re-aquascape: should I bother?

[asylumdown]

As my tank ages, there are a few things about it I'm really learning to hate. First and foremost are the problems I have with flow. My infuriating dual internal overflows and the limited number of places I could put my vortech's with the tank viewable on two sides caused major problems that I never anticipated when I ordered the tank or did my aquascape. I also exacerbated an already crappy situation by piling up huge rock islands right against the overflows. Without going in to the details, it's created permanent unidirectional laminar and vertical flows in several places in the tank that at this point are really starting to mess with coral growth forms. I actually have corals growing straight down in 4 separate places, while at least half of my colonies are adopting a look that can only described as 'windswept'. 9 out of 10 people wouldn't notice, but I find it about as annoying as knowing a mosquito is in my bedroom as I try and fall asleep.

The only thing I can think of that will alleviate the problem at all is a complete to-the-sand rescape of the tank so that I can get the rock structures away from the overflows. Problem is, those overflows gobble up nearly a foot of my 6 foot tank, so I'm not sure I'll even be able to make rocks piled in the middle look good, and it will require removing every single coral to get it done. On top of that, I have no idea if doing so will actually do much to fix my flow issues.

Am I being way too nitpicky here? My house is for sale, and while it hasn't exactly been subject to any bidding wars, we're definitely going to be out of here at some point and this tank is not coming with me. I'm not sure if scratching this itch I'm feeling is worth the risk to my corals, the time, or the effort needed for a fix that I'm not sure is going to work.

What would you do?

[Dearth]

The rub of it is you know you will be moving sooner or later and going through all that trouble only to sell soon after would be a lot of work for nothing however on the other hand it is probably going to gnaw at you everytime you look at the tank so IMO I wouldn't do a complete re-aquascape but re-arrange it so you have piece of mind

[asylumdown]

yah that was my initial though, but I"m sitting here looking at the tank trying to figure out how to pull off a minor adjustment, and there's literally not a single rock that doesn't have multiple colonies. I'm not sure I'd be able to move anything without moving everything. I've tried playing with my pumps to see if I can make it any better, but all I can do is move them up and down in the little cubbies created by the overflows, and nothing helps. I tried to get two parallel vertical gyres that I could reverse a few times a day going with them tonight, but there's just too much interference and turbulence for them to get going.

I've got my return pump throttled way back at the moment, but it's capable of about 3500gph, I was considering maybe replacing a couple of my vortech's with an ocean's motion so that my return lines could help instead of hinder, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea either.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

If you're moving in the next month or so, probably not worth the risk and hassle.

However, playing Devil's Advocate role, I just re-aquascaped my main display (165g) from its old 1 big, 1 smaller rock structures to just having a redone large structure and a large open sand bed. It's sorta like having a new tank to look at. Deals with my "ok, time to change things up and upgrade" syndrome for the time being.

For instance, my old tank looked like this:



To this:



The flow patterns completely changed even though I didn't really move the WP-60 in the back and though I'm still getting used to the new look, it's something different for me to look at and gives the fish more space to swim around in.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, do whatever floats your boat cause it's your tank & you're the one who has to look at it all the time. If you change things, be forewarned that it will take several hours for a large tank with lots of corals to dismantle and reaquascape. I redid my main display and the sump overnight (literally from 11:30pm till 7:30am and then stayed up till 10am to make sure nothing was wrong. The reaquascaping part though only took about an hour, but for your situation probably a lot longer.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Anthony

[Dearth]

It sounds like no matter what you do you will have to do a major remodelling job to get the flow moving the way you want it and for your own piece of mind you might just have to bite the bullet and re-aquascape to your new likings who knows it may come out looking better than before even if it is for only a little while

[Reef Pilot]

As someone else recently said so eloquently, LITFA...

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

As someone else recently said so eloquently, LITFA...

+1

IMO it's the secret to a successful reef

[Simmy]

Wow....Its definately different Anth. I preferred the old look better!

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

If you're moving in the next month or so, probably not worth the risk and hassle.

However, playing Devil's Advocate role, I just re-aquascaped my main display (165g) from its old 1 big, 1 smaller rock structures to just having a redone large structure and a large open sand bed. It's sorta like having a new tank to look at. Deals with my "ok, time to change things up and upgrade" syndrome for the time being.

For instance, my old tank looked like this:



To this:



The flow patterns completely changed even though I didn't really move the WP-60 in the back and though I'm still getting used to the new look, it's something different for me to look at and gives the fish more space to swim around in.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, do whatever floats your boat cause it's your tank & you're the one who has to look at it all the time. If you change things, be forewarned that it will take several hours for a large tank with lots of corals to dismantle and reaquascape. I redid my main display and the sump overnight (literally from 11:30pm till 7:30am and then stayed up till 10am to make sure nothing was wrong. The reaquascaping part though only took about an hour, but for your situation probably a lot longer.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Anthony

[asylumdown]

LOL, I had to think about what LITFA meant for a minute. I also really hadn't thought about just how much time it would probably take. I'd have to multiply the time by the fact that everything will need to be done on a ladder as well, which means I'd probably be looking a 2 full day job, and now that I think of it I don't really have 2 full days to devote to anything at the moment. Maybe if the house still hasn't sold by the time my thesis is finished, I'll do it as my graduation present to myself, along with completely re-doing my plumbing like I've wanted to do for the past year.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Sounds like a good plan. Yeah, once you start taking apart your tank and reaquascaping the time just seems to fly by and all of a sudden the sun is rising and your head hasn't touched your pillow yet