[Delphinus]

I wish I had gone for 8' instead of 6'. It totally would have fit, but at the time I had my tank built the tank builder options were limited and it would have been too costly.

I wish I had insisted on an external overflow. I have an internal corner overflow and it's beyond massive. I asked for an external overflow, the tank builder (Mitch and co.) wasn't interested, made the price for adding it too much and told me "don't worry it's a fad." Look at any reef tank made today. A fad, my ###. I'm so mad at myself for not insisting. not only does it take away a significant chunk of real estate in the tank, creating complications with aquascape and flow, just getting under the tank to deal with plumbing problems is a nightmare. With an external overflow, a leaky bulkhead is just something you fix. With the internal overflow I have to drain my sump, slide it out, risk breakage, and work under the stand in awkward conditions.

I'm sort of on the fence about restricting my access on the front of the tank. As an inwall tank, I wanted QUIET and I saw doors in the front as potentially taking away from noise reduction. But the problem is my light frame that slides out of the way in the back, the rollers do not roll in the track. I have no idea what the problem is, but the consequence is it takes an ENORMOUS effort to slide the 25lb light box out of the way. The idea worked better on paper.

Filter socks. Again, I listened to the advice of others against my own personal judgement and it's been a regrettable decision the whole time. I got talked into using 4" socks instead of 8" socks. What a mistake that was.

Also shoehorning the sump under the stand as nice as it is for reducing space concerns, makes everything difficult about it. My old tank had the sump out on the open, I had no idea how much I'd miss having access. Still seems a shame to lose out all that space under the display tank though, so I'm not sure how I'd do it all over again. I'd be tempted to leave it under the tank but have a portion of it stick out from under the tank into the tank room for the socks and/or zeovit handles or whatever.