reboot advice

[CH]

Need some advice. I have a tank that has been set up for many, many years. It's been off and on the past few years, life gets busy, maintenance starts lacking, etc. I once had a nice robust system with a lot of coral, but they started slowly slipping away. About a year or so ago I had something happen, not sure what, but I lost my last few fish, and there was not any coral at that time. The tank is still running, but I've really lacked on water changes and maintenance, and it's quite overgrown with algae. I'm wanting to do a reboot and clean out the system, but I don't necessarily want to tear down to completely nothing and start over, but do I need to clean all of the rock and really vacuum out the sand.
I know I need to start with massive water changes, and I can do some scrubbing of the rock, but I'm looking for any other advice to essentially do a system reboot, get rid of algae, and just get things back to a good condition so that I can start adding fish and easy corals back to the tank.
Will need a new clean up crew too, but I want to make sure water quality is acceptable first. Not sure how much bio diversity is left in the tank, and I hate to destroy whatever is left by "cooking" the rock. Also wonder if I need to add new live rock or live sand to get things boosted again.

Anyway, if anyone has experience with something like this, I would love to hear it. I don't even know where to begin and it's quite overwhelming to think about!

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Chris, check your phosphate levels, by now your rocks could be saturated.
If so a pool clarity product(Sea Klear) will drop it fast, then GFO. With no corals or fish that's what I would do followed by a massive water change when satisfied
.https://www.amazon.com/SeaKlear-90-...r+algaecide&qid=1596840470&sr=8-3&tag=mh0b-20

 

[CH]

So, that will be safe in the aquarium, it says it has copper in it? I know not much is living in the tank right now, but there are a few snails and hermits still hanging around, and I hate to kill off anything beneficial.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

The main ingredient that does the work is Lanthanum Chloride. When using with fish you have to drip into a sock because it can irritate their gills.
Search Lanthanum here for more information. With nothing in the tank I would use it.