels in the containers anymore, and now I should be able to use a DOS pump for future automatic water changes!

The other project this weekend, move the frag tank and Ca Reactor. Last picture of the frag tank before the move! I should just be able to drain most of the water into buckets, move the tank to the basement with everything in it, refil, plumb into the sump and wire it all back up.

 

[ESH]

Frag tank is down!

bucket brigade worked for the move

Moved to the basement and filled for setup. There was a bit of crud at the bottom of the tank

Prior mini stand height measurements worked out perfectly. This is how close of a fit the frag tank and its over flow are to the sump.

Light is reinstalled

Initially, I used this pump, which was previously used for mixing salt water. Placement was perfect, however this turned out to be way to much flow

So since the 90gallon I have is going to be taken down anyway, I used that return pump because it already had a valve attached to regulate the flow.

I also got the calcium reactor brought down and in place.

Still need to organize the rats nest of wires in the basement. Hopefully later tonight!

 

[Blackice615]

Looking good mate. Enjoying the progress

 

[mmw64]

Frag tank is down!

bucket brigade worked for the move

Moved to the basement and filled for setup. There was a bit of crud at the bottom of the tank

Prior mini stand height measurements worked out perfectly. This is how close of a fit the frag tank and its over flow are to the sump.

Light is reinstalled

Initially, I used this pump, which was previously used for mixing salt water. Placement was perfect, however this turned out to be way to much flow

So since the 90gallon I have is going to be taken down anyway, I used that return pump because it already had a valve attached to regulate the flow.

I also got the calcium reactor brought down and in place.

Still need to organize the rats nest of wires in the basement. Hopefully later tonight!

following

 

[ESH]

Let's start with the good: Got the electrical board setup! Now I just need to tie the cables together and get them organized a little better.

Pre electrical panel rats nest

Panel setup

And final product - pretty happy with how this turned out, and how almost all the cables had enough slack to do this. I am still happy I added the hinges to this panel.

 

[ESH]

Every build has its challenges, so far at least its being contained to the basement - all where I intended these things to be. So here is what Im currently trouble shooting.

• As previously mentioned, my first was tripping over some floor plumbing causing me to break my DOS reservoir, that will need to be replaced.
• My Neptune ATO seems to have an issue with starting up. Im not sure why when the water level goes down, that it isn't starting up. I've checked all the connections, the sensors are reading in dashboard correctly, and I can set it to On and it works fine, but when its in Auto, once it turns on it goes to Off, then wont start back up. I've uninstalled it and reinstalled it too. I will have to trouble shoot this some more. I had it on the 90 for a year, never had any issues, but now it doesn't seem to want to work right. Might have to replace this one.
• The third issue is while I was putting the electrical panel together, I noticed a small amount of water under neath my frag tank. At first I thought it was a leak from the Ca Reactor as one of the quick release fittings had leaked on me while moving it. I dried it up, went back to work, only to find it again. Inspecting the frag tank, I noticed a small drop of water going down the back side of the tank, and it seemed liked it was coming from the overflow bulk head. So made sure things were tight, and that drip went away, but then it looked like the tank was sweating. Every so often, a drop would form out of the glass and go down the back of the tank. Because it was going to between the Sump glass and Frag tank glass, I wasn't 100% sure what tank it was coming from.

I removed the overflow, inspected everything, overflow O rings looked good (This is the X Aqua pulsing overflow) and found a hairline crack going from where the overflow was drilled down at an angle about 3-4". I think it was on the outside of the glass, but because I painted the back of the tank I could barely see it. Looking at it from the inside of the tank, the glass feels smooth. My best guess is that when I moved the tank and lifted the overflow line over the rim of the sump it put pressure on the bulk head causing the glass to break.

Here is the back side of the tank showing the leak that forms after a few seconds.

Long story short, the frag tank is going to have to get replaced Not sure if I'll be able to find one of these tanks locally but I will see what I can find. I don't think this one is repairable, and it's an interesting size - 18x18 cube, that I drilled back in May and painted the back glass. Hoping I can find a replacement so I don't have to remake the mini stand.
I drained some water so it doesn't leak overnight, and I currently I have it hooked up to life support. Always good to have a spare heater and air pumps to assist.

Fun times!

 

[ESH]

Frag tank try 2: I found a nearly identical sized tank at a LFS in the Chicago burbs: Beyond the Reef. The tank 24 gallon tank is from a Company called SR Aquaristik, which from what I can tell is randomly local to me being that their company website states they are in St Charles IL, about 5 min away from me. Talk about random. Company website: https://sraquaristik.com/collection...ess-aquarium-27-gallon?variant=12921219088407

New tank size is slightly smaller, 17 3/4" cubed. Old one was 18 1/8" cubed. The new tank is pretty decent. It says low iron glass, and after taxes only cost $99. I think the one from BRS was around the same price.

I considered finding a hang on overflow, but couldn't find a small one locally. The store I bought the tank from didnt have any, store # 2 I went to didn't have one, and the third one I called said they didn't. So, since I drilled the first one I had, I drilled this one. I did confirm with the first store that the glass was ok to drill as the store owner called the company today. Pretty impressive to see things like that happen so quickly on a Sunday. My faith in this local store is starting to come back! I think this was one of the stores Randy from BRS was out in the Chicagoland area scouting recently too.

Setup to drill - The bits and template I have from when I setup the first frag tank. Paint pan on stand to catch the glass and water dripping.

Drilled! Same thing happened with my last tank, the inside glass seemed to "rip" right when I was cutting through. Not sure why. This time I used a better drill too.

Setting up the new tank. Note the dimension difference. When I built that mini stand it was perfectly cut! O well

Filling it up

Tank logo. Appears to be etched and inside of the glass panes.

Excuse the poor picture due to the XR16 ( XR15 pro, though if you open it up a sticker on the circuit board says XR16 from the factory lol)

So less than 24 hours later it is back up and running again! I will have to make note that if I ever move this tank to take the bulkhead off or I'll likely crack the tank again.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Love this critter dump photo.

 

[ESH]

Weekend update:

Increased the ATO size from the 10 gallon tank to one of my old RODI containers. It can easily hold 30gallons now. I've been getting about 2-3 gl of evap per day. I also was able to repurpose one of the moving dollies that I used for the tank, that way I can move the ATO around as I need to do some maintenance on the sump. I am having some issues with my neptune ATK. I can manually run it, but it doesn't seem to recognize when its below the low level. I deleted and reinstalled it. No change. I even purchased a brand new one, deleted the old one and script, reinstalled, and at first it was working fine, but it still goes well below the low level. So Im not sure what I should do next other than find a different brand ATK. My best guess is there is something with the coding. I set it up per the online videos, and it seems pretty straight forward. Select the ATK setup, go through the setup and away you go. Except it isn't working the way I want it to. Maybe I simply need to set it so if its below the low level to turn on, and to turn off when it gets to the high level, vs having specific timing and if this then that functions from the ATK factory script. Anyone who has any advice I'd greatly appreciate this.

First roll changed! I clearly missed about 1/3 of the roll while I was setting the tank up and learning how this thing works. This lasted about 18 days. Hopefully I can get about 30 days per roll though Im guessing based on this Ill be getting 25 ish days.

Moved the deep sink out of the way and moved my 90gallons elec cabinet there for more work space. I also found a board laying around that fits perfectly on top of 2 of the sump stands drawers. Work space for testing etc is a must!

Got some cable management done. Didn't work out as cleanly as I was hoping, but it does the job and there are way less cords hanging everywhere. only one I couldn't route through this was the ATK pump cord as its pretty short, and my house sump well is in the way of fitting in this space. I did consider that I'll likely drip water on the cords from here, but I don't think it will be an issue as nothing is exposed.

So far everything is doing well in the tank. I did lose some frags in the frag tank when I swapped that tank out, and others lost color but otherwise are hanging in there. The LPS in that tank are doing really well. No pics of this but I did move some frags up from this tank and placed in the main display. Lots more frags to start moving up and growing out!

 

[ESH]

Been trouble shooting the ATK, if anyone knows more on this please let me know.
Doing some searching online, I'm finding others with larger sumps are setting up the pump to run longer, and decreasing the time in between fill ups.

1 Fallback OFF
2 Set OFF
3 If Swx8_1 OPEN Then ON
4 If Swx8_2 CLOSED Then OFF
5 When On > 010:00 Then OFF - this previously said When On > 005:00 Then OFF, so its likely this wasn't running long enough to keep up with the evap
6 Defer 000:10 Then ON
7 Defer 000:04 Then OFF
8 Min Time 030:00 Then OFF - this previously said Min Time 060:00 Then OFF, my understanding is that this is the min time between fill ups

I'll see if this works or not. I thought the low sensor, sensor 1 (Swx8_1 for me), was supposed to cycle between open and closed all day as it keeps the water level constant. My guess, is that somehow my sensor was getting set to open, and then some sort of fail safe was preventing it from kicking back on without a manual reset. I'm starting to think my old ATK was perfectly fine, and then I really didn't need to replace it, which is good news as I can reuse those sensors to add to my sump - 1 for a low level warning and the other for a low level warning in my ATO reservoir. I also have 2 sensors from my DOS container that broke in the move.

 

[ESH]

Also, while I'm a big fan of APEX, and really like having the ability to monitor all my equipment under one roof, and despite my challenges with the ATK, I cant keep holding out for the APEX Trident. There are other options out there, and after some research, Alkatronic is on order! Very excited to get this in - plus I'm reading it can be connected to my current Apex. I already have an additional PM1 module that I got to measure PH in my Ca reactor. It looks like all I need is a free BNC port - which should be the port that connects ph and orp probes. So I'll either have to get another PM module, or sacrifice the ORP probe for this.

 

[Crabby48]

I have been trying to get my ATK working right. I had a pump go bad in 2 weeks and it will not prime if water level gets below 5”.
To stop it from wanting to turn on before 1 hour I changed the defer 4 then off to defer 25 then off. Still playing with that. I also changed the defer 10 then on to defer 15 then on and it helped the most

Not very happy yet with the ATK but hope I get it figured out. I’ll be watching how you make out

 

[ESH]

I think I got my aquascaping done. Always more of a challenge when you are moving rocks with life from one tank to another. Speaking of life, post move everything seems to be doing well!

From the top!

Scoly corner! Have slowly been collecting these. Have a few more in the frag tank still

Rock nems in the back left. Should have 3, ones hiding under a rock

Zoa's, I have a few of them, and I'm sure they will continue to take over.

my OG Bounce. Got it Last May quarter size. Getting close to filling up that 3" disk.

My clowns hosted my Welso in my 90 and found this guy right away - I call it their aqua pillow.

Left mid tank - hard to see but I've a bunch of SPS sticks hiding towards the top

The green slimer I got about 1 year ago from WWC and it was about a 1/2" frag. Might be one of the only sps Ive grown well.

Maze brain! I picked this up Dec 2017 and put it in my 90 right after I set it up. How I didn't kill it I'll never know, but its still doing great!

I got this frag of JF Day Glo Favia at a swap back in Oct and had it sitting on a frag rack since with the intent to place it on the tank bottom, while hoping it encrusts across the tank bottom. Fingers crossed it does well here!

not much going on the right side of the tank


Lots of frags in the frag tank still that need to get brought up and placed!

 

[ESH]

So, I was hoping to be up and running with a full time Alk monitor, but have been put through the ringer with UPS as I've had the Alkatronic in shipping purgatory for the last week. It all appears to have started with a "signature required" for delivery option. I live in a great area, never had any issues, though the supplier added this on. Can't blame them, it's a pricy piece of equipment. It was supposed to be delivered last Wednesday, however UPS screwed up. Something in their system, prevented the pre signature I did online to leave it at the door, and then when they said they'd leave it at the UPS store, it has instead been going from the local warehouse, on a truck, and back to the warehouse. It's a very odd situation. I've called UPS on this 3 times now, and today they claim it is going to be delivered to my house - even though the last request I did was to have it sent to the UPS store. Last Thursday it was supposed to be at the UPS store but they left it at the warehouse all day. Friday through this weekend it was supposed to get brought to the UPS store. The app says it is at the UPS store as of Friday, but speaking with the store, they don't have it. The rep on the phone I spoke with claims it was loaded on a truck out for delivery and being brought to my house. Talking with a rep on the phone, UPS's tracking system keeps showing new delivery instructions each day, so I'm not sure when its actually going to get here. Something in their computer system keeps automatically changing the delivery instructions. Fingers crossed it actually does make it today. I've spoken with SaltwaterAquarium about this already too, and if anything it will just get returned to them and we will have to reship it out. Nothing happens fast in this hobby, right?