Eclyps19's Red Sea Reefer 525XL Part 2 - Electric Boogaloo

[Eclyps19]

This is loooooong overdue.

Backstory: I got into reefing about 5 years ago. Always wanted one but never had the time since I commuted about 1 hour each way to work and had a toddler at home. I started working from home around then so that was the time to pull the trigger. First tank was a Innovative Marine 30L which I loved. Very first fish were a pair of clowns that are basically indestructible. They survived all of my mistakes and are mating and attacking everything in their current tank that gets too close to their clutch. I had an awesome hammer that was my pride and joy, got it at 1 head and over a couple years it grew to like 5 heads. I had a pretty annoying battle with dinos, but I did manage to get it under control eventually...

The 30g was great, but I obviously wanted more. I wanted more and better fish, I wanted to try my luck at SPS, I wanted to have a showpiece in my livingroom. So one winter I went and bought myself a Red Sea Reefer 525XL. I was SO excited. I spent countless hours getting it all planned out, building out a large water changing station, running lines through my floor, getting my ATO pump functional. and at last it was ready for fish.

The first year went alright. Most of my fish in here did great. I was very nervous about introducing dinos from my 30g to my big tank so I did a set up a QT in my basement and did a couple coral dips when transferring my corals to the QT, and then after about 30 days more dips when transferring them from my QT to my 525XL just to be safe. I definitely moved some over prematurely and lost a good chunk of the more picky corals that I had, but a lot of them survived and thrived just fine.

About a year in is when the real trouble started. The dinos were back, and they were BAD. I tried to ride them out for a few months, but they started killing my corals. I purchased an oversized UV and plumbed that in - that helped to kill the large-cell dinos that were in the water column, but the small cell that lived in the sand were barely effected. I did a full wash of the sand to try to reduce their numbers but they came back quickly. I tried removing as much sand as I could, but they would still be all over the rocks and coral at night. I finally tried dosing silica and that... actually seemed to help a ton! I got a big bloom of diatoms and then when that went away, no more dinos! I still found a few stragglers with my microscope, but they were no longer a problem. All was well, or so I thought...

Over the next year, my tank basically had a serious problem keeping things alive. Hard corals would look great for about 10 days and then spontaneously die. My LPS would look amazing and then just polyp-bail for no apparent reason. I lost all of my euphilia, I had some amazing torches, a super cool elegance, and my prized hammer that I had since the beginning, all polyp bailed while still looking healthy. The only things that would survive were mushrooms and a handful of zoas. I even randomly lost some fish for no apparent reason. I couldn't understand - I sent in water samples to multiple labs and everything was coming back completely normal. I had a QT in my basement still running using the exact same salt, exact same lighting, exact same params, and when I moved something that was dying from my 525XL down to my QT, it would often perk right back up and start to thrive again. When moving it back to my 525XL, it would start to die. I was completely losing my mind.

here are a couple threads outlining my issues:

Coral dying in DT, but thriving in nearly identical QT

Coral in my DT just... doesn’t seem to do great. It’s two years old, very stable in terms of parameters. I’m trying to figure out what I can test to pinpoint my problem. My corals grow GREAT in my QT. It pulls corals from the brink of death and gives them new life. Until they go back into my DT...

www.reef2reef.com

Giving up on my main DT, advice on a teardown and rebuild?

Before everyone starts asking questions, here's the thread outlining the issues that I've been experiencing: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-dying-in-dt-but-thriving-in-nearly-identical-qt.805983/ After over 2 years of battling with my dream tank, my beloved Red Sea Reefer 525XL, I have...

www.reef2reef.com

After over 2 years of having it running and losing far more coral than I ever care to admit, I decided that I would tear it down and completely re-do it. I tore it down in the spring of 2022 and moved whatever livestock I had to a couple of 30g tanks in my basement.

BUT NOW, at long last, I have finally started my rebuild!


Equipment List

• Red Sea Reefer 525XL
• Syncra Silent 5.0 Pump
• 2X Ecotech MP-40s for flow
• 2x Atlantik V4 Lights
• Red Sea RSK-600 Skimmer
• Neptune Apex Pro Controller
• Neptune Energy Bar 832 for extra plugs
• Neptune DOS for Automatic Water Changes
• Neptune PMUP v2 for ATO from my basement
• 2x Finnex HMH 200 heaters
• H80 Tuna Flora Refugium Light
• Converted the stock Red Sea ATO into a fuge
• All custom plumbing (from Red Sea metric to 1")
• Custom 1/2" manifold

I received about 800lbs of dry rock from a neighbor who accumulated them over the years. This was a HUGE help. I spent a month cleaning and curing them all, even though I knew I couldn't use even close to all of it. There were some amazing pieces in there too, lots of pukani.

I had never done any hard plumbing, everything in the first build was soft. I wanted to change that with this build so I could keep everything nice and organized. The problem was that I had never done any hard plumbing before. I have to say, it turned out significantly better than I thought it would! The only thing that I regret so far was the way that I positioned my hard return line, but it's not the end of the world.

As of right now, though, I'm finally to the point of adding water! I'll add all of my progress pictures soon. Just wanted to get this build thread officially started. Thank you for reading!

 

[blaxsun]

Carpet - you brave soul! (my parrotfish spits water at me whenever I'm late feeding him, so that wouldn't work for my tank!) Are we upgrading to a ReefMat?

 

[Eclyps19]

Carpet - you brave soul! (my parrotfish spits water at me whenever I'm late feeding him, so that wouldn't work for my tank!) Are we upgrading to a ReefMat?

I kept telling my wife that I need to put something under it, but she refused to allow it even after all of my warnings. She said it would be an eyesore. ‍

So my plan is to just put a mat down when I'm actively working on it. If a fish splashes a bit here and there I don't really care too much. And if I have a big spill then at least I can say "I warned you!"

As for the ReefMat, I really love the concept, but from what I understand I would have to rip some stuff out of my v3 sump in order to fit one with everything else that I have in there and I don't know if I want to do that just yet... we'll see how everything else goes first

 

[Eclyps19]

Still haven't found the time to get all my pics of the plumbing setup, but wanted to share a pic of some of the amazing dry rock my amazing neighbor let me have for free. There were some really incredible pieces in there. It took me about a month and a half to cure it all in 3 different batches. I knew I wouldn't use even 1/3 of it, but I wanted to be able to pick and choose from everything that was already cured when I designed me scape.

Dale, you are a beast. Thank you again!

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Awesome, can't wait to see more.

 

[Eclyps19]

Alright alright alright, so let's talk about the plumbing!

The first time around I went with the 100% stock setup from Red Sea. I had never done hard plumbing before, and honestly I just wanted to get it set up ASAP so I went with what it came with. It was fine, to be honest. I never used the ATO tank that it came with since I had an alternative solution in place. The only custom thing that I did was run a vinyl tube from my return pump up to the hard return line and called it a day.

For this build, though, I wanted something that looked awesome. I *loved* the colored pipes that I see in all of these build threads and wanted to replicate that. I took inspiration from a number of builds on here, but ultimately plumbed it very similar to how the original was plumed, with the major differences being a conversion from metric to 1" pipes + a manifold.

The whole concept of a manifold was completely new to me. I had soft plumbed a UV in my first build by just adding a second pump in one of the sump chambers, but I knew that if I wanted to keep things clean and organized I would need to have easy access to some extra flow. I don't even plan on plumbing a UV or anything else yet, but I don't want to be in a position where I need it and don't have a line for it.

Here was my original plan...

And here is my first dry fit

Originally I purchased 1" pipe for the entire thing. Return, overflow, and manifold. I showed a buddy after I dry fit everything together and he set me straight, that's way too much pipe for a manifold that's not going to be powering anything that needs a huge amount of water. I also got some feedback from R2R about adding a second valve on my return line so I could more easily adjust the flow with a DC pump (great advice).

So I went ahead and tore out the 1" manifold, moved one of the ball valves to the return line, and replaced the rest of the manifold with 1/2" pipe. It all fit *so* much better after that. I was going back and forth with how I wanted the two lines in the middle of the manifold to be positioned, but in the end I pointed them down so there was less horizontal pipe to try to support. It also would have caused my lines to run right down the middle of my sump which would have looked ugly.

Here's the final plumbing (I still have some wires/tubing that I need to rub behind other pipes, please ignore those )

I do have a few regrets.

• I should have used spigots to save space in some places.
• The line that goes up for the manifold just *barely* fits, and I have no real way to adjust that. Not sure how I would have changed it, but would love to have had more space.
• I hate hate HATE the return line that I plumbed. I intended for it to be angled into the sump a bit more but as soon as the glued pipes touched I was unable to adjust it no matter how hard I tried. I also didn't leave myself enough room for a nipple to comfortably fit at the end. I made it work, but the nipples from my return and from my return pump are almost touching. I also had to shove a piece of rubber tubing under the front of my sump because the tight fit pushes it down against the sump causing it to vibrate.
• I wish I secured things a bit better. The clamps that I bought from BRS just didn't really fit the 1" pipes for some reason, and I have one that's only partially supporting my return line right now. I need to fix that and probably add a bit more support elsewhere. I do have at least one clamp on every horizontal pipe though.
• If I didn't already spend a ton of money, I probably would have gone with proper gate valves for everything. The ball valves are honestly working great, but having that extra level of precision would have been nice.

Overall, the experience was not as bad as I thought it would be.

Next post will probably be about drilling my ATO to convert it into a fuge, which I was absolutely terrified about doing...

 

[Eclyps19]

Converting the Red Sea Reefer ATO into a fuge.

I had never drilled glass before, so I was terrified of this. I purchased a diamond bit from BRS 2 years ago in anticipation of doing this project, but didn't get around to it until now. Here was my process.

Pick a spot on the glass for the hole. I picked the upper right corner so that the overflow would be towards the back of my sump area and wouldn't get in the way. I left a couple inches from any edge to prevent any super thin areas.

I placed some masking tape on the underside of the glass to catch whatever glass shards would fall. This was more so I didn't accidentally lose a piece and step on it later, but it had the unintended benefit of giving me better visibility around where I was drilling. I set the drill bit on the glass and drew around it to get the placement marked on the glass itself. Then I surrounded the circle with some plumber's putty. This is basically only there to hold water and keep things cool while drilling. I left about a 1/2" gap between the circle and the putty so it could hold a decent amount of water.

"Hey, maybe this won't be too bad!" I thought to myself. I took it outside, filled the putty area with water, very lightly placed the bit over the circle, and started to drill. And then my drill immediately freaked out and started going all over the place. Yeah, turns out actually starting the hole is *really* difficult.

I found a piece of cardboard and drilled a hole through that first, then taped it on top of the hole that I wanted in the glass. I figured that if I could just get it to last for 10 seconds or so I would have enough of a groove in the glass to keep the bit in place. Obviously cardboard and water don't mix very well, so it quickly turned into a mess. In these next pictures, please note that I do NOT have the glass up against the brick! I just wanted to put it somewhere in a corner so that I lean against it and keep my shoulder/hand stable while I drilled!

After about 15 seconds or so my cardboard turned to mush but I did have at least the tiniest little groove in the glass. I tossed the mushy cardboard and placed the putty back on the glass and changed the water. Unfortunately that groove wasn't enough for me to free-hand it. I found some wood that I could use to basically rest between the wall and the drill bit so I could at least keep it stable on one axis. That actually worked SUPER well, but the downside was that it squished down my plumber's putty so it didn't hold water quite as well.

Every time that I lifted the wood I would need to re-form the putty so it would hold water again. Annoying, but I don't think I could have done it without that piece of wood to rest the bit against.

About 20 minutes and about 30 cups of water later, I finally made it through! You can see the scratches from my initial freehand attempt, but they were pretty minimal.

After a good clean and drying, I was really proud of the results.

Tips for anyone else doing this:

• TAKE YOUR TIME. Seriously, you cannot rush this. It took way longer than I expected and I felt like I wasn't even sure if I was making progress, but if your drill bit is spinning, you are making progress.
• The water turns milky as you're drilling. I never let my water get very warm, I just changed it every time it got milky.
• You can *feel* when you're drilling at a bit of an angle. If you make slight adjustments while drilling, you can even things out so you don't finish one side of the hole before the other. I don't know if this matters, but I definitely felt I was just a smidge deeper on one side when I was halfway through and was able to adjust.
• Absolutely 100% find a way to rest your drill bit against something while you're drilling. I don't know if there are better options... maybe build something so it doesn't have to rest right on your putty, and if at all possible find a way to rest it on both axes so it doesn't move on you at all. I think this was by far the most important thing for me getting a clean hole.
• Don't go too close to any edges.
• Consider drilling two holes, which I now sort of regret not doing. One for an emergency overflow that's higher up and one for your normal overflow. This will give you some wiggle room when adjusting your flow.

 

[Eclyps19]

Well, the whole reason why I tore down the tank in the first place was because I couldn't beat dinos and nothing was thriving in my tank.

Less than two months in, and the only uglies that I can find in my tank are dinos. Millions of them. Covering everything. Looks like small cell again.

Disappointed is an understatement. Everything in the tank was either brand new or was thoroughly bleached, sun-dried, and left unused for about a year. Guess it wasn't enough.

I'm not going to freak out like last time, though. I'm going to try to wait it out. The only things that I will be dosing are NO3 and P04 as needed to keep my levels reasonable. No chemicals, no significant sand rinsing (it was rinsed 2 months ago before adding it), no dosing silicate, just... trying to keep things stable and maybe reducing the lights slightly.

I'll give it 6 months. If it's still a huge problem at that point, then... god help me.