[surfjeepzx]

Since no one else has responded I'll give you my thoughts. My tank is somewhat similar less the chiller, Ca reactor, refug, and the bigger skimmer.

I had nuisance hair algae problem that was the result of overfeeding and slacking on water changes. The algae seemingly exploded within a week and I was losing the battle.

I always have at least ~100 snails and crabs in my tank. In a 135 they seem to disappear but I know roughly how many I have. The first thing I did was a massive water change. I have 2 55 gallon barrels that I filled at the inlet with fresh saltwater. I know this isn't an option in Idaho but you can still make water. Then I shut the return pumps off and pulled everything from the sump and gave the sump and all equip a thorough cleaning. I had a friend help me remove the canopy and I removed all the piping from the internal overflow box.

This was probably the most important part I cleaned as the amount of hidden Hair algae was incredible. I believe the crop of HA in the overflow was seeding the tank. So no matter how much I cleaned and vacuumed it was futile. I put everything back together and started on the water change.

My water change works like this. I shut the return pump off. Siphon out the sump. Fill the sump with new seawater and start return pump. I let that water circulate for about 5 minutes and repeat. I leave the skimmer off during the process and have no filter media in place during the process either.

The next step sealed the doom on the HA. I went to the keys for a short vacation and collected about 300+ snails of different types while there. After introducing them in the tank within days I could start to see a difference. It took about a month to rid the tank of 95% of the HA. There's still some minor spots that aren't growing and are slowly being depleted. Most of the original lot of snails have died and made homes for other critters but many remain and are still working.

That was the HA scenario and that's pretty much done now. Knock on wood but I've never really had an aptasia problem but the choies are pretty clear there. Fish that eat them or manual removal. The few that I've had I've melted with Kalk in a seringe. This may be an option if you are patient.

The question you need to ask yourself is why has your tank succumbed to the algae and aptasia. You can have all the flow you want in the tank, but if you don't have a good turnover flow from the tank to the sump and back your sump/fuge isn't able to help. It could also be that as your tank has grown the water flow throughout the rock and corals has necome degraded. I've always noticed the few aptasia I've had are always in low flow shaded areas of the tank.

So before you start the demo process try a good cleaning and maybe take another look at the water flow within the tank. Try changing the water flow direction and give parts of the tank a different current that maybe are lacking flow.

Just ideas above, you have a nice tank and should try a good thorough cleaning and see if that helps. Good Luck