Bender's Red Sea 625 XXL Build

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You must be there by now!!
The DT is almost there! I turned it off while at the shop today. I turned it back on around 5:30pm and letting it run till I hit the hay.

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AZMSGT

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A little late but use the water to double check your level. The distance from rim to waterline should be identical all around.

Reason I say late is it’s much easier to make level adjustments when water is much lower.
 
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A little late but use the water to double check your level. The distance from rim to waterline should be identical all around.

Reason I say late is it’s much easier to make level adjustments when water is much lower.

I did fill it with tap water at first and checked levels. I am on point side to side. I am off a little front to back, I knew this as I already adjusted the front legs all the way up and all the way down on the back. Water is less than 1/8 inch higher in front so I feel pretty safe.
 
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Exciting news! Water level is all the way up and the tank is circulating! w00t w00t.

It is circulating and I am adjusting flow to try to get rid of bubbles and noise while the tank starts to heat up. Once it gets to 72 I will start mixing salt :)

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She's always photo bombing :)

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It was a glorious moment to click the return pump on!!

Also why I waited I started hooking up the Bubble Magus doser and running lines. I shouldn't need this at first but it kept me occupied :)

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Everything today was a little delayed today. I had to go down to the firehall to make sure Santa was good to go on his ride:)

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Update for anyone that may be paying attention!

The tank is at temp and currently cycling. There is a rotting piece of shrimp in a filter sock and it's doing it's thing.

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I've been working on trying to organize and de-clutter my basement which is where all my mixing station and supplies are, along with the QT tanks. I decided to build a nice work bench during some free time on Christmas eve that will house my final fish QT (after they leave 2 weeks of Copper TTM) and will also hold my old IM24g which I plan to convert to a coral Quarantine tank.

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Looks great and now the waiting game starts. :)

Nice work on the workbench too...one can never have enough working area!
 
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Looks great and now the waiting game starts. :)

Nice work on the workbench too...one can never have enough working area!
Thanks! It's already really nice. However, the IM24g is 36" long so will take a good portion of the right side of the bench. I will still have a good amount of space in front of the tank and about 3' of usable space in between the tanks. I want to get a couple more plastic shelf so to keep more supplies under than on top of the bench.
 
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Hey guys.

Quick update. I've been cycling for almost 10 days now and to be honest, think I'm done. There is still 2 weeks left of my first fish quarantine cycle, but I am not getting readings anymore in the tank.

I added Fritz Turbostart and live rock from my IM24. I dumped a piece of frozen shrimp in a filter sock and let it ride. After about 5 day I registered 0 Ammonia; .5 Nitrite, 0 Nitrate. I tested yesterday (the shrimp is all broken up) and read 0 NH3; 0 NO2; 0 NO3. The uglies also hit hard. Lots of brown dust everywhere.

I know there is usually NO3 after a cycle, but I also had to transfer the chaeto over to the new tank from the IM24, so I assume this is absorbing all the N03. This was a problem in the IM24, no matter how much food or reef roids I introduced, after 24 hrs I always had 0 NO3.

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Nice work, I think you‘re safe to start adding fish but don’t blame you if you want to wait. I waited a long time before adding livestock... Then I didn’t have items from a previous tank to boost my cycle.
 
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Nice work, I think you‘re safe to start adding fish but don’t blame you if you want to wait. I waited a long time before adding livestock... Then I didn’t have items from a previous tank to boost my cycle.

Thanks! I am liking the look of your tank to. How are you progressing? I plan on adding the first batch of fish as soon as they graduate quarantine. They just finished GC yesterday, and are now in a 2 week observation before they finish. After that I am taking a small break as i have a week long vacation mid-February, and it is hard enough to find a fish sitter for one tank, let alone teach them how to take care of 3 !
 
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Hey guys quick update. Not much has changed lately. I was having a lot of sand move due to the return stream so I picked one of these up from amazon for $10. A couple wraps of teflon tape and a perfect fit. Almost instantly fixed my sand blowing problem. Decent quality and well worth the money so far!

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How do you like the Current USA DC eFlux pump? Does it run pretty quiet? I'm looking at gettin a new return pump and looking at the one you are using and the Hydor USA.
 
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How do you like the Current USA DC eFlux pump? Does it run pretty quiet? I'm looking at gettin a new return pump and looking at the one you are using and the Hydor USA.
Welcome !

So far so good. I can bearly hear it even when everything is off. The only noise coming out of my sump area is the air suction on the skimmer and the falling water through the socks.

One thing is I wish i went to the bigger return pump size. I have it on 75% and already want to increase it a little to get my water level up on the DT but dont want to push 100%.

Besides all that i haven't noticed it nor touched it since I installed it. When I did check it over build quality was good and it was easy to install / set up.
 

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Hi can i ask how long you get from the standard ATO reservoir. Do you think you will bother going for something external down the track?
 
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Hi can i ask how long you get from the standard ATO reservoir. Do you think you will bother going for something external down the track?
Good morning Evo,

I get about 4 solid days with the standard ATO, which I am not really happy with. I prefer 7+ days as I travel for about that long a couple times a year. My goal is to eventually move to a Spectra Pure Ultra ATO down the road. My RODI reservoir is directly under my tank in the basement, but i'll be going through an old cable line hole in the floor so I cannot fit anything besides one 1/4" line. The Spectra's pump is rugid and grants the ability to pull water from the basement to the first floor (Instead of having to push it).
 
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Hello all!

Just a quick update. Cycle is 100% complete, first round of fish are in the DT. First set of corals are still going through QT.

Some GHA from my old tank rockwork has hit HARD. It is everywhere, on the back glass, over all the rock - Fun stuff :/

The skimmer is looking promising. It pulls some really nice gunk after feeding time. Any other time there is not enough nutrients in the water and it doesn't get the head it needs. I am debating on shutting this off for the time being to let nutrient levels rise a bit. I have 0 readable nitrates and my Zoa's and LPS will not like that.

Sorry for the Blueish pictures, the tank is not that blue. My Galaxy camera sucks when it comes to photographing the tank.

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I've been following silently. Good work! Just rest also with a 625 still getting thins dialed in.
 
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I've been following silently. Good work! Just rest also with a 625 still getting thins dialed in.

Thank you! It has been just a slow grind at this point, thinking of idea's for stocking and fine tuning things. I moved some zoa's and a couple acans into the tank so working on getting my doser online and dialed in even for just a couple ML a day. I am also already battling some wicked GHA that came on some rock and spread like wildflower on all the bare rock.

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We also just got back from a week in Vermont for a skiing trip. So trying to settle back into work.

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Last night I spent the evening upgrading my RODI system. I purchased a new BRS Plus 4 stage unit and plumbed it into my old unit making it a "8" stage unit. I also started the install of a float valve so my reservoir stays filled as I have an extremely bad habit of turning the water on and forgetting about it as it overfills and floods my basement.

I am currently only using 6 of these stages. The rest will probably remain blank but may be used in the future. My water pressure is about 55 PSI, so a dual membrane is not really an option unless I install a booster pump.

Currently I am using:

Empty -> 1 Micron Sediment -> 5 Micron Carbon -> 1 Micron Carbon -> 100 GPD Membrane -> Empty Membrane -> Mixed DI Resin -> Mixed DI Resin

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