What I found in overflow

[Guttersnipe]

Hi reef2reef! I was taking apart my old tank to set up my new one tje
Other day and what I found in my overflow box really shocked me. I have a durso setup in my internal overflow box. When I pulled out the pipe I stuck my hand in there to make sure there was no water left behind so I can disconnect the bottom half of the bulkhead. When I reached the bottom of the overflow my hand sunk into what felt like 3-4 in inches of mud. There was so much detritus in there. I think its the cause of some my acros rtn. This sounds crazy but immediately after I changed tanks some my acros gained all their color back.
for those who have internal overflow boxes always remember to siphon our what you can at the bottoms of your overflow.

 

[Silver14SS]

I have an external overflow box and stuff also settles in it. I blow it out with a turkey baster to go down the drain to the filter pad.

 

[Seanislav]

How long had the previous system been run? I wonder whether the flow through there might've been a wee bit low. There will always be some heavier crud that will just sit, but that's definitely more than I'd expect to find.

 

[gdubs]

Amazing what you can find in an overflow box of an established tank. I had a 90G that was about 10 yrs old and had a breakout of ich. I took the fish out and put them into QT for 12 weeks. When I was just about to put them back, I found a long lost blue/green chromis living in the overflow. He was healthy and had doubled in size, but I had to take him out and let the tank go fallow another 12 weeks. 6 Months looking at a tank without fish is no fun.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I know many reefers that have 3-4” of detritus settle in their sump without issue. I only clean mine out every 6 months or so and usually only clean out half at a time so that the beneficial microfauna populations aren’t greatly impacted.

I’m not saying that it couldn’t be the case, but I would venture a guess that the tank change involved adding partial or all newly made saltwater? If that is the case, build up of some contaminant is far more likely and was also corrected as part of the tank upgrade.

Glad to hear your SPS are doing much better though!

 

[ihavecrabs]

Amazing what you can find in an overflow box of an established tank. I had a 90G that was about 10 yrs old and had a breakout of ich. I took the fish out and put them into QT for 12 weeks. When I was just about to put them back, I found a long lost blue/green chromis living in the overflow. He was healthy and had doubled in size, but I had to take him out and let the tank go fallow another 12 weeks. 6 Months looking at a tank without fish is no fun.

That stinks having to start fallow all over again! Lucky fish..

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Yeah, it's about time that I clean mine out again. I have to do it every year or so.

The last time I cleaned it out, it was full of 4" long feather dusters!

 

[AZMSGT]

Bi annual maintenance includes shutting off pumps. Shop vac out the overflow. It gets GROSS in there.

 

[Guttersnipe]

How long had the previous system been run? I wonder whether the flow through there might've been a wee bit low. There will always be some heavier crud that will just sit, but that's definitely more than I'd expect to find.

The tank has been running for 2-3 years. The tank had a lot of flow, two tunze 6105 on two sea sweeps.