Accidentally started a mini cycle cleaning sandbed

[b4tn]

Just like it says. When I was doing my last water change I cleaned the top of my 2" sandbed. A few days later my water was cloudy and reading .5 ammonia. So far livestock is not acting any different and the water has started clearing up over night but I'm still reading .5 ppm ammonia. I have 75lbs of sand and 75 pounds of live rock in a 75 DT with a 40 sump that has a skimmer and algae scrubber. I have been feeding approximately 1 cube a day of frozen food along with nori daily for over a month with no ammonia issues. I didn't think vacuuming the top layer of sand would be an issue.

I'm going to do a 10% water change today but was wondering if I should pour in some bio spira? I had good results using it to quickly cycle my sons 15 gallon and thought maybe it would help to quickly disperse the ammonia.

 

[TheEngineer]

Any level of ammonia is bad, so a water change is definitely in order. Sand beds are a tricky area, you want to do you best never to disturb them.

 

[b4tn]

Live and learn. I guess I will look into some critters for sifting in the future. What about bio spira? In my sons tank it killed ammonia in a day.

 

[TheEngineer]

We've all been there! I've never used it personally. I always saw that stuff as snake oil. I've heard of plenty of people using Dr. Tim's with positive reports. I can't say with any level of certainty it would work, but it might be worth a try.

 

[shane91]

I did the same recently and did 50% water change and added some stabilizer crap I had.. figured it couldn't hurt the tank even worse, by the next morning the tank came out to almost perfect levels

 

[b4tn]

I need to order some of the dr tims stuff to have on hand for my QT and hospital tank. I hear good things about it. The only reason I mention bio spira is I can get it quickly and easily at petco. I am going to do the water change for sure. I may pick up a bottle and hold on to it in case thinks creep up over .5

 

[shane91]

ive use bio spira for a start up and liked it but ive only used it once.. so I don't want to put a 100%confidence in it yet

 

[b4tn]

I am brewing 10 gallons of water now for a change. I also picked up a bottle of bio spira. I am going to change the water this afternoon and if I am still reading ammonia I will pour in the bio spira.

 

[brandon429]

Sandbeds are an interesting catch 22

if you go hands off, they store up waste and eventually kill the tank with OTS

if you constantly clean when they are new it prevents sinking and all waste is accessed in that two inches you cleaned without harm

if you take apart the entire reef of a dirty sandbed and isolate the corals and the rocks first, then rip out the whole bed at once and rinse it 100% free of mud, then put the whole thing back together, you get no mini cycle (years of threads we've made on this for searching, pics, outcomes, tanks up to 300g)

but if you take a hands off sanbed that is stored up, and disturb any partial amount, you risk losing the whole tank.



Sandbeds seem better ran hands off right up until unstoppable OTS sets in, and that's usually years or a decade on larger tanks so it only matters later on, prevention is key~

 

[b4tn]

So if you want to keep the sandbed it should be stirred up weekly?

 

[brandon429]

Its hard to claim a best method, my opinion is the mini cycles are caused by components within detritus rot that are mid-deamination (breakdown of aa's) and this yields ammonia as bacteria further digest/reduce proteins found in detritus stores. ammonia is held in pocketed areas in the bed, and then kicked up via X means into the tank to stress the delicates. How to prevent that organic storage condition beforehand is where procedures vary. kicking it up after having it set in is the risk, so the people that stir/siphon the top layers weekly are doing it before breakdown as an export. they aren't waiting mos or years after storage to begin, its a preemptive move.

In my tank, *only because its tiny* I usually put off all cleaning until a cyano layer starts to form, indicating work time. I take my whole mini reef apart in the steps mentioned above to isolate, then I blast clean out the entire sandbed with water to the point you cant find a single spec of detritus, and I put it all back together. hundreds of times, across threads going back to 01.

I believe at its dirtiest, if I partially disturbed mine it too would mini cycle. but if I take out all delicates before work, then rip the whole bed out and clean it and put it back in, Ive controlled the presence of all rotting waste stores contacting my delicates.

as much of a hassle as accurate sandbed care is, I still like them. to me a reef needs some sand just my take.

My way is simply to exclude detritus after having built it up in a way that's deliberate and stops mini cycles. Prevention of buildup is better.

 

[brandon429]

b4tn

as I think about your thread, truly if it was my tank there'd be a weekend of work coming up. any tank with the potential to have a mini cycle can either be fixed or staved off, and its the work that's the only daunting part. Correctly parting out and cleaning the reef -in order- will factually prevent a mini cycle, but that's work not many want to employ. Ill link my thread of this cleaning action

Not because every tank should be parted out. To exhibit complete control over cycling and how that upscales to larger reefs, if wanted.

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/lets-d...ndefinite-reef-life-span.222105/#post-2561119

*but what about the pods and worms within the bed?*

bye worms and pods, a rinse takes priority.
Detritus caused your mini spike and is a future concern, not anything else is the focus. the reef in the example had

my sbed isn't for worms, they are incidental. Detritus input needs to not outpace importance of worms if a hands off bed mode is wanted.
Sand is to hold my rocks up and look like a reef flat, worms and pods are incidental and reseed after cleaning. I'll claim deep sand beds do not reduce constant input of detritus into n2 gas, they might however reduce a single gram input of waste given six months time in a perfectly balanced bed. We are vastly outpacing claimed abilities with input, having to remain hands off to avoid a tank loss, while mass accumulates still, is specifically the cycle of old tank syndrome. Being able to produce an old thriving tank by rejecting detritus helps in establishing the case

 

[TheEngineer]

I don't think I agree with your suggestion, @brandon429. It may be true that sand beds can be the source of issues (a hotly debated topic). Your suggestion that you need to completely wash a sandbed seems ill-advised to me. You may have success with it, but it isn't practical for most refers with tanks of any appreciable size and for that reason alone I can't get behind it. Paul B has a 40 year old reef on here and notes that a DSB tends to last for about 10 years. I can't question that logic because his tank has been up for so long. That said, a more reasonable approach is to have organisms that sift the sand and help keep it mixed. That's fish, pods, worms, crabs, etc.

 

[brandon429]

agreed every claim needs to be challenged it drives our practices. Recent articles about OTS remark upon waste storage modes

Paul B has a reverse under gravel filter bed, water shoots up from under the bed into the tank. it is not comparable to our examples in that way... a detritus rejection design, ours are accumulating. The mini cycle of the thread was caused in a retentive sand bed.

http://reefbuilders.com/2015/11/07/tank-syndrome-revisited/


all in good fun good science




agreed with Ices point about disturbance of aged beds not prior cleaned, incorrect order of ops in ridding a tank of detritus will kill it

agreed that partially messing with todays typical sandbed is a cycle risk. I see ideal sandbed design as either detritus preventative or highly accessible and not in between

If someone has a tank that cannot mini cycle (not counting death of a fish for example) then they have designed a reef that will endure regardless of sandbed depth, grain, cleaning degree etc... points to ponder. When I read of any action outside of fish death causing a mini cycle, I went into sandbed attack mode but only because that is the specific action that keeps my old tank going and other old tanks we read about.

 

[nervousmonkey]

So if you want to keep the sandbed it should be stirred up weekly?

Yes, definitely. You need to remove the detritus that's trapped so that ammonia can't be released (or phosphates, etc.) at any future point. It's not even a bad idea to create a sandstorm with your powerheads on a weekly or bi-monthly basis just so that the detritus gets stirred up into the water column and into the sump and sock, or filter, to keep your sandbed as clean as it can be, or I should say, free from detritus as it can be.

 

[TheEngineer]

I agree that we need to figure out a way to better export "nutrients" (whatever form or type) from our sandbeds. I don't have an answer and I haven't had a tank setup without moving for long enough to know. I've personally done the complete sand cleaning a few times, but only when breaking my tanks down for a move. It does seem to work, but I'd never do it if I wasn't already taking it apart. I think if you regular mix the top layer of sand by whatever means you have available you will have a smaller likelihood of getting spikes when it is disturbed.

 

[constantflow]

It would be funny if everyone is using under gravel filters in 20 years...

 

[brandon429]

Paul B with the 44 yr old reef tank skill does he just hooked it up all backwards heh

 

[b4tn]

Lots of good references and things to research. Thanks everyone. I do need to look into the subject now before it becomes a bigger problem in the future. For the time I just finished a 10 gallon water change and ammonia is now down to under .25. I added a bottle of bio spira that I was able to get for free due to coupons and I will check again in 24 hours. As of now all corals are open, shrimp is still trying to jump on every fish that passes by and fish are acting like nothing is wrong. So here is hoping I got lucky this time around.