Anyone use Nature's Ocean Bio Activ sand?

[Steven777]

My brother just randomly bought me a few bags. Is it any good? I looked it up on this forum but seems like no one mentioned it. The sand looks fine and has some sea shells too. I'm still not sure if there's any better options that's why I asked.

 

[Abby A.]

I’m new to saltwater aquariums, so I’m not speaking from a ton of experience. I used that for my nano tank along with dry rock. The tank cycled very quickly (suspiciously quickly). I’m now about a month out from my tank set up, but my nitrates were 5-10 ppm and ammonia was 0 ppm after about a week of running the aquarium. I am taking things very slowly because I’m not sure how robust the denitrification system in my tank is.

It seemed like a good product to me. Don’t discard the water it’s packaged with and expect the tank to be cloudy for about a day.

 

[Steven777]

I’m new to saltwater aquariums, so I’m not speaking from a ton of experience. I used that for my nano tank along with dry rock. The tank cycled very quickly (suspiciously quickly). I’m now about a month out from my tank set up, but my nitrates were 5-10 ppm and ammonia was 0 ppm after about a week of running the aquarium. I am taking things very slowly because I’m not sure how robust the denitrification system in my tank is.

It seemed like a good product to me. Don’t discard the water it’s packaged with and expect the tank to be cloudy for about a day.

Thank you! Glad it turned out great for you. Which color did you buy by the way?

 

[Abby A.]

Thank you! Glad it turned out great for you. Which color did you buy by the way?

Had to check. I got natural white

 

[Steven777]

Had to check. I got natural white

But it's not pure white right? I guess it's more like tan.

 

[brandon429]

Rinse the sand in tap water for 30 mins until clear before use, no it doesn't strip away bacteria and when that does strip away bacteria, surgeons will lightly run their arms under cool tap for a surgery vs the half hour scrub in using soaps and disinfectants (what it really takes to clear off bac)
See the first page here, ten thread examples of what non rinsing will do

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

 

[Abby A.]

Rinse the sand in tap water for 30 mins until clear before use, no it doesn't strip away bacteria and when that does strip away bacteria, surgeons will lightly run their arms under cool tap for a surgery vs the half hour scrub in using soaps and disinfectants (what it really takes to clear off bac)
See the first page here, ten thread examples of what non rinsing will do

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

Hmm... It definitely won’t sterilize things of course, but I’d be surprised if it fully left all bacteria populations intact. To stick with your analogy (because that allows me to pull some data) rinsing hands with water will reduce bacteria to some extent

The Effect of Handwashing with Water or Soap on Bacterial Contamination of Hands - PMC

Handwashing is thought to be effective for the prevention of transmission of diarrhoea pathogens. However it is not conclusive that handwashing with soap is more effective at reducing contamination with bacteria associated with diarrhoea than using ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I mostly didn’t rinse because the BRS 160 YouTube series told me not to. I haven’t had any issues. That’s probably because it was a packaged, bacteria seeded product vs an actual established sand bed.

 

[brandon429]

We show alternate views plus data on about a hundred or more sandbeds all in one thread going on six years. Am comfortable stating there is zero, zero benefit from not pre rinsing. I opened with ten non rinsers linked for review using the recommended non pre rinse


it was rough for them, following the common advice (and bag directions lol) not to rinse but to add the flocculant and accept the silting.


I don’t know of any other sandbed studies using actual tanks for this long to establish a tenet. can't wait to see them if there are some regarding any test for repeating claims about sandbed outcomes



What it takes to attain complete tank compliance from a group should be represented, the advice to not rinse usually comes from someone who didn't rinse and things did turn out ok. doesn't work large scale though

We claim that natural sloughing of bacteria and storm recreation type cleaning are not sterilizing moves, that way context can remain accurate. by removing a top layer of bacteria, a bioslick of more bac is still underneath, specifically. We expect washing hands to remove bacteria agreed, the top portion


When you do a water change, you remove bac, did they matter? Nitrifiers are 1000% in the water, they're attached to the floc we call marine snow that all tanks have. by being attached to the massive surface area in the sand and on rock surface area, they're in numbers sufficient to induce ammonia removal and rinsing won't change that measure.

We show how all reefs can have the sandbed removed instantly, without ramp up, and the rock takes over= Sandbed bac don’t matter, they're redundant in the system and actually an oxygen tax.

To be specific, your sand passes an oxidation test for ammonia before and after a rinse. Silt is unhelpful

Don’t pre rinse tbs live sand, the kind with real live animals you can see in it wiggling.

hold up a clutch of that ocean direct=silt + really good sand. the case is totally closed on pre rinse vs no pre rinse. I could not locate any source nor article showing the benefits of mass silting if a powerhead falls or some access is required to guide out cyano etc, but that thread above showing the opposite stays active.

 

[Abby A.]

We show alternate views plus data on about a hundred or more sandbeds all in one thread going on six years. Am comfortable stating there is zero, zero benefit from not pre rinsing. I opened with ten non rinsers linked for review using the recommended non pre rinse


it was rough for them, following the common advice (and bag directions lol) not to rinse but to add the flocculant and accept the silting.


I don’t know of any other sandbed studies using actual tanks for this long to establish a tenet. can't wait to see them if there are some regarding any test for repeating claims about sandbed outcomes



What it takes to attain complete tank compliance from a group should be represented, the advice to not rinse usually comes from someone who didn't rinse and things did turn out ok. doesn't work large scale though

We claim that natural sloughing of bacteria and storm recreation type cleaning are not sterilizing moves, that way context can remain accurate. by removing a top layer of bacteria, a bioslick of more bac is still underneath, specifically. We expect washing hands to remove bacteria agreed, the top portion


When you do a water change, you remove bac, did they matter? Nitrifiers are 1000% in the water, they're attached to the floc we call marine snow that all tanks have. by being attached to the massive surface area in the sand and on rock surface area, they're in numbers sufficient to induce ammonia removal and rinsing won't change that measure.

We show how all reefs can have the sandbed removed instantly, without ramp up, and the rock takes over= Sandbed bac don’t matter, they're redundant in the system and actually an oxygen tax.

To be specific, your sand passes an oxidation test for ammonia before and after a rinse. Silt is unhelpful

Don’t pre rinse tbs live sand, the kind with real live animals you can see in it wiggling.

hold up a clutch of that ocean direct=silt + really good sand. the case is totally closed on pre rinse vs no pre rinse. I could not locate any source nor article showing the benefits of mass silting if a powerhead falls or some access is required to guide out cyano etc, but that thread above showing the opposite stays active.

It’s very interesting. My experience so far with my tank has been very good, but I guess I’ll have to check back in after several months or years.

It seems like results could vary per substrate used and rinsing technique used. Some individuals indicate that they eradicated micro-flora from old tank sand with washing. It seems like washing does have the potential to destroy portions of a microbiome. Also, to get a little bit reductio ad absurdum about the whole thing, sand is better then gravel. Following a logical albeit poorly defined thought process, there has to be a grain size where the downsides start outweighing the benefits of less sand silt.

As far as I could find, there really aren’t any articles supporting either side of this issue. Your input and experience is super valuable, but I also trust the BRS guys.

 

[Sako338]

I used this along with bio-spira and I was ready to go as well. I didn’t rinse mine and it took awhile for the silt to finally slow down. My perimeters have been great ever since. I am just running a fowlr tank though. I have 5 small fish, a peppermint shrimp, 4 snails, along with tons of copepods.

 

[Sako338]

I used this along with bio-spira and I was ready to go as well. I didn’t rinse mine and it took awhile for the silt to finally slow down. My perimeters have been great ever since. I am just running a fowlr tank though. I have 5 small fish, a peppermint shrimp, 4 snails, along with tons of copepods.

My diamond goby is constantly burrowing in it as well, I mean non-stop.

 

[Steven777]

I used this along with bio-spira and I was ready to go as well. I didn’t rinse mine and it took awhile for the silt to finally slow down. My perimeters have been great ever since. I am just running a fowlr tank though. I have 5 small fish, a peppermint shrimp, 4 snails, along with tons of copepods.

Good to know! Do you have the exact same kind of sand I have in the picture?

 

[Sako338]

No mine is extremely fine and white. I love it now that it has stopped clouding up.