Anthony’s Red Sea XL 300 build - Mixed Reef

anthonymckay · May 23, 2023

This week has been a bit of a nightmare. We started having a weird power issue about 2 months ago where we'd lose power to half the house, but no breakers were tripping. I'd go flip them all anyway, and it would come back on. It was pretty sparse and random at first, but this last week it started happening regularly till it went out went night, and wouldn't come back on. Finally was able to get an electrician out here, and it turns out the entire bus bar behind the breakers was fried, and the breakers themselves were melted and charred! So glad it didn't start a fire...

This happened shortly after we fell asleep and went unnoticed till we were up in the morning about 8 hours later. My tank was down to 68F when I woke up. I fired up the generator and was able to keep the tank running.

Have to go down to the permit office tomorrow and pull a permit for the electrician to replace the entire panel. Gonna upgrade it and add some dedicated circuits for the aquarium as well. He temporarily installed some new breakers on the weakened bus bar till we can get everything replaced on Friday so that we're at least not without power till then.

anthonymckay · May 26, 2023

My front seam failure on the RedSea is slowly spreading, time to pull the trigger on an upgrade. Just put in an order with my LFS for a brand new Waterbox 230.6. Excited for the upgrade, but have a lot to do to get ready for it... Reinforcing the floor. Relocating the current redsea 300 in preparation for setting up the new aquarium. Additional powerhead, lights, etc.

Lavey29 · May 26, 2023

anthonymckay said:
My front seam failure on the RedSea is slowly spreading, time to pull the trigger on an upgrade. Just put in an order with my LFS for a brand new Waterbox 230.6. Excited for the upgrade, but have a lot to do to get ready for it... Reinforcing the floor. Relocating the current redsea 300 in preparation for setting up the new aquarium. Additional powerhead, lights, etc.

I'm sorry to hear this but excited that you are going big. Do you think your front seal is failing due to having multiple powerheads pointed at the front glass?

anthonymckay · May 27, 2023

Lavey29 said:
I'm sorry to hear this but excited that you are going big. Do you think your front seal is failing due to having multiple powerheads pointed at the front glass?

No, don't think so, the force isn't THAT strong from these powerhead, haha. Seam failures seem to be a common issue on these RedSea tanks. Hence why I'm switching to a Waterbox instead.

Lavey29 · May 27, 2023

anthonymckay said:
No, don't think so, the force isn't THAT strong from these powerhead, haha. Seam failures seem to be a common issue on these RedSea tanks. Hence why I'm switching to a Waterbox instead.

My LFS said that powerheads blasting tank walls causes stress failures. I can certainly see where that might be a causation factor especially going the short distance back to front versus longer side to side. Best of luck with your new large tank build. Hope everything migrates over successfully.

Lavey29 · May 27, 2023

Hey I've got the 300 also. Can you post a few close ups of your failing seam so I know what to be alert to?

anthonymckay · May 27, 2023

Lavey29 said:
My LFS said that powerheads blasting tank walls causes stress failures. I can certainly see where that might be a causation factor especially going the short distance back to front versus longer side to side. Best of luck with your new large tank build. Hope everything migrates over successfully.

The prevailing theory of why RedSea tank seams fail is the stands not being sturdy enough.They dont really have any center support across the front which can lead to the stand "deforming" slightly and putting more stress on the the front glass. This make sense as I've noticed over time the doors of my stand have slowly become misaligned which points to the deforming/flexing. When I set it up I made sure everything was super level and made adjustments to the doors to ensure they were perfectly aligned.

You can see in these photos it's happening directly in the center of the front glass where the stress from a sagging stand top would be greatest.

Lavey29 · May 27, 2023

So you are referring to the discoloration in the black seam strip?

anthonymckay · May 27, 2023

Lavey29 said:
So you are referring to the discoloration in the black seam strip?

Yep

Lavey29 · May 28, 2023

anthonymckay said:
The prevailing theory of why RedSea tank seams fail is the stands not being sturdy enough.They dont really have any center support across the front which can lead to the stand "deforming" slightly and putting more stress on the the front glass. This make sense as I've noticed over time the doors of my stand have slowly become misaligned which points to the deforming/flexing. When I set it up I made sure everything was super level and made adjustments to the doors to ensure they were perfectly aligned.

You can see in these photos it's happening directly in the center of the front glass where the stress from a sagging stand top would be greatest.

I believe that was the presumed problem with the large 750 and 900 tanks hence the upgrades that red sea made. I don't believe that was identified as a concern on the small and medium tanks. If the cabinets were to weak to support XL300 tanks like ours wouldn't that mean that everyone would eventually have seam failure? It seems like only a very small percentage overall end up with a serious tank failure situation. I know even one is to many and I agree and hate to see reefers and animals struggle with a catastrophic event but I believe other factors over and above the alleged cabinet issue cause problems on smaller tanks like our 300. Scraping the seams for algae control, blasting panels with wave makers, not balancing tank in set up, etc... I don't want to start a sub topic here.

I just hope you are happy and successful with your upgrade.

anthonymckay · May 28, 2023

Lavey29 said:
I believe that was the presumed problem with the large 750 and 900 tanks hence the upgrades that red sea made. I don't believe that was identified as a concern on the small and medium tanks. If the cabinets were to weak to support XL300 tanks like ours wouldn't that mean that everyone would eventually have seam failure? It seems like only a very small percentage overall end up with a serious tank failure situation. I know even one is to many and I agree and hate to see reefers and animals struggle with a catastrophic event but I believe other factors over and above the alleged cabinet issue cause problems on smaller tanks like our 300. Scraping the seams for algae control, blasting panels with wave makers, not balancing tank in set up, etc... I don't want to start a sub topic here.

I just hope you are happy and successful with your upgrade.

Unfortunately I've seen plenty of the same failures on the midsize redsea tanks like ours too. There's actually a thread going on right now on a large Saltwater Facebook group with another 300XL with the exact same seam failure as mine. Dead center on the front panel. I feel like I see a RedSea failure almost every couple of weeks in one group or another. Can't say the same for any of the other manufacturers. *shrug* (Edit: Just confirmed with the other XL300 owner with the same failing front seam, and he said he has MP40's mounted on the side)

Anyway, my cabinet is clearly starting to twist/deform as evidenced by my front doors having becoming crooked over the last year, and I'm certain that's the the root of this seam beginning to fail. My Neros aren't blasting that hard, and I stay away from the seams when scraping algae. Hopefully with the G2 lineup they solved whatever issues are leading to all these failures, but I'm not taking that on another RS, haha. Hopefully my tank makes it till the Waterbox gets here!

Lavey29 · May 28, 2023

Strange. I'm over 2 years now and I see no signs of fatigue failure in the seams. I have communicated with red sea extensively about this issue and sent pics of my tank per their request. They indicate that the small fractional percentage of failures can be correlated to user error generally and they see no patterns of inherent problems but guess I will monitor closely.

I'm sure you have done due diligence and Google waterbox seam failures and seen the dozens of posts on R2R about their tanks failing as well so hopefully it will work out well for you.

anthonymckay · May 29, 2023

Lavey29 said:
They indicate that the small fractional percentage of failures can be correlated to user error generally and they see no patterns of inherent problems

You're telling me that the same company that removes any mention/discussion of seam failures on their Facebook group is also downplaying the problem when asked about it and blaming the owners?? I'm shocked

Lavey29 · May 29, 2023

anthonymckay said:
You're telling me that the same company that removes any mention/discussion of seam failures on their Facebook group is also downplaying the problem when asked about it and blaming the owners?? I'm shocked

I can only relate what was emailed to my inquiry about seam failures. You had multiple powerheads blasting the front wall which is the short distance of the tank. I can certainly see how this may cause fatigue and failure. Additionally you bought a used tank and as evidenced by your pictures it was not well cared for at all. I hope red sea covers you well and that waterbox becomes a beautiful reef for you.

anthonymckay · May 30, 2023

Some pics this week. The WD Tenuis is starting to grow some new shoots at the base!

Gumbies R Us · May 31, 2023

anthonymckay said:
Some pics this week. The WD Tenuis is starting to grow some new shoots at the base!

Great looking coral!

anthonymckay · May 31, 2023

The joys of home ownership (especially on an old home)... Never ending nightmare on our electrical situation. We need a new panel because of the damage to the old one, and to be able to add 2 new dedicated circuits (our old panel has all the slots filled). Got the permits for that from the city and called up the power company to come pull the meter head so that the electrician could do the work. They informed me that I need to put in an application to replace my panel with them as well... *sigh* So I do that, give them the permit info, the model of the new panel, etc. They then inform my that if I want to replace that panel I have to now bring everything else up to code. Our meters (we have 2 because of the in-law suite above our garage being on it's own account) have to be relocated for whatever reason, they have always been mounted to a metal bracket next to the house (it's an old house). Electrician points out that because of the way our house is situated on the hillside, we dont really have any spots to relocate the meters to be against a wall as the code requires (probably why they've always been mounted on this metal bracket). So now we've requested the utility company to make a site visit and essentially tell us WHERE they want us to relocate it to meet code, so that we can finally replace the main panel. Every step of this just seems to be raising more obstacles, and adding more cost to this... What started as a "I'll go buy a new breaker at the hardware store" has turned into what I suspect is going to cost close to $10k by the time all is said and done. As they say, when it rains it pours!

anthonymckay · Jul 8, 2023

I waited as long as I could, but the failing seam was progressing too far and I had to pull the ripcord before I ended up waiting too long. Was hoping it’d last till the new waterbox 230 arrived, but that still won’t be here for another few weeks. Transferred everything into this 100gal stock tank for now. Put it up on a furniture dolly so that I can temporarily wheel it out of this room and reinforce the floors next week to prepare for the new large aquarium.

I expect I’ll end up with some losses between now and and transferring into the new tank. Expecting the worst, so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

anthonymckay · Jul 11, 2023

So far so good... ironically the stock tank's bulk head plug has a verrrrry slow leak I threw a piece of Flex Seal tape over it, but that didn't seem to stop it. Luckily it's super tiny (like a couple drops per hour I'm guessing), and manageable with a towel. Will keep an eye on salinity. That new tank can't get here soon enough though.

My furniture dolly idea was great in theory, but unfortunately I didn't consider the wheels leaving little lines in the flooring as it moves hundreds of pounds across it... oops. Guess this might be a good excuse to eventually replace the cheap fake wood floors that were installed in this house when we bought it, haha.

We'll see in the next week or two if things are gonna start dying off. I did notice that my Alk uptake has drastically decreased as expected due to the shock of the transfer.