Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[Rennurdoar]

Just went through that thread and im seeing the same exact thing. After about the 5-6th wash im getting no difference in the wash clarity.

We used 40lbs of Caribsea Arag-Alive Fiji Aquarium, with the hose running into the bag, halfway into the sand, so constantly stirring itself, it took me 90 minutes, maybe even 2 hours. I stopped when I would get it stirred up and it still ran clear at the bottom coming out, and if the cloudiness in the top went away within a minute or two. I considered it done then.

Here's a picture of the tank just filled after:

 

[brandon429]

@Floyd-

New setup clouding isn't waste detritus it's OK to use what you've accomplished, merely cosmetic cloud for a little while until biofloc seals and combines the small particles to sink out of suspension

 

[malacoda]

Yes its CaribSea aragonite sand. Its nearly clear but still has a slight brown hue to it. Ive seen rinsing and siring it up for about 2.5 hours and it almost feels in vain at this point.

I've rinsed the sand from my 120g twice ... both times for tank moves. It's Caribea argonite. And both times it was never 100% clear ... but had a slight milky white hue to it. Like a drop of coffee creamer in a glass of water.

My suspicion is that it was new silt being formed from stirring the sand with my hand as I was rinsing. It is like bits of sand paper rubbing against each other when you stir it.

Anyway, it was a very obvious change — from brown coffee-ish color which was detritus, to slight milky white which, I suspect was just new silt.

I stopped there both times.

And both times the tank and inhabitants did just fine after it was put back in.

 

[Floyd-]

Thanks all! This sand was in my 150g for almost 2 years so it was real dark brown when I started rinsing it but cleared up very fast. Right now its just a tiny bit milky and I think that will be ok.

 

[brandon429]

I think David100 has done one of the most thorough, hardest working rip cleans I’ve seen. Proud to watch him force compliance in a decent sized reef, not an easy job

start:

years of aging are turned around in these specialized steps:

this was a rare time we did not do all the rocks and sand in the tank on the same day

we staggered the job- rocks externally worked about 90% by themselves first, set back on top of uncleaned sand for an extra couple weeks when an absolutely huge rip clean job all at once could be ran, correctly, with no rush. 100% all new water matching temp and salinity was attained

we couldn’t do all the rocks as thorough + the sand in one day, it would be 36 hours straight work

the rocks were cleaned in repeat jobs from start / bulk removal to endpoint micro fine knife point detailing, look how algae abutting the large toadstool coral was detailed clean exactly like reef dentistry, exacting

no bottle bac, no testing rip clean skip cycle enacted



the tank mid cleaning, where rocks were majorly removed and detailed about 75% of the way, put back, then re accessed a few days later gaining to fully detailed clean:

he built a holding tote of a deep cleaned rock for the filter base, heat and circulation:

he rinsed sand to true cloudlessness

and verified it was clean, in a test cup of water for each rinsed section, before putting back in the main tank


he took the main tank to the grass and washed it out, 100% of glass accumulations razor scraped then washed off so the tank looked clean


multiple days of dedicated cleaning were enacted but we did it all in a two week span / large tank old tank syndrome reversed

hes not going to get dinos now, or cyano…

for this final result

look at how eutrophic reefs are yellow, green, bright reflective palettes of color

look how oligotrophic reefs are muted, contrasting tones of blue and red and deep purple and black, modeled like the abyssal shelf reef what an amazing turnaround


******look at this degree of waste that would be left in the tank had he opted for fluconazole or other kill methods that degrade the algae in the tank

there was already the waste from years running, plus it would have taken on degraded algae waste, full surgical evacuation was key and required


the surface area is restored, the plugging growths no longer cover the live rock

the live rock crevices now see wastewater and nitrification rates are restored, the live rocks can now express waste vs have it pent up

he is free to use fluconazole now, as a preventative not the remover -if- required

he’s willing to do a few simple guiding runs of rocks outside the tank, they can be lifted out easily, before resorting to medicines

in some reef dentistry runs more than one cleaning visit is needed

the system will take on a new life trophic state since mass was evacuated by force vs hands off guiding

his topoff water can now be verified perfectly clean zero tds

Identification of his invader did not matter: any mass of that degree would best be handled by surgery and not internal degradation of the offending mass

allelopathic plant / cellular compounds and irritants are now fully gone, the reef will start to regenerate hermatypic corals and look at the quality of coralline and pigmentation and true rock aging that existed under the growths.

this isn’t a tank start over, we preserved his original cycle. A tank start over requires a new cycle: this was solely plant ejection.

 

[Rennurdoar]

Here's a better video showing day 5 after tank transfer and new sand with rinse and rock cleaning:

 

[brandon429]

So clean it looks empty now that's a rinse!

 

[Rennurdoar]

Day ten after tank transfer, haven't cleaned the glass in 2 days. Everything is just waking up in this video we took this morning.

 

[brandon429]

Hey that’s clean as a whistle

that’s an amazing rock stack, does it come like that dry then you cycled it, or are the stacks live rocks youve fixed together somehow?

 

[Rennurdoar]

Hey that’s clean as a whistle

that’s an amazing rock stack, does it come like that dry then you cycled it, or are the stacks live rocks youve fixed together somehow?

It's the caribsea tree kit. It's all caribsea rock also, none is glued together just sitting on each other. Easy to move if needed hah. The "tree" is all put together with a rod through all the rocks. You can rearrange the rocks differently also, I like it a lot

 

[Rennurdoar]

Just thought I'd bump the thread with a one month update on the transfer. Here's a video from this evening. Also added in some more rock work to help with the aquascape and structure for the fish (also have an orange/yellow lens for the video to take out blues now)

 

[brandon429]

thank you so much for update that’s not a small job! Still looks laser clear, a perfect transfer representation

 

[Makara23]

Apologies for not reading all 56 pages, but if I buy new carabsea live sand in a bag, do I still need to rinse it? I don't care much for beneficial bacteria, I have plenty on rocks and media already. I just want to avoid wasting hours rinsing if it's not necessary. Wouldn't the cloudiness eventually dissipate after a day?

 

[C4ctus99]

Apologies for not reading all 56 pages, but if I buy new carabsea live sand in a bag, do I still need to rinse it? I don't care much for beneficial bacteria, I have plenty on rocks and media already. I just want to avoid wasting hours rinsing if it's not necessary. Wouldn't the cloudiness eventually dissipate after a day?

Having dumped a single bag into a 20g long before unrinsed… it wasn’t worth it. Really just a couple rinses will quickly get it mostly clear which is good for new sand. If you throw the whole bag in it’ll look like milk and probably take a few days to settle down fully. Then you’ll have dust that gets kicked up every time you move something

 

[DDenny]

I will be upgrading my 4g to a 25g lagoon in the near future. I have sand to use in the new tank (dry sand that I picked up from a tear down about 10 years ago). I rinsed that sand a long time ago but will re-rinse it again just to be safe. Obviously I don't have enough liverock in the 4g to go in the 25g but trying to find some cured liverock locally to add along with dry rock from LFS. My worry is the new tank cycling again once I add the to livestock from 4g.

 

[i cant think]

Unfortunately back in 2019 I tried this method but it failed… I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed the sand to make sure it was okay but the smallest brown tint was left.
Unfortunately one by one my fish and coral went downhill until the last one was left…

None of those guys survived and I ended up having to use new sand (Which got added to 3 times over the 4 years this tank was setup). However even from that throwback of an upgrade I now have a thriving tank with 13(?) fish and hey, they’re thriving!

Ever since that upgrade I’ve never used old sand to help a new tank. I’m not against it and I definitely would try it again but not with my current stocking being worth what it is.

 

[brandon429]

@DDenny

we can skip cycle your entire new setup without any testing at all

post here once you find a source of live rock from another tank, let’s see it’s characteristics once found and for sure we can move 4g into 20 as a skip cycle

I can’t think: that is a powerful testimony to the risk involved in using sandbeds in reefing, the waste they store is powerful and on page one we linked other losses associated with incomplete or non rinsing

the way we got fifty more pages without that kind of loss wasn’t from using old sand rinsed but still cloudy, thats not the method

we got it by having everyone rinse for hours until a sample of the sand is verified clean in a separate container / the method is thorough but requires one million gallons of tap water for a common sandbed to be washed clean

death is in the detritus, the tank cloud

we rinse until the sand is ready no matter how long it takes. any large tank owner who foregoes using reef sand at all might be very well benefitted, look at the hassle and risk it involves just to get a cool reefy look for a tank

bare bottom tanks are safer, but boring and not for wrasses etc

 

[brandon429]

In a market based on sales, on adding $ diverse bacteria, what have we spent the entire thread doing


=Reducing bacteria using tap water to get the ends you wanted, not for charge

 

[brandon429]

What if diversity also can be attained freely, by simply removing unfairly- aggregated competition (the cloud) by the mode of backflushing an entire reef tank all at once

modern microbiology also knows bacteria stick to rocks despite the storm, and rocks retain all the bacteria and photosynthetic organisms we need to reach the ends we want



here's a recent job done by chat

a eutrophication/old tank syndrome turnaround

Look at AP's succession pics, we will get updates from them as well on upcoming battles: we will get to see how we handle the unknown here-the growback and prevention phase which hasn't occurred yet

follow his updates/sub here to see how the long term goes

GHA - Losing the battle

Hey all, I have been battling GHA since August of 2022. I feel like I am losing the battle here and do not really know what else to do. little info about my current tank: 25G Innovative Marine Nuvo - 2 clown fish - 1 pink spotted goby - 1 tuxedo urchin - 3 peppermint shrimp - 1 reef glass...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

see how that dentistry above used a metal scoring tool vs a brush, to jet off plaques adhered

that's what he did to his rock, sitting on the counter, exactly like that and the post flush was with saltwater then peroxide, it's nearly exactly the same order of ops from dentistry

we flush out the pores on his live rock, blanketed in waste and reducing surface area and filling up his tank with plant allelopathic/irritating compounds

we opened back up his surface area, restoring wastewater contact back to surfaces for increased nitrification ability

we allow his live rock to express waste now, small animals in the rock produce whole waste pellets and can't express them when plants rule and blanket the scape. it's now open, and breathing and expressing waste

dentists aren't applying bacteria into a mouth, they're extracting bacteria from it, harshly, and as a flushing/rasping method. we copied that

when the competition is removed, the natural fauna flourish.