Red Sea Tank Fails, AGAIN! Any Recommendations?

[fpizart]

Hi everyone! I have an emergency and cannot really believe this is happening to me again. Back in 2019 I purchased what I thought was a wonderful tank! Everything was going great with my Red Sea 525 XL until it started leaking from one of the sides in 2020. Of course, I lost livestock and suffered some damages caused by the water. After reaching out, Red Sea agreed to change my tank and sent me a “new one“ under the limited warranty. Fast forward to last Friday 4/21/23 at 4:00 AM and my tank was leaking AGAIN! This time, the leak was from the bottom and the tank dumped all the water out in less than 2 minutes. I was able to save all my fish and transfer them to the sump. The corals I had were then placed in a small Waterbox tank. This is the second time in less thank 5 years that my tank fails on me. I do not scrape the edge, I do not go crazy cleaning, my stand and tank are perfectly leveled, etc. My questions are:

Is this a common issue with this tanks? I see tons of posts and a local guy told me the brand is prone to issues with the side and bottom silicone.

What brand do you guys recommend? I am between Innovative Marine and WaterBox, but I am open to suggestions.

Thank you!

 

[Dbichler]

I would look at glass cages and not go rimless. I will never by a Red Sea tank just seeing all these types of posts.

 

[blaxsun]

Well, that totally sucks. The odds of it happening twice defy belief. What did Red Sea say? I know their new G2/G2+ tanks have corner bracing on the seams and the larger ones (like my 750XXL) have an aluminum strut and lip on the stand.

I don't think you'd be happy with Waterbox. IM has some new sumps but I hate the stands they come with. What about Cade?

 

[52728299]

Innovative marine, mines great

 

[Wrassefan78]

Cade is another great brand.

 

[brandon429]

Please contact Red Sea with pics and testimony

please report back here what they said / we are tracking their willingness to assist as much as we track the rate of seam breaks %

 

[BuckChoklit]

I'm so sorry to hear this.

 

[brandon429]

@fpizart

we dont know what’s going on, there is something seriously awry here as this trend of breaks hasn’t happened in reefing before. as buyers we have to come together to track out or own trends, we have to link examples like this in searchable threads because you can clearly see: Red Sea isn’t warning people of this risk, article writers aren’t informing people of this risk, the warning comes from pattern watching in forums and key term linking in tracking threads

I’m sorry this happened to you. It sounds like you were able to rescue the inhabitants pretty fast, nice going having that spare support equipment on hand. If you want any skip cycle input in order to double transfer all that livestock into another tank we are here/can do, I bet they’ll be ok/ very sorry for this stress

there are ways of preserving your corals rock and fish in cpr/911 mode this site is the place to attain that order of ops at least if needed, hope that helps.

 

[brandon429]

two words come to mind based on these hundreds of seam breaks, the two words rhyme with wrasse and faction.

 

[BigRick]

Brandon one thing I noticed on the 525 tanks was the matting used underneath. It it corrugated and not solid. You can literally look down from one side and see the flex. A simple solid mat like IM and WB use would most likely solve this problem.

 

[jp_75]

I thought IM had some bad reviews…? Hard to pick a tank these days

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

All these Red Sea leaks stories is giving me anxieties. I might have to start checking my seams weekly.

 

[brandon429]

@BigRick

thats an excellent perspective. We need the article writers to quickly divulge that out to fifteen million readers- something to help, predictively


we don’t need this swept under the rug, which is sopping wet

for the love of Pete I don’t understand the silence from red sea and the blogs

oh wait, I do.

 

[Cell]

They all have some bad reviews. But only one seemingly has a high frequency of seam failures being reported.

 

[N1tew0lf1212]

@Joe Glass Cages i think this guy needs someone he can trust....

 

[bakbay]

I would be interested to see true testimonials and records of leaks across tank vendors. It may be unfair to RS if other vendors’ tanks are leaking as well, depending on age, tank size, tank type, etc so we can establish a pattern.

I have a RS250 (bought used last year) and it’s been 5 years old, per my previous owner. Of course I knew I was taking a chance but it’s in my garage. Should I be preparing for a leak within the next few months, years? Possibly. My next tank will be acrylic, not heard of people complaining of leaks, regardless of manufacturers.

Sorry about the rant - have a great Sunday morning!

 

[fpizart]

@fpizart

we dont know what’s going on, there is something seriously awry here as this trend of breaks hasn’t happened in reefing before. as buyers we have to come together to track out or own trends, we have to link examples like this in searchable threads because you can clearly see: Red Sea isn’t warning people of this risk, article writers aren’t informing people of this risk, the warning comes from pattern watching in forums and key term linking in tracking threads

I’m sorry this happened to you. It sounds like you were able to rescue the inhabitants pretty fast, nice going having that spare support equipment on hand. If you want any skip cycle input in order to double transfer all that livestock into another tank we are here/can do, I bet they’ll be ok/ very sorry for this stress

there are ways of preserving your corals rock and fish in cpr/911 mode this site is the place to attain that order of ops at least if needed, hope that helps.

I did but no response yet!

Overall, how often do you see this type of issues and how are we tracking it? I like those wrasse and faction words

 

[brandon429]

the truth is it’s serious, we’ve been tracking seam breaks for four straight years now in a rs seam break thread

its sixty pages long

not everybody scans forums for trending / this is why it’s important for blog writers to warn brethren of any serious trends they see emerging

those seam break threads rise and fall based on update activity, they’re not always up top when someone is scanning the forum for standout material. We need actual magazine articles on interception / pre break steps people can enact = warnings

theres more than one collection thread on Red Sea breaks.

**I can’t fault any large company for non immediate response

its quality of upcoming response that matters, cost if any you’d bear in getting and new and better / strongest quality assurance checked tank from them, quickly. if they want myriad pics and video and purchase history documentation that’s fair too- no big company is on the hook for a fourth traded tank

we want to know the quality in what they’re about to convey to you based on your contact details with them

 

[Lavey29]

An interesting and unfortunate first thread post by the OP. I wish you luck in getting your situation remedied. I follow several reefing forums and surprisingly R2R seems to be the only one with multiple red sea tank failures. Not sure why that is?

My red sea tank has been flawless for 2 years now and I'm sure others here have had similar success. My LFS says seam failures in reef tanks are caused by heavy intensity powerhead use. Basically slamming the side walls with water flow 24/7. I wonder how reef tank manufacturers account for this glass stress?

 

[eqbal9947]

Ive heard about a few bad seams with Red sea from a few local people aswell.
I went waterbox because of that a year ago.
I havent heard many bad things about waterbox