120 gallon rip clean

[CoralClasher]

I found a rod that fits in between and pushed out some junk.

 

[brandon429]

is it little trapped animals within that space/how amazing is that location/who would have thought? no that wont harm in that much dilution. The major rinse only needs to be the sand this is still on track. I would have never, ever thought of that. some minor clouding from that area can be filtered out using carbon, I hate for you to make that much water / that will be ok

 

[CoralClasher]

is it little trapped animals within that space/how amazing is that location/who would have thought? no that wont harm in that much dilution. The major rinse only needs to be the sand this is still on track. I would have never, ever thought of that. some minor clouding from that area can be filtered out using carbon, I hate for you to make that much water / that will be ok

Sounds good I’ll just let it sit for 30 minutes and suck a little bit off the bottom.

 

[brandon429]

hey that was smart call, agreed, can just still the tank it will settle. nice adjustment and nice dealing with surprises this is such good large tank surgery. the space in between overflows accumulates my goodness thats amazing to see.

 

[CoralClasher]

Are all overflow boxes like that or is this just a bad design?

 

[brandon429]

my reefs are all in jars ive never seen that before you've pointed it out lol nor on any prior move threads

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I do big rips all the time on tanks. One thing I don’t do is replace all the water, although I can’t think of why a compelling reason not to.

I typically will remove about 80% of the water before doing anything, and then just take everything out and get all the junk out by stirring the sand up and either removing it, or pushing it all over into the corner. Then, remove the remaining 20% of water, lay the sand back out, rebuild, and then add the water back. Corals never seem to care.

 

[CoralClasher]

I do big rips all the time on tanks. One thing I don’t do is replace all the water, although I can’t think of why a compelling reason not to.

I typically will remove about 80% of the water before doing anything, and then just take everything out and get all the junk out by stirring the sand up and either removing it, or pushing it all over into the corner. Then, remove the remaining 20% of water, lay the sand back out, rebuild, and then add the water back. Corals never seem to care.

The reason for 100% was Dino-X and other contaminants that has happened in the last five years. I’m sure things will be fine but I was hoping for a crystal clear rip clean and I can already see stuff floating and just a slight haze. I’m not stopping now almost full temp and salinity are good.

 

[CoralClasher]

I’m just about ready to add the sand back in. I did drain the refuge so this should be 99.9% water change. I’m not going to rinse the 160 pounds of Fine sand in the refuge just drain and fill. Monday I had to send my master light in for repair so I’m stuck with just one light that I can’t adjust, but I did set the lights to acclamation before I unplugged the master.

 

[brandon429]

its as clean as a whistle, we can comp with a shorter photoperiod if intensity is hard to adjust this is going perfect, about to be our flagship work example

what you are documenting has multiple uses in reefing:

preventative action. rip cleans are not harmful, or destabilizing, they reset the old tank syndrome clock back to zero and allow for a full life with lowest possible invasion.

house moves. There's no safer way to move any size tank than what you are showing, being cloud free and detailed and planned execution. backups ready/plenty of extra water and supplies

tank upgrades and downgrades. you've moved your stuff twice now, demonstrating that access is not harmful when its done with deliberation and primarily trust in your bacteria.

we didn't have to use bottle bac at any step because we're not killing existing bac.

this is how to go bare bottom if someone wants to remove a sandbed, or clean it

 

[brandon429]

watch how long it takes for your glass to haze up and need scraping, a while lol after reset.

 

[CoralClasher]

I decided to rinse the sand again because they definitely had a death smell, no sulfur smell or rotten eggs just normal dead worms a few days after fishing. Is two rinse enough or should I let them for a few days in saltwater and rinse again?

 

[brandon429]

if that sand was totally cloudless but still had a smell indicating protein degredation Id be amazed, since it was so much sand agreed we want it to be neutralized. clouding and smell tend to run hand in hand, nice detection on that

inputting it as it smells lol allows for variation in outcome I would clean it up nicely before reuse.

 

[CoralClasher]

Sand is in, pumps are on, everything looking good so far.

 

[brandon429]

Jon I want to thank you for documenting hard work and detail planning such that unpredicted events didnt stop or alter the course, this reads like a mini novel where you just kept direction and adapted to the challenges in live time, with $ and time and corals and fish on the line, decent level of working pressure for sure.

the tank has been flipped and spun clean in a shocking manner, you did reef dentistry and reef surgery all in one for sure many will benefit seeing this type of detailing. its first link posted in sr thread and it cannot fail at this point, the job was completed.
B

 

[CoralClasher]

Water this morning is crystal clear and no invert loss over night. I can tell the corals want some light but are all doing fine. I did run a few parameter tests two hours after everything was running and again now. Salinity, temp and pH all stayed solid. ALK went from 7.1 to 7.6, phosphate went from 0.22 to 0.33, No3 last night was 0.5 so I add 20ml of NeoNitro only because I’m paranoid now No3 is 2ppm. I did not add any phosphate. I haven’t added any bottle bacteria. Ammonia has been as close to 0 as I’ve ever seen on API test.

 

[brandon429]

With that level of coralline coverage in the system Jon you have inherent ongoing algae prevention in place, I’m also seeing up close detail on the rocks and it’s not plant whiskers it’s darn near all hard coralline which is bio rejecting to algae and chemically beckoning to corals and reef larvae.
Removing detritus from up under that system buys years of coral growth and clears the receiving spaces for all the feed we dump in our tanks (gets eaten then expelled as detritus/mulm/cloud)

Your system is hungry for feed and nutrient... you’ve cleaned the gut it’s ready for cyclic refill after the storm.

Lysmata shrimp might be the weakest creatures in all of reefing he looks happy there’s no better mine canary. Any free ammonia, the lysmata goes first.

 

[CoralClasher]

With that level of coralline coverage in the system Jon you have inherent ongoing algae prevention in place, I’m also seeing up close detail on the rocks and it’s not plant whiskers it’s darn near all hard coralline which is bio rejecting to algae and chemically beckoning to corals and reef larvae.
Removing detritus from up under that system buys years of coral growth and clears the receiving spaces for all the feed we dump in our tanks (gets eaten then expelled as detritus/mulm/cloud)

Your system is hungry for feed and nutrient... you’ve cleaned the gut it’s ready for cyclic refill after the storm.

Lysmata shrimp might be the weakest creatures in all of reefing he looks happy there’s no better mine canary. Any free ammonia, the lysmata goes first.

Don’t look too close at the rocks or you will see Aiptasia acting like popcorn. I’m mixing up some fish food right now and I’ll feed the corals with the drain water and phytoplankton. Is there anything else you would feed the fallow tank?

 

[brandon429]

that’s plenty good and diverse feed beyond norms, this tank is right back to cruise control ease

 

[brandon429]

Hey is that lysmata still kickin