Purchasing new saltwater tank - Including established sand - how to cycle?

[kevinyee]

I am purchasing a used tank that has been running for about 2 years and the owner will be giving me his established sand. I will be adding my brand new Marco dry rock aquascape as part of the build.

I am planning on doing a fish-less cycle using Fritz Turbo 900 and ammonia drops.

The question I have is should I rinse the sand with RODI water prior to putting in my tank? Or does that remove all of the established bacteria?

Thanks for the help

 

[PeterC99]

Welcome to R2R!

Rinsing will not remove the beneficial the bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

Kevin

its dangerous not to rinse it. And, ironically, its dangerous to rinse in the way you're planning because that's a limited water supply that may prevent a thorough rinse

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

if you study that thread you're resolved on sand permanently for the rest of the tank's adventures.

tap water is an unlimited rinse water supply, and no reef tank needs sandbed bacteria that has been 30 years of hype we neutralized above. this helps free up tank designs, works, upgrades like you're planning knowing this secret.

we have another opposite thread for folks who skip rinsing, to track those outcomes but I'd never recommend it. that's on page 1, above is page 58 and seven years of tap rinse proofing on clean starts.

cycle your dry rocks in a bucket or something the common way then add them to your tank, or cycle them in tank by adding bottle bac and fish food and wait two weeks/standard easy option.

**if you are using most of the live rock that came in the tank then its a skip cycle job and the dry rock you add is merely inert and catches up later, that's a skip cycle transfer to use any degree of the current live rock.

if you're changing it all out for new, recycle the new dry rocks per above.

 

[kevinyee]

Kevin

its dangerous not to rinse it. And, ironically, its dangerous to rinse in the way you're planning because that's a limited water supply that may prevent a thorough rinse

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

if you study that thread you're resolved on sand permanently for the rest of the tank's adventures.

tap water is an unlimited rinse water supply, and no reef tank needs sandbed bacteria that has been 30 years of hype we neutralized above. this helps free up tank designs, works, upgrades like you're planning knowing this secret.

we have another opposite thread for folks who skip rinsing, to track those outcomes but I'd never recommend it. that's on page 1, above is page 58 and seven years of tap rinse proofing on clean starts.

cycle your dry rocks in a bucket or something the common way then add them to your tank, or cycle them in tank by adding bottle bac and fish food and wait two weeks/standard easy option.

**if you are using most of the live rock that came in the tank then its a skip cycle job and the dry rock you add is merely inert and catches up later, that's a skip cycle transfer to use any degree of the current live rock.

if you're changing it all out for new, recycle the new dry rocks per above.

ty Brandon - I will read this

 

[brandon429]

additionally, its possible to move your tank without the rinse

but any study of tank invasion threads shows that mixing of waste formerly stratified where it sits now= doom likely in March via green hair algae and cyano, at the same time

per above, how many tanks on the 58 pages had doom at any time

we can click any entrant's name badge, select see all posts, and watch updates on their tank after the rip clean

the only downside of a rip clean is its a LOT of rinsing work to make surfaces free of attached waste.

 

[kevinyee]

additionally, its possible to move your tank without the rinse

but any study of tank invasion threads shows that mixing of waste formerly stratified where it sits now= doom likely in March via green hair algae and cyano, at the same time

per above, how many tanks on the 58 pages had doom at any time

we can click any entrant's name badge, select see all posts, and watch updates on their tank after the rip clean

the only downside of a rip clean is its a LOT of rinsing work to make surfaces free of attached waste.

Hi Brandon - after reading these articles, I have a couple choices

1) sandblast rinse of the old sand, add dry rock, and cycle the tank with bacteria (like normal) - one concern I have is that I have softened well water and not regular city tap water to do the blasting but I can do final rinse with RODI water. My original thought was to use established sand from a healthy tank to help cycle the new build

2) just buy a 20 pound bag of new sand, add dry rock, and cycle the tank with bacteria (like normal). Does the risk of using establish sand outweigh the benefits?

 

[brandon429]

its that the venture is untested, that's where risk comes into play.

we show that pure cloudless transfers work perfectly and also your well water is ok because the only reason we are rinsing after tap was to evacuate chlorine and chloramine if any, your well water sounds ok as-is if your family consumes it or brushes teeth with it really I think that's a lucky combo above.

the clouding from unrinsed new sand is merely chalk dust, annoyance, not harmful

the clouding from moving old sand contains the waste and the bacteria/danger factors yet to be pinpointed but you can see we have identified the locus of all the concern down to waste detritus in the beds. by excluding all waste-laden transfers we attain 100% no loss rate.

are you removing all that old live rock or keeping some

keeping any of it skip cycles the new setup, your inert rocks don't matter unless they're going to be the sole source of surface area sticking up into display tank waters then in that case get one bottle of Dr Tims bacteria, dump it in, add three pinches of fish food and wait two weeks and its cycled. there isn't any testing or tinkering required, that timeframe + feed is cycled in all cases. very handy cyclers trick

 

[Cell]

I'd scrap the used sand and see if they will spare you some live rock instead.

 

[kevinyee]

its that the venture is untested, that's where risk comes into play.

we show that pure cloudless transfers work perfectly and also your well water is ok because the only reason we are rinsing after tap was to evacuate chlorine and chloramine if any, your well water sounds ok as-is if your family consumes it or brushes teeth with it really I think that's a lucky combo above.

the clouding from unrinsed new sand is merely chalk dust, annoyance, not harmful

the clouding from moving old sand contains the waste and the bacteria/danger factors yet to be pinpointed but you can see we have identified the locus of all the concern down to waste detritus in the beds. by excluding all waste-laden transfers we attain 100% no loss rate.

are you removing all that old live rock or keeping some

keeping any of it skip cycles the new setup, your inert rocks don't matter unless they're going to be the sole source of surface area sticking up into display tank waters then in that case get one bottle of Dr Tims bacteria, dump it in, add three pinches of fish food and wait two weeks and its cycled. there isn't any testing or tinkering required, that timeframe + feed is cycled in all cases. very handy cyclers trick

I will only be receiving the sand and not the rock. He is moving the rock t his new tank

 

[brandon429]

you will love the any bottle bac brand (for cycling, don't get mb7 its slow get Dr. Tims or biospira or fritz) + 3 pinches of ground up fish food + 2 weeks wait = cycled for any surface area that sat in the stew that long.


once you begin reading old cycling science cycling threads, they make you think testing and tinkering is required, its not. sooo handy yep/mere two weeks stew in those conditions above equals a fully cycled tank.

final assessment to it all is disease prep. I sound like a broken record if anyone checks my post history but you would be amazed at the countless pages that have emerged of disease emergence in newly cycled tanks from skipping preps. all reading and focus here on out in my opinion needs to be around choosing a prep option for these new fish centering around fallow and quarantine in some way, even if that means you buy quarantined fish and someone else does the preps


some degree of disease prep is required for us to enjoy the hobby nowadays, a marked change in the last ten years has permanently occurred and we dont know why the fish disease forum is so busy every day for five years running, it didn't used to be that way.

every single case they work in the fish disease forum here to remediate issues uses fallow and quarantine, so starting there is also ideal

you can't mess up or fail a cycle, but disease prep is where the real predicted fish loss exists.

 

[Rmckoy]

Don’t even waste your time with the old sand !

the amount of gunk in it would only cause issues .
whether it’s now or 10 years down the road.
completely losing everything isn’t a risk worth taking .

buy new sand , rise to remove dust , dump into tank ,
Add rocks , water , ammonia source and let cycle .

 

[kevinyee]

you will love the any bottle bac brand (for cycling, don't get mb7 its slow get Dr. Tims or biospira or fritz) + 3 pinches of ground up fish food + 2 weeks wait = cycled for any surface area that sat in the stew that long.


once you begin reading old cycling science cycling threads, they make you think testing and tinkering is required, its not. sooo handy yep/mere two weeks stew in those conditions above equals a fully cycled tank.

final assessment to it all is disease prep. I sound like a broken record if anyone checks my post history but you would be amazed at the countless pages that have emerged of disease emergence in newly cycled tanks from skipping preps. all reading and focus here on out in my opinion needs to be around choosing a prep option for these new fish centering around fallow and quarantine in some way, even if that means you buy quarantined fish and someone else does the preps


some degree of disease prep is required for us to enjoy the hobby nowadays, a marked change in the last ten years has permanently occurred and we dont know why the fish disease forum is so busy every day for five years running, it didn't used to be that way.

every single case they work in the fish disease forum here to remediate issues uses fallow and quarantine, so starting there is also ideal

you can't mess up or fail a cycle, but disease prep is where the real predicted fish loss exists.

Don’t even waste your time with the old sand !

the amount of gunk in it would only cause issues .
whether it’s now or 10 years down the road.
completely losing everything isn’t a risk worth taking .

buy new sand , rise to remove dust , dump into tank ,
Add rocks , water , ammonia source and let cycle .

yea - the risks don't seem to out weigh the benefits when you can cycle a tank so quickly with Dr Tims

 

[kevinyee]

you will love the any bottle bac brand (for cycling, don't get mb7 its slow get Dr. Tims or biospira or fritz) + 3 pinches of ground up fish food + 2 weeks wait = cycled for any surface area that sat in the stew that long.


once you begin reading old cycling science cycling threads, they make you think testing and tinkering is required, its not. sooo handy yep/mere two weeks stew in those conditions above equals a fully cycled tank.

final assessment to it all is disease prep. I sound like a broken record if anyone checks my post history but you would be amazed at the countless pages that have emerged of disease emergence in newly cycled tanks from skipping preps. all reading and focus here on out in my opinion needs to be around choosing a prep option for these new fish centering around fallow and quarantine in some way, even if that means you buy quarantined fish and someone else does the preps


some degree of disease prep is required for us to enjoy the hobby nowadays, a marked change in the last ten years has permanently occurred and we dont know why the fish disease forum is so busy every day for five years running, it didn't used to be that way.

every single case they work in the fish disease forum here to remediate issues uses fallow and quarantine, so starting there is also ideal

you can't mess up or fail a cycle, but disease prep is where the real predicted fish loss exists.

Thanks Brandon for all of your guidance - so technically after 2 weeks I can do a Nitrate test and if high, my tank is cycled and I can do a 75% water change and I am in business !!!

 

[Rmckoy]

yea - the risks don't seem to out weigh the benefits when you can cycle a tank so quickly with Dr Tims

How much old decomposed crud is in that sand ?

will it break down eventually releasing hydrogen sulphide ?
what’s the effects of this in a established system ?

why not disturb deep sand beds in established tanks ?

You’re call . Use the sand cause it will save maybe $50

not bad when you consider the cheapest fish in my 230gal to replace after a tank crash for this exact reason cost $150-$200 each to replace

 

[brandon429]

That's incorrect above

You're done even if the kit shows nothing, or elevated readings, having zero on nitrate means nothing about cycled as hundreds of full running reef tanks here are zero nitrate and have to dose it. The fish food doesn't provide a massive spike of nutrients i expect a cheap test to catch. This is a testless cycle setup above.

If you're determined to test/ many are then buy a seneye for $180 and run liquid ammonia verification on the setup on day 14, it'll pass

Only ammonia control matters in updated cycling, not nitrate and certainly not nitrite. We can predict all cycle completion dates before the build is even done... we're using the same science marine conventions use so that all 3oo tanks are ready by Friday

If you use anything other than seneye to cycle your reef expect to be misled about cycling and what bacteria do in water... go seneye or go predictive only for the win

 

[brandon429]

If you forego this super easy cycle set from above and instead dose 2ppm liquid ammonia on a non seneye test kit approach, expect problems and a ten week delay to which we'd have produced a ready tank in 14 days.

Old cycling science will get you three specific things: fish disease by aiming all concerns and study at neutral params like nitrate and nitrite, it'll get you open ended waits for completion vs timeliness and lastly it'll get you permanent doubt in what filter bacteria do which affects future reefing stability when disease or tank transfers arise

Old cycling rules are bad lol
Predictive cycling and all reading centering on disease is where the wins are at

New cycling science= your cycle is done in fourteen days no testing required using the above arrangement. It means we could run this in a barrel of rocks two weeks before the conventions, cart them to the convention, set up an instant reef with them and carry for sale fifty thousand dollars in bounce mushrooms as long as you want to be there. Timeliness

 

[brandon429]

Most convention tanks are the live rock skip cycle transfers we were searching for above, but that's how to make new rocks compliant by a given date above.

A convention cycle isn't temporary or weak they are equal cycles worthy of carrying a businesses massive investment. Nobody trusts a weak cycle to carry fifty grand in bounces

Sellers know the doubts and the rule sets the buyers use, and they leverage the heck out of this procedural gradient for profit.

 

[kevinyee]

If you forego this super easy cycle set from above and instead dose 2ppm liquid ammonia on a non seneye test kit approach, expect problems and a ten week delay to which we'd have produced a ready tank in 14 days.

Old cycling science will get you three specific things: fish disease by aiming all concerns and study at neutral params like nitrate and nitrite, it'll get you open ended waits for completion vs timeliness and lastly it'll get you permanent doubt in what filter bacteria do which affects future reefing stability when disease or tank transfers arise

Old cycling rules are bad lol
Predictive cycling and all reading centering on disease is where the wins are at

New cycling science= your cycle is done in fourteen days no testing required using the above arrangement. It means we could run this in a barrel of rocks two weeks before the conventions, cart them to the convention, set up an instant reef with them and carry for sale fifty thousand dollars in bounce mushrooms as long as you want to be there. Timeliness

OK there is a lot of misinformation out there. So to be clear, this is how you would cycle my new build

1) New live sand
2) New dry rock
3) Add Dr Tims or Fritz 900
4) Add dry fish flakes (do I only do this once or continuous?)
5) Wait 14 days
6) Do not need to test
7) Add a hardy fish

I was reading that the ammonia turns into nitrite and nitrite turns into nitrate (which completes the cycle) and therefore you do a 50 - 75% water change which will be safe for livestock

 

[brandon429]

You don't need a water change above because a few ground up pinches of feed doesn't overpower anything it's a time delay cycle option. Adding feed once will work or even twice/ once more in the second week is fine.


The big water change is when people dose massive amounts of ammonia/2ppm is massive and overpowers most entry test kits you can see in any common stuck cycle post

This method above simply uses the wait time to feed all the bac. It's done before two weeks but that's an easy pick date to make it all testless. When you add the hardy fish it's into a cycled tank so it won't matter if it's hardy or not, it's waste and feed will be carried. If that fish is from a pet store, that's the first disease vector

And if it's from a quarantined setup, then it's not. That first fish is the breakpoint for most between having or not having disease preps in place

This setup above may or may not register nitrate and nitrite on cheap test kits that's why they won't factor. If you had seneye for ammonia, hanna digital for nitrite and nitrate i guarantee you'd register the appropriate metabolites

But that expenditure isn't needed we make testless cycle predictions routinely nowadays using convention cycle rules and they've been perfecting those for thirty years (but not telling the buyers, they want em scared about stalls so they'll click buy over and over lol)

 

[TCoach]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

Kevin,

This is how I moved my +16 year old tank in April. Followed the instructions and had no issues. Actually did a 100% sand replacement during the move since I already had it for the original reef tank I was building out. Been 8 months now, and reef tank is thriving!

Can't recommend this method enough. Clean rinsed sand during move (old or new) and most time bomb issues are removed.

Best of luck.