Red Sea Peninsula 650, not so great?

[Kirino]

Hello everyone, so I got a red sea p650, bought it second hand. At first sight it looked in pretty good shape. It's 5 years old. I looked up some reviews before I bought it, but didn't find anything alarming at the time. Meanwhile ... I do have some concerns and was wondering if any of you have experience with this tank or insights.

When I got home, I noticed the left support beam of the cabinet wasn't touching the side pane. Like at least a millimeter of space. That's like 1/32 inch so one could say "that's not a lot at all", but we're talking around 1 ton of weight (around 2000 pounds) of water, so any inconsistency concerns me. So I decided to take the entire thing apart, looked up the plan, and to be honest, structurally I don't like how this thing is put together. It feels like the entire weight rests on just a couple of screws. See screenshot below:

(the cabinet is on it's side in the picture)

One could say, surely they designed this well, but after disassembling the entire thing, I found out that 1/3 of the parts in the picture below, are clearly deformed.

Putting that much weight on those points seems like a bad design choice, no? I was able to bend the deformed parts back in the correct shape with barely any force, another reason for concern. At any rate, while reassembling the cabinet I used the 'damaged' parts in non-weight carrying parts. Any of the 'crucial' spots have those parts that were not deformed.

Anyway, I put many hours in re-assembling the cabinet as perfectly as I could, and I still have a tiny space between the side pane and the support beam (marked in the plan), but it's very, very tiny now. Still, that basically means all the weight rests on the screws. Maybe it always rests on that anyway but ok, I'm no engineer.

Next chapter: how level should it be? I've been adjusting the 20 little adjustable feet for hours and the best result I've gotten so far is that the tank is level across, and almost level in length. The level bubble is just a tiny, tiny bit to the left from the center. Still well within the mark, but not perfect. To be honest I've never put a tank this level, but I've never had a tank this big before either. What I did notice however is this:

That's clearly not touching. On closer inspection, 3 of the 4 corners are not touching. The rest of the tank is. Again, I don't know how bad this is and would love some feedback. Will this be fine if I fill it or not?

That brings me to the entire 'floating front and back' pane of this red sea thing. Like you can see in the picture, the only thing actually touching the cabinet is the bottom pane, none of the side panes are supported. I didn't give it enough thought before, but surely it would be better if the cabinet supported the entire thing.

Next chapter: there is only one cabinet side panel supporting the entire weight over 2/3 of the length of this thing:

From my point of view, that's not good, right? So I put a level on the side of the side panel and discovered it's actually bend a little, like 1-2 millimeter, so again not much, but it sure isn't straight.

Then I discovered this fun fact while looking up the plans: there is a retrofit support:

Apparently it came out a year or so after the tank and was free for everyone who bought a p650. Figures the previous owner didn't buy it or didn't know about it. I definitely want to add more support, I'm having trouble finding a reseller that sells the retrofit part thought. I'm considering just doing something custom. Even if I do find the actual retrofit part, I would think you have to add it front and back. My reasoning is that the back-panels of the cabinet are just screwed on, they don't really support anything.

If you managed to read through all of this, you have my my sincere thanks. Your feedback and opinion would be much appreciated

 

[Reefing102]

So the floating panes is a Red Sea thing and I would probably contact Red Sea to see if they’re willing to give the retrofit part or allow you to buy it. I believe there may have been corner supports as well but can’t be sure.

That said, the reason for this from my understanding is the stand starts to sag in the middle and then the tank leaks over time due to weakened support.

If you can swing it, I’d do custom as I have never liked pre-made stands in all my time of fish keeping. Never enough room. However, I don’t know if that would affect any warranty on the tank if there is still a warranty available

 

[kharmaguru]

That's clearly not touching. On closer inspection, 3 of the 4 corners are not touching. The rest of the tank is. Again, I don't know how bad this is and would love some feedback. Will this be fine if I fill it or not?

A stand needs to provide support at all four corners and transfer the load directly to the floor. I'm guessing what you are observing is the foam leveling mat holding it up, and when you fill it, it will settle down onto the corners. Having said that, it's my belief (not mine only) that the full perimeter should be supported to transfer the weight of the verticle panes to the floor instead of the glass bottom taking that load. Red Sea stands do not support the front edge because of the front door esthetic they want to acheive, and perhaps that is where many of the oh so common Redsea Reefer seam splits and leaks are originating.

 

[Kirino]

I found a dealer that can order the supports, I reckon I´ll get at least two for in the middle, might put another one in each corner.

Ye I´m still pretty concerned about the vertical panes. Do you think it would just start leaking? I mean, surely the entire thing wouldn´t just fail all together and fall off, I hope?

 

[Reefing102]

From the threads I read(on Red Sea seam leaks in general) it’s a mixed bag. Most seem to have evidence of air bubbles getting into the silicon prior to failure. Some leaks were minor with others being catastrophic failures (not sure about panes falling off) but wide seam bursts

 

[Kirino]

I guess I´ll contact my insurance and confirm it covers water damage by aquarium . Next reinforce the cabinet, confirm level and then fill it up lol. 'Roll the dice'.

 

[griss]

I guess I´ll contact my insurance and confirm it covers water damage by aquarium . Next reinforce the cabinet, confirm level and then fill it up lol. 'Roll the dice'.

In 2017, I bought a 75 gallon tank for an upgrade. My original plan was to build it into a wall. Now, I've finally getting around (yes, 6 years later) to planning the upgrade and decided against building into a wall, so I started looking into stands. Prices these days are insane and while visiting my mother (prior to her passing) she mentioned she had an old 75 and stand in her basement. The tank and stand were made by Oceanic and are easily 20+ years old. The tank was trash and not worth saving and the stand was a bit wobbly. But, I was able to use 2x4's and 3/4" plywood to restore it and it's pretty solid now. One of these days, I'll move that wall in the basement and start working on the upgrade

 

[Kirino]

Update: I spend another hour or two leveling the tank with the little feet. I think it's more level now. At least I managed to make all the corners touch this time, except for the one in the picture I posted above. That said the spacing has become smaller, so I'd like to call it a win.

After some further investigation I found the cabinet itself has a 0,5 mm (or 1⁄64 inch) difference in height between the top and bottom support beam on the left, compared to the right side of the tank. Which matches the spacing between the tank and the base on that side. Meaning it's probably related and if I fix that, it's probably 100% level. Again, I have no experience leveling a tank this size, so maybe I'm overdoing it? Surely the foam leveling mat will compensate for such a tiny difference?

The above aside, I still plan to reinforce the cabinet and will post pictures once I get around doing that.

 

[Reefing102]

I couldn’t imagine that little of a difference would affect it but I honestly have no idea. I know I’ve never gotten so precise on my tanks but none are Red Sea

 

[griss]

I couldn’t imagine that little of a difference would affect it but I honestly have no idea. I know I’ve never gotten so precise on my tanks but none are Red Sea

Agree.

 

[Kirino]

So a while back I posted the original red sea p650 looked like it had a pretty shady cabinet. True enough I found out that version two of the same p650 had a couple of improvements. Not to mention the new G2 peninsula is even further upgraded. All these things convinced me to do some custom 'upgrades'. Some key things the p650 v1 did not have:
- no support for the floating front and back pane of the tank
- no support under the wooden beams, in the middle of the sump cabinet area
- the wooden side panels of the cabinet carry the entire structure, while the supporting, horizontal beams don't rest on anything (besides the middle panel) but screws and bolts. Horrible design. I posted the plans and some pictures in my opening post.

So what I did, who knows maybe it's useful for someone down the line:
- just like the upgraded v2 and the new model I added L shaped support under the floating panels. They're cast iron, spray painted with outdoor black paint, drilled holes and attached the same foam leveling mat material as the one the tank rests on. Just to make sure it's consistent. They're placed exactly level with the rest of the cabinet top. No room for error there. Well, besides the leveling mat I suppose, but still it's an exact fit.

The only disadvantage of doing this, is that the cabinet doors need to drop with 0,5 cm, that's almost 0,2 inches. Or you have to use aluminium L profiles, which are thinner. I just put in the extra effort of pre-drilling new holes for attaching the cabinet doors. Not so hard, just made a little template out of paper and all done (so the first one is the hardest).

- Next I added aluminum T-profile supports. I ordered them online from a company that cuts them exactly to specifications. Worked out pretty well, they were an exact fit! Just used a rubber hammer to pound them in and there we go.

Support for on the right side (where the plumbing enters the cabinet).

And the one for on the left side

Should probably have vacuumed before taking that picture, right ... Anyway, some pictures when placed inside next.

It's such a tight fit, I didn't bother with adding more support for this one. To be honest this one is more like, to feel safe.

The sump side is the side I was more concerned about. Which is up next.

This pane alone carries the entire 2/3 left side of the tank. It was this side that had a small bend and all the screws were bend!

Next I added some middle supports, and just added some connecting frames for cable management and/or a refugium light.

Finished thing.

Will it make any difference? No idea, but I sure feel better about it. Considering Red Sea is still giving free 'upgrade' kits for the middle support, I reckon there is good reason for it. At least that should be covered. And I do feel a lot safer knowing that left pane isn't carrying everything alone.

Next I put on the cabinet doors.

Looks pretty good to me, knowing I redrilled all the door holes.

Oh yea, and I did spray paint the door thingies, with the same outdoor paint. You know, since everyone complains they rust.

 

[Kirino]

A little side note: the screws I used to attach the L profile are all the strongest, stainless steel screws I could find.

Next I put up the lights, filled the entire thing with water and it's been looking good for the last month.

This picture is RO/DI water by the way. You know, you never know if the tank fails, after all I bought it second hand and it's 5 years old. It's been up like that for about 2 weeks, with circulation pumps on.

Meanwhile it's actually been up for a month, with salt water for about a week or two maybe. I do plan to add my aquascape, but for some reason the macro e-400 mortar is sold out in every store in this country ...

Anyway, hope someone finds this useful and I'll let you guys know in a few months if my floor is still dry

 

[christygirl]

Good explanation of what you did to fix this. The aluminum is a nice touch. I would keep an eye on the angle that you installed. even with paint that still could rust, but, if you keep it nice and dry all the time you should be able to stay ahead of it.

I know the red sea tank stands don't necessarily allow for a thicker foam mat, but, I always install a 1/2" styrofoam (insulation) board under my tanks. it allows for a nice firm base to settle into and protect against any flaws in your stand.