ChemChris's Red Sea 750 G2+ Build Thread

[chemchris]

Hi All! Long time reefer here but I've mostly kept smaller tanks (55 and under). I took the plunge and bought my first 'adult' tank recently. I intend to keep a mixed reef LPS dominant with a fish load on the higher end.

I purchased the following gear expecting to grow into more as my system demands it.

• Reefer XXL 750 G2+ System (160 Gal) - White - Red Sea
• VarioS-6 Controllable DC Return Pump (1720 GPH) - Reef Octopus
• Regal 200INT 8" Internal Protein Skimmer (VarioS) - Reef Octopus
• ReefMat 1200 Fleece Roller Filter - Red Sea
• 60cm Slide-Out Control Panel - RedSea
• (3) Radion XR15 G6 Pro LED Light - EcoTech Marine
• Versa Dosing Pump 4 Pack with Base Station - EcoTech Marine
• 700 Watt Helio PTC Smart Heater - Innovative Marine
• (2) ReefWave 45 Pump with Controller (3960 GPH) - RedSea
• Component 1+, 2+, 3+ Bundle - Aquaforest

I purchased the tank and rock in December and spent about 2 hours a night for 3 weeks breaking apart the rock and gluing it back together using thick gel super glue and E-Marco 400. I was inspired by the HNSA video from BRS. I wanted negative space for flow and aesthetics, but wanted to still provide horizontal space for corals and space for fish to swim and hide. I made a PVC cage with the same dimensions as my tank so I could see how it would look inside the tank.

Starting out breaking the rocks

Ideas taking shape

I eventually broke this down. It looked too 'intentional' and 'stacky'.

 

[Arcticreef]

I like your attention to detail. I've ordered a 750 G2+ as well to upgrade current system. I look forward to more posts of this build and especially pics of your sump layout, 60 control panel setup and wiring of power bars. With all my GHL equipment i gotta find space to install 2 bars.

 

[chemchris]

I hired a moving company a few weeks ago who sent over 3 guys. Luckily they were athletes and super strong. I tried to help. Wow that tank was heavy. It was difficult to move over soggy Florida grass. We ended up leaving it in the crate and putting it on a dolly since the crate was designed to take bumps.
A week later (after my leak test was complete) I had a LFS do a water delivery. Even though I hired a structural engineer I was still nervous about the floor holding that much weight. I dont think I slept that night- every noise woke me up.

Here is how the rockwork turned out in the end. After I showed this picture to a coworker they said "oh you made baby Yoda" and now I cant unsee it.

And now, filled with water....

I'll add a fuge in the future if Im having trouble with my parameters, but right now with the ReefMat and Skimmer, Im more worried about keeping my water 'too clean'.

The sump came with the gravity ATO plumbing still attached. I scoured my boxes thinking Id lost the ATO reservoir. Turns out Red Sea doesnt include it anymore, they give you their new ATO instead which looks pretty decent.

Today is my 7th day dosing Microbacter7. Maybe Ill add some fish next week. Ill post pics of the electrical side after I clean up my wire shame some.

 

[chemchris]

I like your attention to detail. I've ordered a 750 G2+ as well to upgrade current system. I look forward to more posts of this build and especially pics of your sump layout, 60 control panel setup and wiring of power bars. With all my GHL equipment i gotta find space to install 2 bars.

Thanks!! I ordered some cheap cable raceways but they were too small for the couplings right ouside the controls for my electronics. I had to buy a taller kit which worked out just fine. Im still wrapping all the cables and putting everything into the cable management boxes I got. I'll post some pics before Friday.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I hired a moving company a few weeks ago who sent over 3 guys. Luckily they were athletes and super strong. I tried to help. Wow that tank was heavy. It was difficult to move over soggy Florida grass. We ended up leaving it in the crate and putting it on a dolly since the crate was designed to take bumps.
A week later (after my leak test was complete) I had a LFS do a water delivery. Even though I hired a structural engineer I was still nervous about the floor holding that much weight. I dont think I slept that night- every noise woke me up.

Here is how the rockwork turned out in the end. After I showed this picture to a coworker they said "oh you made baby Yoda" and now I cant unsee it.

And now, filled with water....

I'll add a fuge in the future if Im having trouble with my parameters, but right now with the ReefMat and Skimmer, Im more worried about keeping my water 'too clean'.

The sump came with the gravity ATO plumbing still attached. I scoured my boxes thinking Id lost the ATO reservoir. Turns out Red Sea doesnt include it anymore, they give you their new ATO instead which looks pretty decent.

Today is my 7th day dosing Microbacter7. Maybe Ill add some fish next week. Ill post pics of the electrical side after I clean up my wire shame some.

Great looking aquascape!

 

[chemchris]

Great looking aquascape!

Thanks! I just uploaded a video of it today.

 

[Arcticreef]

I hired a moving company a few weeks ago who sent over 3 guys. Luckily they were athletes and super strong. I tried to help. Wow that tank was heavy. It was difficult to move over soggy Florida grass. We ended up leaving it in the crate and putting it on a dolly since the crate was designed to take bumps.
A week later (after my leak test was complete) I had a LFS do a water delivery. Even though I hired a structural engineer I was still nervous about the floor holding that much weight. I dont think I slept that night- every noise woke me up.

Here is how the rockwork turned out in the end. After I showed this picture to a coworker they said "oh you made baby Yoda" and now I cant unsee it.

And now, filled with water....

I'll add a fuge in the future if Im having trouble with my parameters, but right now with the ReefMat and Skimmer, Im more worried about keeping my water 'too clean'.

The sump came with the gravity ATO plumbing still attached. I scoured my boxes thinking Id lost the ATO reservoir. Turns out Red Sea doesnt include it anymore, they give you their new ATO instead which looks pretty decent.

Today is my 7th day dosing Microbacter7. Maybe Ill add some fish next week. Ill post pics of the electrical side after I clean up my wire shame some.

Looking great. I did not realize the ATO reservoir is not included anymore. Good to know. Where are you storing your fresh RODI top up water?
Also, can you fit small bags of activated charcoal or phosphate removing media in the thin compartment that has the sponge in it that stops the bubbles?
p.s one thing i am looking forward to in my new 750 is the added length. I had my rocks and thus corals to close to the glass which makes cleaning the glass with a long scrapper (not a flipper) tricky as I kept hitting corals. Check you have enough gaps.

 

[CasperOe]

What a beast of a build you have on your hands here, looks really good so far- i like your scape and dedication, that's for sure!

Your 750 is a fair bit larger than my 4 foot Cade tank. You may find that you are a bit "light" on the lighting though down the road. Here are my PAR readings with the 3 x XR15 Pro's mounted 10" over the surface @ 85%.

I look forward to following your build - best of luck!!

 

[CanayYella]

Hi, I am looking at the 750 XXL. Out of interest, where have you put your RO Reservoir?

 

[chemchris]

What a beast of a build you have on your hands here, looks really good so far- i like your scape and dedication, that's for sure!

Your 750 is a fair bit larger than my 4 foot Cade tank. You may find that you are a bit "light" on the lighting though down the road. Here are my PAR readings with the 3 x XR15 Pro's mounted 10" over the surface @ 85%.

I look forward to following your build - best of luck!!

Wow you might have saved me a lot of money! I just put in my order for a Kraken lid with only 3 light mount cutouts. I think Im going to add another 4 in case I upgrade some day. Did you eventually upgrade to 4 or are you still at 3?

 

[chemchris]

Hi, I am looking at the 750 XXL. Out of interest, where have you put your RO Reservoir?

So my wife was awesome enough to let me build this out in the living room and I wanted to try and keep everything under the tank if I could. I went for a 6g water jug. The guy from the LFS that delivered my water told me Im going to end up changing it out as Ill have to fill it twice a week. He suggested the IM 15 gallon one. Right now Im filling it about once a week so I may keep this for a while. I like it because it doesn't have a large footprint.

Please forgive my wire shame. I tried to get everything into two cable management boxes, but the fit was too tight so I bought a larger box that's about the size of a PC tower. If you buy it, get it from bed bath and beyond. Its cheaper there and you can use their 20% off coupon. Ill do more pics of that side once I clean up my wires.

 

[chemchris]

Looking great. I did not realize the ATO reservoir is not included anymore. Good to know. Where are you storing your fresh RODI top up water?
Also, can you fit small bags of activated charcoal or phosphate removing media in the thin compartment that has the sponge in it that stops the bubbles?
p.s one thing i am looking forward to in my new 750 is the added length. I had my rocks and thus corals to close to the glass which makes cleaning the glass with a long scrapper (not a flipper) tricky as I kept hitting corals. Check you have enough gaps.

Appreciate the heads up! I left room for my tunze scaper but youre right, I should consider a long arm scraper too. Ill be checking distance this weekend.
Yes I can fit small bags of charcoal or seachem under in that baffle area. Id probably have to cut the sponge some. FYI the ReefMat comes with a chamber basket underneath for that exact purpose. I havent put anything in it yet as my tank is so new.

 

[CanayYella]

Looks amazing! I wish my cables were that tidy . I have a 180cm tank now which I have had for 7 years and am thinking of this upgrade so following this tank build is brilliant.

One question, for your aquascape, did you use acrylic rods to keep it in place?

 

[chemchris]

Looks amazing! I wish my cables were that tidy . I have a 180cm tank now which I have had for 7 years and am thinking of this upgrade so following this tank build is brilliant.

One question, for your aquascape, did you use acrylic rods to keep it in place?

Thanks! I didnt use rods, I used BRS extra thick super glue to for a temporary hold. Then after 24 hours I would come in with E-Marco-400 Aquascaping Mortar. I also used the two little fishies epoxy in some critical support areas, but in retrospect I might have been ok with just the mortar and super glue. Its really solid and holds incredibly well.

 

[chemchris]

Sorry it's been a while since I posted last. Quite a few updates to my tank. Added the following gear:

• Neptune Apex (to get a better handle on my PH swings).
• +1 EcoTech Radion XR15 Pro
• Cheap Automatic Fish Feeder from Amazon
• Kraken Lid
• Mighty Tuff 13 Gallon Pet Food Storage (as an ATO reservoir)

I also added the following livestock:

• Foxface Lo
• Purple Tang
• Bristletooth Tang
• Hippo Tang
• Lyretail Anthias (5 female, one male)
• Coral Beauty
• Orange Diamond Goby

Thing's I've learned:
PH
My parameters are in good shape except my PH was hitting around 7.9 or maybe even a bit lower. I added the Neptune Apex to get constant readings throughout the day and get a better handle on it.
I started dosing 10 ml a day of AF Component 1+, 2+ and 3+ and testing every day to get an idea how much that moves my Ca/Alk/Mg so when I need to actually start replacing elements, I'll know how much to dose.
For now I've turned off the Mg, and I'm dosing 8 mL of Ca and 20 mL of Alk. When I tried to combat my low PH with Ca and Alk it helped, but it raised my levels a little too high.

Instead I added a CO2 scrubber to my skimmer intake. I also added some kalkwasser to my ATO. I know the community is divided on this since its imprecise, but I felt it was a more 'natural' solution vs. what my next option was going to be. Soda Ash. I was still bouncing just above 8 so I bought some soda ash from BRS at the recommendation of a local maintenance guy. I'm dosing 50 ml a day of that and have changed my ATO kalkwasser to only 1/2 tsp per gallon now. So the kalk is buffering some and keeping my Alk/Ca where I want it and the soda ash seems to help with the PH without swinging the Alk/Ca as much as the kalk. Wow this is incredibly boring, if you're still reading you must have a similar issue so hopefully this helps, if nothing else than to show my mistakes.

My tank is right near a patio door where we let our dogs out a few times a day. I try to keep it open to keep the oxygen in the room up. The fans I added to fix the temperature below are helping get fresh air into my cabinet as well, but I still don't feel I've found the actual culprit. All things seem to point to high CO2 around my tank even though its only me, my wife and 2 dogs. If I had the money I'd probably try to swap in new CO2 scrubbing media every week. You can see my new batch wearing off in the graph below as my PH starts to swing.

Temperature
I live in South Florida and keep my house around 76. There are some points in the day where sunlight briefly hits the tank but I didnt see the temp swings at the same time as the sunlight so I ruled it out.*
I recently had impact windows put in with the reflective tint on the outside. Our plants barely grow now so I'm assuming that I can expect algae to grow slower too.

Eventually I added some fans inside my sump area. One is blowing across the surface of the sump water . I also added another small USB fan blowing from my sump cabinet area to the equipment cabinet area (on the right), and a 3rd small fan blowing from that equipment cabinet area to take the hot air outside of the cabinet. This fixed my issue and I pretty much sit between 77-78.5

 

[chemchris]

 

[Lavey29]

Sorry it's been a while since I posted last. Quite a few updates to my tank. Added the following gear:

• Neptune Apex (to get a better handle on my PH swings).
• +1 EcoTech Radion XR15 Pro
• Cheap Automatic Fish Feeder from Amazon
• Kraken Lid
• Mighty Tuff 13 Gallon Pet Food Storage (as an ATO reservoir)

I also added the following livestock:

• Foxface Lo
• Purple Tang
• Bristletooth Tang
• Hippo Tang
• Lyretail Anthias (5 female, one male)
• Coral Beauty
• Orange Diamond Goby

Thing's I've learned:
PH
My parameters are in good shape except my PH was hitting around 7.9 or maybe even a bit lower. I added the Neptune Apex to get constant readings throughout the day and get a better handle on it.
I started dosing 10 ml a day of AF Component 1+, 2+ and 3+ and testing every day to get an idea how much that moves my Ca/Alk/Mg so when I need to actually start replacing elements, I'll know how much to dose.
For now I've turned off the Mg, and I'm dosing 8 mL of Ca and 20 mL of Alk. When I tried to combat my low PH with Ca and Alk it helped, but it raised my levels a little too high.

Instead I added a CO2 scrubber to my skimmer intake. I also added some kalkwasser to my ATO. I know the community is divided on this since its imprecise, but I felt it was a more 'natural' solution vs. what my next option was going to be. Soda Ash. I was still bouncing just above 8 so I bought some soda ash from BRS at the recommendation of a local maintenance guy. I'm dosing 50 ml a day of that and have changed my ATO kalkwasser to only 1/2 tsp per gallon now. So the kalk is buffering some and keeping my Alk/Ca where I want it and the soda ash seems to help with the PH without swinging the Alk/Ca as much as the kalk. Wow this is incredibly boring, if you're still reading you must have a similar issue so hopefully this helps, if nothing else than to show my mistakes.

My tank is right near a patio door where we let our dogs out a few times a day. I try to keep it open to keep the oxygen in the room up. The fans I added to fix the temperature below are helping get fresh air into my cabinet as well, but I still don't feel I've found the actual culprit. All things seem to point to high CO2 around my tank even though its only me, my wife and 2 dogs. If I had the money I'd probably try to swap in new CO2 scrubbing media every week. You can see my new batch wearing off in the graph below as my PH starts to swing.

Temperature
I live in South Florida and keep my house around 76. There are some points in the day where sunlight briefly hits the tank but I didnt see the temp swings at the same time as the sunlight so I ruled it out.*
I recently had impact windows put in with the reflective tint on the outside. Our plants barely grow now so I'm assuming that I can expect algae to grow slower too.

Eventually I added some fans inside my sump area. One is blowing across the surface of the sump water . I also added another small USB fan blowing from my sump cabinet area to the equipment cabinet area (on the right), and a 3rd small fan blowing from that equipment cabinet area to take the hot air outside of the cabinet. This fixed my issue and I pretty much sit between 77-78.5

Beautiful big tank. I still think the XR15s are your weak point. They are very weak par lights. I have to run my at 100% intensity to barely get enough par for my mixed reef 36x22 system.

 

[CanayYella]

Beautiful set up. Love the rock work. My PH swings over night down to 7.76 but doesn’t seem to cause any issues with anything.

We’ve just bought a holiday home in Cape Coral Sw Florida (we are based in uk) so looking forward to having some of the heat issues you have as opposed to ‘rain issues’

 

[chemchris]

Beautiful big tank. I still think the XR15s are your weak point. They are very weak par lights. I have to run my at 100% intensity to barely get enough par for my mixed reef 36x22 system.

Yeah I figured that out after I bought 3 XR15s. I figure the 30 is literally just two 15 pucks and with the bar over the top I can squeeze in as many 15s as the bar will allow. Not planning on getting any Acropora or any of the super high intensity stuff. I have a test Pavona frag in there now who seems to be doing well. Maybe some of the lower light Stylophora or Cyphastrea in the future.

 

[Lavey29]

Yeah I figured that out after I bought 3 XR15s. I figure the 30 is literally just two 15 pucks and with the bar over the top I can squeeze in as many 15s as the bar will allow. Not planning on getting any Acropora or any of the super high intensity stuff. I have a test Pavona frag in there now who seems to be doing well. Maybe some of the lower light Stylophora or Cyphastrea in the future.

Sure you can manage that. I have acros growing at the very top fairly well but I run 100% on AB plus setting after I checked them with a par meter. 350 on top 250 in the middle and 125 on the bottom.