Cycling a new Biocube 32

[brandon429]

It is clear now why people go bare bottom. Detritus piles into one corner and with a one gallon focused water change siphon remove, they take out all the waste but a tank with sand has to undergo surgery, and new water, to export the same.


this is the price of using too much surface area in reefing. It’s a catch all, and 1/3 of the surface area we work with in reefing is still more than enough.

i myself want sand, and am willing to work it as needed, plus a pico reef is no real work even when it is work.

i haven’t rip cleaned in about two years.

i do have sandbed accumulations. my upper layer sand has a dirt layer

but there’s no algae so I don’t care. As soon as some tufty algae pops up, thats the storage breakpoint for the system and ill rip it again.

 

[Daniel266jz]

It is clear now why people go bare bottom. Detritus piles into one corner and with a one gallon focused water change siphon remove, they take out all the waste but a tank with sand has to undergo surgery, and new water, to export the same.


this is the price of using too much surface area in reefing. It’s a catch all, and 1/3 of the surface area we work with in reefing is still more than enough.

i myself want sand, and am willing to work it as needed, plus a pico reef is no real work even when it is work.

I think I will be getting another 5 gallons of water and performing a clean myself this weekend. I’ll be reading up these next few days on the RIP clean method and will get back to you with any questions before I go ahead and do my clean. I’m excited to do this and yet again prove that the RIP clean works and not using chemicals will always help in the long run

 

[Daniel266jz]

My first question is, how do I go about cleaning the rocks that have anemones on them? Should I take a small amount of salt water and use that to rinse this rock carefully and use peroxide on it but not on the anemone? Can I use a q-tip to apply the peroxide to specific areas? Also I’d like to mention that all my rocks are removable and if not can be accessed pretty easily, I only have two epoxied togethe but I wouldn’t mind breaking these apart. Thanks

 

[brandon429]

Yes, you can mister bottle saltwater on them while out of water, or pour lightly across them while you dab on peroxide from wet paper towel stamp or q tip then rinse in any saltwater.

Pouring some saltwater across rubbed clean areas, peroxide spotted areas of rock, avoiding coralline will easily rinse away accumulations. *i dont rinse my rocks anymore they’re nearly all coralline

my rip cleans are pure sand assaults. Next time I might just replace whole bed.

coralline locked rocks reject algae.
but at the same time, coverage of coralline 90% closes off pores and surface area which then permits very little detritus incursion but at the expense of presenting filter surfaces to tank water. My tank isn’t high bioload, so the surface area is still enough.

surface area is always a double edged sword, having more than needed means work is due extra, somehow. My work zone is the sand, it will fill up soon and get cruddy and I’ll be forced to act.


yours is fresh new open rock...that it takes on some waste and some pigment is expected.

you get to detail keep what you prefer, and kick out what you don’t. It takes either a reef designed to not catch waste such as very high flow, bare bottom setups, or it takes willingness to hand guide the waste out when we can see it’s effects to earn total coralline coverage.

Use a knife tip scrape if you saw some anchored algae. That’s coming soon if not already, use metal to dislodge bryopsis or higher algae when present.
after reassembly, you can contemplate ways to mitigate detritus other than rip cleans, and your tank will run perfectly as you consider options.

 

[Daniel266jz]

Yes, you can mister bottle saltwater on them while out of water, or pour lightly across them while you dab on peroxide from wet paper towel stamp or q tip then rinse in any saltwater.

Pouring some saltwater across rubbed clean areas, peroxide spotted areas of rock, avoiding coralline will easily rinse away accumulations. *i dont rinse my rocks anymore they’re nearly all coralline

my rip cleans are pure sand assaults. Next time I might just replace whole bed.

coralline locked rocks reject algae.
but at the same time, coverage of coralline 90% closes off pores and surface area which then permits very little detritus incursion but at the expense of presenting filter surfaces to tank water. My tank isn’t high bioload, so the surface area is still enough.

surface area is always a double edged sword, having more than needed means work is due extra, somehow. My work zone is the sand, it will fill up soon and get cruddy and I’ll be forced to act.


yours is fresh new open rock...that it takes on some waste and some pigment is expected.

you get to detail keep what you prefer, and kick out what you don’t. It takes either a reef designed to not catch waste such as very high flow, bare bottom setups, or it takes willingness to hand guide the waste out when we can see it’s effects to earn total coralline coverage.

Use a knife tip scrape if you saw some anchored algae. That’s coming soon if not already, use metal to dislodge bryopsis or higher algae when present.
after reassembly, you can contemplate ways to mitigate detritus other than rip cleans, and your tank will run perfectly as you consider options.

Hey I’ve been reading about the rip cleans. I don’t want to mess up so is it okay if you can do a step by step for me. I have 10 gallons of new salt and will reuse the rest of the old water. I was actually thinking about getting new sand since it is on sale(dry sand) how will this fit the process. I just want to have a clear guideline to go off off for my first rip clean. Definitely will post pictures of the whole ordeal

 

[brandon429]

for sure. its total tank surgery and feels weird to even type it out, though it will be job #549 without recycle loss

-only the detritus matters and its not even likely toxic this early, but for good practice, everything we're doing is eliminating cloud and enhancing clarity, we trust that bacteria always tolerate these actions.

begin by catching what fish u can and holding alone in bucket of sw/tank water extract. matching temp and salinity is whats required here, no other params matter.

eventually you want fish held in clear water, and perhaps some frags tossed in their bucket too but not live rock if possible. for good practice later on in rip cleans, live rock itself usually sponges up detritus, and it leaks when we relocate them, so typically we don't hold fish alongside surfaces that contain clouding/ongoing rule.

so now you have a mostly drained tank

fish alone or w frags

rocks in another bucket of water, swished clean, thumb-worked, good spots left in place and bad spots taken out like a dentist. that cloud free ready rock sits in its own clean water. this group here is your saltwater-only filtration bacteria. they tolerate peroxide, cleaning etc just fine.

now its just sand and a mostly drained mudwater tank.

clean it all. use peroxide paper towel on the bare glass, if youre going this deep might as well reassemble shiny gem

*tap rinse in cool tap water the sand in a bucket in the tub or outside, over and over, 40 mins I bet, until total clarity.

final sand prep rinse is saltwater or RO, to jet out the tap.

reassemble everything it will skip cycle because there is no cloud whatsoever. it will be 100% clean and gemlike upon refill, and take your light cycle back down again/ramp back up over a week.

this will buy you 2-3 more mos of stasis as we brainstorm work reducing options and stocking etc.

 

[brandon429]

*all that craziness is how they set up hundreds of reefs at reef tank conventions.

that's the relocation process to move homes

or to move skip cycle systems from a pet store to our home.


or to beat dinos.

or to prevent them, by removing detritus.

or to simply refresh a running reef for no reason other than prevention...these moves above are helpful not harmful because they reduce cloudy mass that takes up your vital surface area and plugs it up. when that mass is removed, your pores are re opened and filtration ability increases until its all filled back up again one day with casted pod shells, fish waste, room dander wafted in, feeding waste/all elements of detritus.

 

[Daniel266jz]

*all that craziness is how they set up hundreds of reefs at reef tank conventions.

that's the relocation process to move homes

or to move skip cycle systems from a pet store to our home.


or to beat dinos.

or to prevent them, by removing detritus.

or to simply refresh a running reef for no reason other than prevention...these moves above are helpful not harmful because they reduce cloudy mass that takes up your vital surface area and plugs it up. when that mass is removed, your pores are re opened and filtration ability increases until its all filled back up again one day with casted pod shells, fish waste, room dander wafted in, feeding waste/all elements of detritus.

Thank you very much for that write up I will start this here around midday and I’ll be taking pictures and putting in some elbow grease. So to be clear all I have to do is wash the NEW sand and put it in no problems correct? I have RODI to use as the final rinse for the sand unless saltwater is better?

 

[brandon429]

RO di is best/cheaper. even if you didn't evacuate tap its not a big deal but we're being super thorough yep. cloudless reassembly is the total key, and how we hold sensitives separate while tank is on the surgery table/counter.

 

[brandon429]

any method in reefing has associated losses. anyone contemplating a rip clean of a running reef deserves the full picture assessment of times it went bad/horrible / negative outcome:

- in 33 pages of the sand rinse thread, we have never lost a tank or a coral bc everyone rinsed correctly. We have lost two fish upon re setup; and they were both gobies. Unable to comment as to causatives, cuz we transferred gobies in many other setups. Based on that pattern, I feel you have zero percent chance of systemic issues and a 1-2% chance at goby loss.

 

[Daniel266jz]

any method in reefing has associated losses. anyone contemplating a rip clean of a running reef deserves the full picture assessment of times it went bad/horrible / negative outcome:

- in 33 pages of the sand rinse thread, we have never lost a tank or a coral bc everyone rinsed correctly. We have lost two fish upon re setup; and they were both gobies. Unable to comment as to causatives, cuz we transferred gobies in many other setups. Based on that pattern, I feel you have zero percent chance of systemic issues and a 1-2% chance at goby loss.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be continuing on with this clean. Shall I leave the rock in a container while the sand gets clean outside and then reintroduce sand with some of the old tank water and let it sit while I clean each rock and add them in one by one? Of course I’ll fill more water up each tome a rock is added until I’ve cleaned and added back all of the live rock then come corals then come fish? Does this seem like a good idea?

Steps would be
1) get new tank water to correct temperature
2) start draining tank into holding bins
3) take out fish while draining tank and store in clean re-usable tank water (corals also)
4) left over sand and water will be all taken out and thrown out, I’ll also be dumping about 8-10 gallons of the last siphoned water in the tank to replace with fresh saltwater
5) I will have the new sand rinsing outside while I clean entire tank with peroxide wiping
6) once sand is done cleaning I will add in the clean tank along with 5 gallons of old tank water and let it sit while I clean my rocks and slowly add rocks and water until full
7) add back corals into desired position
8) add fish
9) stare at a clean tank and take pictures


Let me know if this sounds correct

 

[brandon429]

ok yes! i was envisioning where cloudy detritus could get in, can't. looks good and nice thorough preps here this is good care instructions for your thread and tank.

 

[Daniel266jz]

My RIP Clean:
I started my clean at 2PM, I set aside my fresh saltwater and started setting up my work station...

 

[Daniel266jz]

I started cleaning the sand and this is why I got after an hour and a half outside with a running hose, along with two hours of hand washing all in tap water then rinsed in RO/DI twice...

 

[Daniel266jz]

Here are some before pictures...

 

[Daniel266jz]

After my sand was done I took out the rock and put it into a holding container, my cleaner shrimp followed along ...

 

[Daniel266jz]

I cleaned my tank with a damp peroxide napkin about three times along with the bottom of the tank then dried up with more towels and in went the new sand plus some pictures of the tank siphoning...

 

[Daniel266jz]

Here is the tank now, spic and span with very white sand and clean rocks. All the corals opened up right away and fish are swimming around happily. Inverts didn’t mine the clean at all also my cleaner shrimp is well and walking around, all the fish look good so far so I’d say a 0% fish loss. Although the water still did get cloudy no matter how much I washed the sand and it looked very clear, I put in three layers of fine filter floss to get all of that out by morning. My lights are on low acclimation and will be for a week before I start Ramping up. I also included some pictures of my new candy cane and acan corals

 

[brandon429]

HOW great for your complete management thread what a great detail to wake up to! Perfection.

Snails and that cleaner shrimp are the most sensitive animals in the tank, they replace all tests for ammonia concern, by surviving it means you conducted surgery AND made live-time adjusts and modifications based on your instincts just right. By tomorrow it’s going to be totally clear and will run a good while in that condition as you consider future balances/adjusts to lower work load

you did not try and figure things out in the pre-invaded condition but now in the clean one, perfect nano reef method.

 

[Daniel266jz]

HOW great for your complete management thread what a great detail to wake up to! Perfection.

Snails and that cleaner shrimp are the most sensitive animals in the tank, they replace all tests for ammonia concern, by surviving it means you conducted surgery AND made live-time adjusts and modifications based on your instincts just right. By tomorrow it’s going to be totally clear and will run a good while in that condition as you consider future balances/adjusts to lower work load

you did not try and figure things out in the pre-invaded condition but now in the clean one, perfect nano reef method.

Thanks! Everyone is fine and dandy this morning and the tank cleared up I might put in a different filter floss to completely clear it up. All corals are open and even my dragonet is hunting for pods. The sand is squeaky clean with no issues and no fish loss. I did have my firs fish jump overboard during cleanup but he made it ( always believe when they say you need a cover when having a fire fish lol even in a holding bin) I’m extremely happy with the clean, after I blasted the rocks and cleaned them as I was putting them back in the tank NO gunk came out of them at all.