Considering total system reset...

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

Plastic ? Isn't your tank glass ? Not a great idea for bonding
Use glass to glass and silicone that bad boy


Use this calculator Drain/Overflow Size
Pay attention to the last line after you submit your GPH - it gives you the linear measurement for an overflow weir

Adam, I know your tank has been trying to suck the life out of you ...
I'm going through some similarly taxing issues with mine - I've thought about a reset and have a plan in place if I decide to go that route

I've also gone the Chemiclean route, but it's trying to come back
My issue was overfeeding in an attempt to bring my NO3 up. I read that I needed at least a small amount in conjunction with 0.03 or so PO4 to help my SPS. That didn't go well and now the algae has quite apparently found a foot-hold

How old is your LR and was it clean when you started this new build ?
With all the problems that you've had this year, I'm wondering if your LR is in need of a total clean as a thought came to mind that maybe it's leaching PO4
You've had some significantly large poopers in your tank and I'm suspecting that your rock is plugged up

I know my rock is plugged as I haven't turkey-basted it enough over the last 2 years - I'm going through a GHA issue and blah blah blah I'll deal with it

Good luck with your's bud

Glass overflows would probably be easier to source, I'd need a custom size plastic one anyway. I may be stuck with one internal overflow though, for a true bean animal it looks like I'd need 1.5" bulkheads based on the amount of water the full siphon can handle/the size of my return pump, and that will require 3, 2.5"ish holes in my glass depending on what brand of bulkhead I get. a) that freaks me out as I'd need to drill them on a vertical surface and b) my tank is in a wall, with only a few mm clearance from the 2x4 wall joists on either side of it. Thus I'd need to run the overflow plumbing down the joist spaces, and on both sides there's other things in them, such as the plumbing stack for one of the upstairs bathrooms. If I could rotate my sump 180 degrees it would be easier as there's more room on one side (inconveniently the farthest point from my filter socks/skimmer chamber), but that sump isn't moving without completely ripping out many Gs in custom millwork. I'm not sure I have space for 3 1.5" pipes on either side either way.

And my rock is 50% marco, 50% walt smith rock that Red Coral got for me direct from Walt Smith (my tank was the first water it went in after leaving the ocean). It's as "old" as the tank, so 2.25 years. The cyano blankets both kinds, so whatever is feeding it is not specific to either. I'd be dipping both in hydrochloric acid and starting over completely with both of them. I had this romantic notion that ultra premium live rock direct from the ocean would give me all sorts of wonderful and exotic creatures, but all it really did was import two different kinds of weedy montipora/porites that are ugly and have kind of taken over in places. Everything else, from the micro-fauna to the macro-algae to the sponge colonies looks no different than a million other tanks at the two year mark. Whether you get live rock from the ocean, or start with dead gravel, I don't think you could keep any of the unintentional critters like pods and worms out if you tried, and the more exotic stuff never seems to persist (if it could, everyone would have them and they wouldn't be exotic).

Starting fresh would give me a bunch of opportunities to get my aquascaping right too. I plan on getting a couple of the maxspect riptides when they come out, so I'd want to do some sort of a suspended scape where most of the sand was exposed to help the laminar gyre move along the bottom.

Of course I'm saying all of this about a tank that's built in to a house that's been for sale for a year. We've been duking it out with our builder over a major problem with our floor that has rendered the house unsellable, but it looks like they are finally going to fix it. Once it's fixed we need to make a decision about what to do with the listing (drop the price/change agent/de-list and stay), so I'm not gonna get started just yet...

[kien]

The question is not, "why?" But rather, "why not?" :-)

[gregzz4]

Sounds like a lot of work just to move soon