Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[brandon429]

that much live rock carries any bioload in reefing= the basis for our plan.



when you move to a larger tank that's + more dilution and less waste presentation per unit of measure to the rock surfaces so it's no challenge to just relocate it as we've been doing.

scrape it clean of any algae for a fresh start in the new tank.

make sure that receiving tank sand is snowglobe clean rinsed/who wants clouding at the start of a new tank it's a total let down/that sand rinse coming up will be the lion's share of hours spent getting ready. make sure that you verify in a clear glass of water occasional samples of your rinsed sand so that it's perfect, start days early prepping the sand it'll take days of rinsing. we do 100% perfect rinsing as our unifying factor here to keep the thread and the outcomes on track.


you don't want to go through all this rinse effort, then fill up your tank and it's still cloudy.

testing repeat portions of your rinse prepped sand in a large clear container like this proves your whole lump is ready to go:



*you do not have to expend effort getting new rocks ready for cycling by adding bacteria*

that's where new cycling science helps you and saves concern and cost.

new rock added does not have to be cycled because the current rocks wouldn't lack carry ability even if you removed a third of them, we've done that in jobs here prior years. created nsa scapes out of huge rock stacks/no recycle/no loss.


*here are two hidden risks I'd like to relay having nothing to do with the actual ammonia control:

1. a trend is emerging in the disease forum where non prepped tanks, that's tanks that did not run fallow and quarantine to carry their current fish load (which do fine in the tank as it sits daily) get expressed disease outbreak when they disturb the system and move to a new tank. latent fish disease happens more and more nowadays, and it has nothing to do with skip cycling for ammonia. be prepared. if you used fallow/quarantine + biosecurity plans Jay mentions on this current tank, I do not expect that in the new system.

2. Any white rock you add brings in the common phosphate issues found/invasion issues found when dealing in non coralline rock. you are likely to get algae outbreaks on that white rock and it may carry over to other surfaces, but then again having a totally cloudless sandbed up under it all allows you to remove rocks and guide them externally and set back, without clouding or messing up your new tank with a huge dust storm. pre soaking that rock in water doesn't really reduce this very much, you're about to add highly reflective bright surfaces into a tank of muted purple/darker tone rocks and the white ones are likely to catch some uglies.


I want to link in a thread now where Tuffloud simply guided an entire white rock aquascape into a master reef tank handling all the uglies inside the tank, never having to remove rocks for guiding because he's reef picasso.

I can guarantee your biofilter will skip cycle for those fish but we'll need his scape tuning to avoid algae outbreaks

study his deft guiding of 200 pounds of white rock into a perfect sps system:

Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

EDIT: In conclusion, if using the method I did - connecting an established reef to a new system with dry rock (clean), I recommend the following: 1. Dose your new tank prior to connecting to your old tank with NO3 and PO4 enough to raise to your established tank levels. 2. Take your skimmer...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

the summary is that in any reef tank, we can set inside rocks without bacteria and that doesn't make the current rock unable to continue work

we could install 20 biobricks into anyone's reef display system, leave them there for two months to certainly cycle and become part of the biome, then instantly remove them and a seneye machine will show no change in ammonia control.

the base amount of rock the system is used to is always enough, we can add to or subtract from that without a problem in ammonia handling (reasonable subtractions, I wouldn't think 99% removal would be ok)

the key is permitting no clouding whatsoever around sensitive animals

uncycled rocks just take on the bacteria by association over time. it didn't short change us that they showed up with none. we did not need their initial help in ammonia control

alternatively, we can remove a lot of rock (and sand, this is a sand removal/neutralization thread) and what's leftover still does not cycle or mini cycle for a given fish load, because we're all using vastly more live rock in the display than what's needed, it's why negative aquascape systems still run just fine. the sum impact of this means your biofilter transfer via moving rocks into a new tank will not recycle at all, and the fish will continue on just fine.

don't forget to re ramp the lights it's a big deal to prevent coral bleaching in brand new cleaned systems. take about ten or so days to slowly work back up, don't get back to the current light intensity for a good while, no rush.

 

[MB1227]

Awesome thank you so much, I will look into that linked thread as well and keep you post as the tank transfer progresses. Do you see any benefit in keeping the old sand provided I rinse it 100% clean? Or would rinsed new sand be just as good if not better? The current sand is about 6 years old.

 

[brandon429]

I find no distinction between the two. I myself have traded off re rinsing old sand or just buying new over 17 years of rip cleans in my nano reef and the sum total impact is the same in my opinion. some folks like to change out phosphate-exchanged sand for brand new sand which then wants to uptake it all over again, truly since that runs independent to cycle control/preventing ammonia crashes I don't know how it impacts your algae battles long term. not sure on the long game there.

 

[MB1227]

I’ll get new sand then so I can have it rinsed and ready to go prior to moving the tank so I don’t have to delay getting the fish out of the tote

 

[brandon429]

before I just moved from Lubbock tx to austin, I had new sand rinsed to total perfection just sitting in an open bucket in my closet. moved it right over and it was 99.9% cloudless without any follow up rinse, added dry right into my transferred nano then just set everything right back on top. I just set the rocks and corals right on top of that rinsed but dried sand and it made it so nice not to have to pre rinse it along with the move hassle.

*allow any delayed use sand to dry don't try and cap it off to keep it covered it might get mildew.

if it's wet while it sits in an open topped bucket that would be ok/don't cap it off let it breathe

 

[LiquidSpace]

Okay so once I rinse with tap and then rinse with RO/DI can I just put it in? Or do I need to let it sit in RO/DI for a while or dry out?

I have been conditioned to think tap water is spooky.

 

[brandon429]

we just use it immediately. the sand grains will have clean RO water in the interstices vs tap water after that final rinse. if this was a 1-2 gallon pico that extra freshwater remaining in the sand might bring the salinity down when we pour in the saltwater over it, but not in any big tank. this whole thread has been tap water rinses + RO water at the end then full use in the tank.

agreed tap water is funky and chlorinated but our contact time is just too brief to matter or we'd have losses mixed in among the wins

frankly I'm ok with a little chlorine burning of the sand and it's waste anyway, I like to tap rinse mine/we're going for full sandbed neutralization here. *the risk in using anything other than regular tapwater is under rinsing, and leaving in the rot we're removing this whole time. any type of treatment added to tap water might run out, causing an entrant here to stop rinsing before they're 100% cloud free and that cloud waste retained is what's dangerous.

I find 0% issue so far in normal tap water rinsing from any person wherever they happen to live. the most important detail in this entire thread/ 2 million + bucks of reefs worked/ is that we rinse for hours until the sand is just nuked clear and then we test sections of the prepped sand in a clean glass container of water to ensure it does not cloud

then we reassemble the whole reef right on top of that prepped sand and refill: the bacteria attached to the rocks always carries our stuff as skip cycle provided no sand clouding remains.


*if someone did not rinse out the tap I still predict no harm, that's happened a couple times here but not often. I'm having everyone RO rinse just so we keep variables and outcomes aligned.

 

[wpapaslow]

before I just moved from Lubbock tx to austin, I had new sand rinsed to total perfection just sitting in an open bucket in my closet. moved it right over and it was 99.9% cloudless without any follow up rinse, added dry right into my transferred nano then just set everything right back on top. I just set the rocks and corals right on top of that rinsed but dried sand and it made it so nice not to have to pre rinse it along with the move hassle.

*allow any delayed use sand to dry don't try and cap it off to keep it covered it might get mildew.

if it's wet while it sits in an open topped bucket that would be ok/don't cap it off let it breathe

This actually addresses one of my questions.

Ill be moving from a 20g AIO to a 70g (40 disp, 30 sump). I don't have enough water storage to keep 70g ready to go in, so my thought was to rinse my new sand and add it to the display. Then fill the display with the ~30g of water I can make at a time. From there I could start filling my reservoir again in order to continue filling the display and sump. So, how long could I safely leave clean sand in fresh SW for without flow? Would a week be fine? I suspect it would be less than a day but like to prepare for worst case scenarios. This tank is in the same room, different location. On this same subject, assuming I have 99.9% clean sand, I could just fill the tank and add the sand later right? This would make for the least amount of time the sand spends in water that isn't circulating.

Here is what I have:
IM 20g AIO
~15-20lbs live rock that's recovering from neglect.
2 clowns
3 hermits
~20 BTA's
~10 Rhodactis Mushrooms
2 Leathers
handful of palys
Filter socks and minimal biomedia
Skimmer

The replacement:
WB 70.3
Original live rock
+~20 lbs of dry rock (Marco, hasn't seen water yet has just been blown off with compressed air)
Same bioload
New Caribsea Aragalive
Filter Roller
UV
Skimmer
2 media reactors if needed

My movement plan:
1) Clean and store sand in 70g display (I still havent devised a solid plan for the final rodi rinse. Should I just pump it into the rinsing bucket while agitating the sand?)
2) Fill WB display and sump
3) Turn on return pump and heaters
4) Mix salt in tank, match parameters as closely as possible
5) Dip-scrub-dip and transfer live rock and Marco in clean SW(may add Marco in step 1).
6) Transfer clowns and hermits
7) Beer?

In the future, I actually built an entirely new scape for the new tank. But knew I would be starting it with the old live rock and it would have to be in the display due to all the life on it. My plan here was to slowly rehome the nems and shrooms onto the new scape, then transfer the old live rock to the sump. The other half of the new scape would be "curing" in the sump.

 

[brandon429]

-can I safely leave clean sand in fresh SW for without flow? Would a week be fine?-

agreed it does not matter how long you leave it, we made the sand completely neutralized and inert by the pre rinse step, it can be dried then used later, or set in the new tank's saltwater and used on delay not a problem for sure. that you are transferring in all the new rock is what makes the skip cycle.

 

[MB1227]

This actually addresses one of my questions.

Ill be moving from a 20g AIO to a 70g (40 disp, 30 sump). I don't have enough water storage to keep 70g ready to go in, so my thought was to rinse my new sand and add it to the display. Then fill the display with the ~30g of water I can make at a time. From there I could start filling my reservoir again in order to continue filling the display and sump. So, how long could I safely leave clean sand in fresh SW for without flow? Would a week be fine? I suspect it would be less than a day but like to prepare for worst case scenarios. This tank is in the same room, different location. On this same subject, assuming I have 99.9% clean sand, I could just fill the tank and add the sand later right? This would make for the least amount of time the sand spends in water that isn't circulating.

Here is what I have:
IM 20g AIO
~15-20lbs live rock that's recovering from neglect.
2 clowns
3 hermits
~20 BTA's
~10 Rhodactis Mushrooms
2 Leathers
handful of palys
Filter socks and minimal biomedia
Skimmer

The replacement:
WB 70.3
Original live rock
+~20 lbs of dry rock (Marco, hasn't seen water yet has just been blown off with compressed air)
Same bioload
New Caribsea Aragalive
Filter Roller
UV
Skimmer
2 media reactors if needed

My movement plan:
1) Clean and store sand in 70g display (I still havent devised a solid plan for the final rodi rinse. Should I just pump it into the rinsing bucket while agitating the sand?)
2) Fill WB display and sump
3) Turn on return pump and heaters
4) Mix salt in tank, match parameters as closely as possible
5) Dip-scrub-dip and transfer live rock and Marco in clean SW(may add Marco in step 1).
6) Transfer clowns and hermits
7) Beer?

In the future, I actually built an entirely new scape for the new tank. But knew I would be starting it with the old live rock and it would have to be in the display due to all the life on it. My plan here was to slowly rehome the nems and shrooms onto the new scape, then transfer the old live rock to the sump. The other half of the new scape would be "curing" in the sump.

I’d make step 7, step 1

 

[brandon429]

I like challenges. if someone wearing such goggles dons them effectively, we'll get presented with a reef tank filled with tap water but rinsed in saltwater/ and our challenge will be to fix that live time before things die. I say bring it

 

[wpapaslow]

I’d make step 7, step 1

We'll see what time I start!

I like challenges. if someone wearing such goggles dons them effectively, we'll get presented with a reef tank filled with tap water but rinsed in saltwater/ and our challenge will be to fix that live time before things die. I say bring it

That's about what was going on when I picked this tank up. No light schedule, well water water changes with a splash of salt. Well water in the ato and feeding whenever it felt good. I intentionally bought an ugly stage I guess!

 

[brandon429]

Hey do you have a plan for the algae there once the sand portion is deep cleaned

there’s a neat way to use fluconazole there in an atypical way if you were taking offers on growback prevention

thats a tricky eutrophication job for sure, whats your main approach there going to be

 

[wpapaslow]

Hey do you have a plan for the algae there once the sand portion is deep cleaned

there’s a neat way to use fluconazole there in an atypical way if you were taking offers on growback prevention

thats a tricky eutrophication job for sure, whats your main approach there going to be

Grow back has definitely been an issue. As well as a seemingly permanent green tint to the rock. I'm open to options, but have been chemical free since picking it up. I did just start minimum dosing All For Reef though.

As for the sand, well that was a learning lesson. My gf is actually the one that spotted the tank for sale back in September. One thing led to another on the trip back to town and it was decided the tank would go to my place. She had already purchased some oolite to replace the sand with. Since this was my first tank(either fresh or SW), and her first experience with SW, we pretty much did all the wrong stuff...

First, tap water with a conditioner was used to fill the tank. The sand was rinsed, but also only in tap water. Clouding lasted about 24hrs, but was pretty minimal. To my surprise, the tank didn't crash from anything we had initially done. That was about the extent of her involvement in the $100 tank.

I went out and picked up a used rodi setup from the LFS promptly.

Since September I've been doing manual removal every few days. Weekly water changes, and regular filter sock changes. Lighting has been kept to 7hrs/day and lowest intensity, light feedings, and spot feeding the nems and shrooms. I had picked up a bunch of turbo snails. They did good work, but only lasted about a month. I'd loose one or two with every water change.

Now the only inhabitants are what I previously posted.

I don't like the oolite at all. Blows everywhere and I'm constantly basting a light dusting off the rocks. So I'm switching to special grade for the new tank.

This is where the tank is as of a week ago. The left rock has stayed algae free, the center rock continues to grow algae, and the rock on the right is hit or miss but doesn't seem to continue to grow like the center. I don't have any recent white light pics, but could grab some when the lights come on tomorrow.

 

[wpapaslow]

Oof... "live" sand or not I'll never not rinse after this. Im confident I got lucky when I first transferred the tank and added new sand.
Roughly one hour under the tap. Followed by a RODI & prime rinse, and then a final RODI rinse. Note the stir marks in the sand. I did that over the entire sand bed before snapping a pic.

Question though... would a dose of prime in the tank be a bad idea? I know our city water is treated with chlorine and not chloramine, and I'm confident in my rinse job. But I'd rather be over cautious in the move. The water treatment boys told me the ppm but it escapes me. We have pretty high quality water (when there isn't a forest fire near our water supply) in this mountain town. I hit 0 TDS before the DI on my 2nd hand RO Buddie.

Appreciate the thread btw. I haven't read all 53 pages. But I felt confident after reading a handful of them.

 

[brandon429]

I believe it's accurate to say that rip cleans can save people's reefing enjoyment.

GHA Has Destroyed My Passion for the Hobby

Title says it all. I've been in the fish game on and off for about 30 years now. I don't think my morale has ever been this low. I feel like my tanks are just becoming a source of stress in my life. My 20g reef (below) has been up since 2019, my FOWLR has been up since 2015, and I also...

www.reef2reef.com

*of note: look at the push back from the counter views. Counter views are ok in all aspects of procedure carving, but the sum total of warnings there are/were:

-this is a reset, it's bad for your reef
-you are better off leaving the waste inside your sandbed in order to not risk disturbance


It's some of the strongest pushback from the non rip clean advisors we're seeing lately, but the results shine through. I usually have to solicit about ten cleanup jobs to get one entrant, and Humu's work was so dedicated and so on par I thought he showed very rare resolve in pressing through the doubt and instead simply commanding his nano reef to comply vs just hope for it any longer. He's in my top seven best rip clean outcomes of all time.

pic succession, how the tank presented after him trying months of alternate control methods:

after rocks and animals were lifted out: look how the color palette of the system changed to yellow vs laser clear and black/red/purple reefing hues, this was hidden waste eutrophication up under his rocks hidden, out of view

Humu moved his rocks and animals to a very clean holding tank he had/nice preps handy. Look at the clarity of that water: it's laser clear, the display was what's filthy, the crowd wanted him to leave that display untouched and only dose things to the water to hopefully kill back the algae. that would have melted rotten GHA cells and added them to the mix of waste already in the bed we can see, which is bad/not good/and causes future cyano invasion issues.

his holding tank was #1 skip cycle transfer of reef life in this job logged.

He rasped is rocks with a knife, not a brush, and peroxide applied after the rasping. using brushes is what the masses do: it pestles bits of algae down into the rock interstices for regrowth, using a knife/steel/is like a dentist and dislodges algae like plaque using an exacting means which allows us to work around surfaces, we can rinse off those scrapings with normal saltwater.

his rocks are prepped now

He absolutely didn't cut corners on the sand rinse, it took hours. this was the nearly final assembly pic: laser clean, 100% clean, not 98% clean:

and here's the final skip cycle arrangement with fish/all laser clean no more algae:

Rip cleans don't prevent algae permanently. they are how you rid an infested tank of it, safely, and then you try to attain the means to prevent that regrowth from the clean condition, not the invaded condition

that's key to getting different results from what the crowd recommends, to leave in waste up under those rocks brings in new invasions cyclically over and over.

 

[brandon429]

@wpapaslow

hey I didn't get update alerts when you asked about Prime for some reason

I would not recommend it due to Taricha's thread in the chemistry forum showing it to be useless against free ammonia/a top claim made on it's label

for dechlorination perhaps it works/not sure, but if they're already in the hole -1 for claims on it I'm not sure I trust the other claims. Chlorine in tap doesn't harm our thread at all, all these rinse jobs are tap with no other treatment. our final rinse is with RO water to evacuate the tap, that's what's on file working without any hindrances

 

[wpapaslow]

@wpapaslow

hey I didn't get update alerts when you asked about Prime for some reason

I would not recommend it due to Taricha's thread in the chemistry forum showing it to be useless against free ammonia/a top claim made on it's label

for dechlorination perhaps it works/not sure, but if they're already in the hole -1 for claims on it I'm not sure I trust the other claims. Chlorine in tap doesn't harm our thread at all, all these rinse jobs are tap with no other treatment. our final rinse is with RO water to evacuate the tap, that's what's on file working without any hindrances

I didn't end up using any prime.

Got the changeover done today. Once parameters were in reasonable range between the old tank, rinse tank, and new tank, I started swapping.

No old water was brought into the new tank.

I scrubbed the minimal patches of GHA in the rinse tank. Also treated a couple aptasia that I knew of in there as well. I've accepted that annual berghia purchases will be necessary for aptasia control.

The rinse tank was setup with a filtered pump attached to a wand for blasting. I let the sediment clear between each rock.

To my surprise, everything was opening back up within an hour of being in the new tank. The clowns were curious, but remembered where home was. The hermits seemed to be most eager to explore the new digs.

All in all today was a success with no losses.

 

[brandon429]

You know why I'm impressed? Because that final assembly tank looks empty/ no water/ that's the sign of one heck of a pre rinse! Well done and thank you so much for the pictures and documentation this is really looking sharp