Adding sand to fight ugliness on rescue tank

[StackTrayce]

5yo 20g max nano from facebook marketplace, some cyano and minimal sand.
Close-up pic of some gunk, an alarming-looking worm, and a goby

Not much sand at bottom (definitely less than 0.5”, some bare spots). Previous owner mentioned I may want to take more out. My current plan is to remove as much old sand as possible and add live sand and start dosing microbacter7 and clean. Trying to get beneficial bacteria to out-compete uglies as well as provide a better habitat for goby (I also think sand looks better).
Plan is to remove as much old sand as possible (any tips?), scrub rocks, run 100 micron sock, and add live sand (aragalive special grade most likely). I’ll also start dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean.
Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Any suggestions?

Should dose w/ chemiclean or something else to knock cyano (or dinos?) down before adding live sand, or only do so a few weeks after adding sand if still having problems? I normally do 10-20% WC per week.
I’ve also been facing double zeros on PO4/NO3. I am trying to address that by increasing feeding and may start feeding phyto. I’m trying to avoid having to dose Nitrates and Phosphates as part of regular dosing and feeding. Should I try running the skimmer less or removing some filter media or is that too many changes at once?

Open to any thoughts, warnings, tips, etc! I was currently planning on doing this along w/ a 20-25% water change this weekend.

 

[Uncle99]

5yo 20g max nano from facebook marketplace, some cyano and minimal sand.
Close-up pic of some gunk, an alarming-looking worm, and a goby

Not much sand at bottom (definitely less than 0.5”, some bare spots). Previous owner mentioned I may want to take more out. My current plan is to remove as much old sand as possible and add live sand and start dosing microbacter7 and clean. Trying to get beneficial bacteria to out-compete uglies as well as provide a better habitat for goby (I also think sand looks better).
Plan is to remove as much old sand as possible (any tips?), scrub rocks, run 100 micron sock, and add live sand (aragalive special grade most likely). I’ll also start dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean.
Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Any suggestions?

Should dose w/ chemiclean or something else to knock cyano (or dinos?) down before adding live sand, or only do so a few weeks after adding sand if still having problems? I normally do 10-20% WC per week.
I’ve also been facing double zeros on PO4/NO3. I am trying to address that by increasing feeding and may start feeding phyto. I’m trying to avoid having to dose Nitrates and Phosphates as part of regular dosing and feeding. Should I try running the skimmer less or removing some filter media or is that too many changes at once?

Open to any thoughts, warnings, tips, etc! I was currently planning on doing this along w/ a 20-25% water change this weekend.

Your prob is the double zeroes.
Bump them up and stabilize them.
Neo nitro and Neo phos can be easily dosed.

That’s all I would do except daily removing that stuff into a filter sock and return your water.

It will go on its own when water chemistry stable and nutrients available to feed the micro friends that outcompete that crap.

 

[Troylee]

Looks like Dino’s and double zeros would cause it… I’d remove sand start the battle to get rid of the Dino’s before adding any more sand.

 

[bluemon]

Honestly, you don't even need to add the microbacter. I would scoop out the dirtier parts of the sand that has cyano, leave a good percentage in, and just dump some new (dry or "live") rinsed out sand in.

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

A thread doing this planned job in several tanks

Study it well. Dont change up what we do or you can crash your reef

Notice a crucial detail: to remove and clean sand we disassemble the reef

We never remove sand in a running reef for a reason. That only seems safer; it's not. The dust cloud it causes can kill your fish and tank

Ordered disassembly is safest

We use no bottle bac

We tested for nothing other than temp and salinity in the new added water

Those are perfect jobs because they followed the steps


a benefit of actually reading that thread: those were real jobs, not guesses nor predictions. that isn't my tank being worked and I relay what I guessed at, hoping it works for you, that's other people's reef I fixed remotely/you are seeing actual results expected.


Look how we pre rinse the sand coming in


*don't begin the job if you aren't studied from that thread and ready to do what they did 100%. any partial action or change up can kill your reef, but if you copied what we did you'll get the results they got and we posted.

if you don't want to absolutely clean the reef the right way, don't do anything with removing your sand that's dangerous. simply dose in the chemicals and hope they work. it won't kill your reef, but there's only a 1% chance they'll work. at least it won't be harm

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Honestly, you don't even need to add the microbacter. I would scoop out the dirtier parts of the sand that has cyano, leave a good percentage in, and just dump some new (dry or "live") rinsed out sand in.

Thats exactly what I would do too

 

[StackTrayce]

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

A thread doing this planned job in several tanks

Study it well. Dont change up what we do or you can crash your reef

Notice a crucial detail: to remove and clean sand we disassemble the reef

We never remove sand in a running reef for a reason. That only seems safer; it's not. The dust cloud it causes can kill your fish and tank

Ordered disassembly is safest
We use no bottle bac

We tested for nothing other than temp and salinity in the new added water

Those are perfect jobs because they followed the steps

a benefit of actually reading that thread: those were real jobs, not guesses nor predictions.

Thanks for the thread link and experienced insight!
I’m going to gather tools to do rock dentistry as well as peroxide on a couple initial rocks. I was not aware live rock could be scrubbed for 10m+ out of water and have attached coral survive.
Will run 100 micron sock as well.
I’ll be doing rock scrubbing before adding sand.
If it is new live sand, would I still want to rinse? Better off just going with new dead sand with heavy rinsing?

 

[brandon429]

All sand used is pre rinsed because it's so cloudy if we don't. Some of those jobs used new caribsea live sand, rinsed, because live rock bacteria are all we need. There are bacteria in sand, we just don't need them and they're complexed with waste clouding (when it's used sand) which is what's so dangerous. New caribsea has horrible clouding too/ why we rinse/ but for opposite reasons: it's chalk dust from grains settling into silt fractions in the bag. You'll see how bad it is on the first rinse, unrinsed new sand isn't dangerous it's just irritating and milk cloudy vs our results that are laser clear


Before you begin the surgery we should really prep a couple days so all the details are ready, I want to do the job right. Some of those corals are huge, aged, valuable but we can do it easily with all details readied

Planning questions: when you bought the tank and parted it out to move it to your home (that makes you practiced at parted disassembly + reassembly) did you just move the original old sand over?

This method is the best possible refresh for that system but it's surgery so we need to do it exactly right. It'll buy you the longest possible lifespan for the nano

Rip cleans are how my pico reef got 17 years old in perfect health, I just cheated the normal reefing rules of don't touch it lol

 

[StackTrayce]

Yes, when we moved the tank we left sand and a tiny bit of water in tank. I’ve removed some sand already during weekly water changes (1/4” siphon hose), but not much.
I’ve read about reducing lighting. Is that something I should start right away, or wait for the big rip?

 

[brandon429]

Excellent

We can wait till the big clean to lower it and I agree it's utmost important after the big clean attack

I just used light lowering to stop bleaching in my sps after instantly changing out all my water for a new brand. I've done it before: instant ocean changed to reef crystals, then once changed to oceanic salt, then changed to esv one year, then fritz a few years ago but this new round is real ocean water at 11 alk lol and that harmed my pico jumping that high. Got home from work noticed delicate montis hard hit and 60% white/ dangit lol/ so the first thing I did was reduce intensity -40% and will hold a week or two then slowly work back and not as high as prior. Full water changes using your same brand isn't harmful; all those jobs above are new water at the reassembly

i changed 7 alk for 11 instantly lol so we won't do that to your tank. Light lowering is what we do to equalize any unspoken variables in the new system such as being totally free of all prior waste.

Relocating some of the prior waste is part of today's minor invasion challenge -but- the system is so aged and apparently your topoff water access is so clean, and feed + stocking ratios + care habits are streamlined to the point I'm surprised it's not much worse. That means it'll likely hold clean a long time (but not forever) after this waste ejecting mode coming up

All we're doing is exactly your move steps but it's not leaving the room... rocks (cleaned before going into the tote) and corals and fish in a tote of tank water drained clean off the top non cloudy water, some circulation to keep water moving + a lid with vent holes so your fish don't jump out

After that initial takedown you'll have a 50% drained tank of only water and muddy sand

Then we take it down all the way and clean the entire glass tank out on the lawn with hose + towels till it's shiny new and dried and scraped back to new

That totally clean empty glass tank is taken back in, the mega- rinsed sand placed in, rocks perfectly cleaned and rinsed in saltwater to jet off any waste attachments are set back in, loose corals added back and tank filled with water matching temp and salinity of the old water

It'll be totally cloudless perfection and the bacteria on the rocks remain because we only picked at them and rinsed in saltwater: not antibiotic at all. Like reef teeth cleaned back to health, pores opened up on the rocks expressing waste much better and all invasions target removed

Fish go back in and it's done/ light dropped feeding resumes, corals perk up in 48 hours

We need to have plenty if not extra saltwater heated, prepped and ready so you don't run low after some of the tote filling and rock rinsing and new tank filling

We need to test your rinsed sand in sections to ensure total cloudless detailing... prepped sections are dropped into a clean glass of water to see if it's truly cloudless/ no guessing

I recommend you take out a rock or two off the top soon which won't be cloudy since they're up high, lift them out, and do a full detail rasping. Rinse it off in saltwater and set back. We can have 2/3rds of your rock done before we begin, that way all the focus is actually on the sand and reassembly

 

[StackTrayce]

For hydrogen peroxide, should I get 3% or 10%? Need to be food or pharma grade or anything?
Been reading thru sand rinse thread and beginning of rip clean thread.
Any links to videos or specific posts about the rasping/scraping process? Do I avoid what I believe to be coraline (I'm relatively inexperienced, so I'm not sure how to tell if I'm scraping coraline, but I could focus on gunk that comes off w/ a toothbrush, but I'm thinking that is not aggressive enough).

 

[bluemon]

Honestly not sure why you are talking about peroxide.

The tank looks fine, and most algae problems will go away in time as the tank ages and you reach a balance.

You are literally bringing nukes to a children's playground scufuffle

 

[brandon429]

It's harmless, we show. You aren't dipping rocks in it, or applying it to corals... it's simply being dribbled or dabbed in place where a former target was attached after we've scraped it. Mainly for green hair algae spots... cyano itself will just be rubbed or washed off. It's very handy tool as a spot application for slowing or stopping growback, used at 3% is fine

If you don't have marked invasion attachments on the rock there's not a lot of need for it and yes try and estimate where there's crusty coralline and work around it. It will not harm your rock bacteria the way we use it. My tank used to get 35% as spot treatments = is why I haven't had to use it on rocks since 2013

3% is still a very routine inside glass wipe for me if I let scums build up on the inside. When the bowl is drained I wet paper towel wipe the inside with peroxide, saving me all scraping. It melts off scum two days later extremely clean, it's not fearful to use. Try and run a couple rocks soon as a test run take pics

I want to input your tank pics in that best of the best thread when done if we can hit all the high marks, you have big sensitive corals in tow that's not a small potatoes job. Others will benefit from seeing the resolve on file + the outcome.

 

[StackTrayce]

Any other particular tools that make this easier other than buckets, towels, toothbrushes, and (full?) knife?
I have one extra heater, I’ll have to get at least one more. Maybe a cheap power head to move between buckets for movement?
I have a small pump I use for water changes I can use in one bucket/container.
I have some green hair algae some places, not sure I can get an easy test rock with much tho. Definitely have 2-3 rocks that are candidates for easier removal and scrubbing tho.

 

[brandon429]

Mainly knife points

brushing takes the targets and smashes them into the rock crevices

picking with a fine point takes longer but is better, it dislodges attachments by slight micro damage to the rock then the rinse removes it and washes it away

those are pretty much the right tools agreed but not much brushing at all on surfaces

 

[brandon429]

One small brainstorm

after reassembly when it’s all clean be sure and verify salinity before putting all the rest back in

sometimes on smaller tanks the huge pile of wet sand as the final rinse might have been done with ro water to evacuate the tap used for the bulk rise, and depending on amount of sand that’s a lot of freshwater going back in the setup. some prefer final rinsing for at least some of the lump with saltwater so the huge lump of rinsed wet sand isn’t a salt dilution

feel free to dribble saltwater over any exposed corals while working externally on target rocks. They wouldn’t die if you didn’t, I’ve drained my entire reef to zero water for 33 mins on video as my personal no water record but there’s no need to dry them if you aren’t trying to test limits. Dribble water / wet corals are happy and safe

the live rock will not have die off it’s very very resistant outside the tank. Several mins detailing then a saltwater rinse of the rocks is fine

 

[StackTrayce]

Regarding avoiding brushing, how would I remove dark red soft slime when taking rock out for rip clean? It comes off with a toothbrush and sometimes with siphon tube. Swish and gentle brushing avoiding smooshing gunk into rock?

 

[brandon429]

agreed it won't hurt to lightly brush that or rub it off with a wet saltwater washcloth that's not too bad. it was mainly fragmenting algae fronds we don't want to grind in

 

[brandon429]

your invasions isn’t abnormal or reflective of bad water parameters, it’s what healthy reefs develop over time without the matched and numerous grazers on the reef (which is why we become the grazers surgically)

that detail from your pics allows you to siphon off and hold maybe half your current water into a clean tote, nothing added to it so it won’t cloud, for re use in the reset tank. That saves you half as much water to input into the new cleaned setup though I’d still recommend having plenty extra saltwater handy for the final sand rinse step and incidentals

 

[StackTrayce]

I’ve got hydrogen peroxide, dropper/pipette, and ~2.5G in a bucket dedicated for cleaning first test rocks (and another 5G for WC).
Looking into a brute-type container for more SW but also saw 10G tanks are pretty cheap at LFS