we need this tested. I posted a thread the other day in gen forum about things only speculated about in reefing and never measured, this is one. If you'll test the sand initially to prove it even arrives live (cheap bucket of saltwater, dr tims ammonium chloride, sand -nonrinsed- and put in a mesh bag as filter media for a canister filter) you'll know in 24 hours if it arrives live as stated.
don't dose raw ammonia to 2ppm, 1/2 ppm or 1 ppm, any tiny amount that your test kit registers as a change from zero, is plenty for proofing.
don't dose to 2 ppm that's an arbitrary number off someone's bottle bac label it is not the required proof of nitrification for microbiology, and that much ammonia is hard to clear anyway from a place where surface area isn't taking up most of the tank. half a ppm is ideal.
after that test w pictures of the vials etc, then rinse the sand well using tap water, redo the test and lets see if it clears over nite or if it clears in 3 days, that last measure is critical to measure total sterility of the sample vs initial shock of rinse, if any.
if you take time to measure this, you're doing something brs hasn't done, none of the big posters who review things online have bothered to test etc. we're all guessing about pretty basic aspects of tank microbiology
if anyone here takes a sample of tap water out of the tap and has that analyzed on specific agar for mixed bacteria, it will test filthy dirty, ie tap water delivers bac to a sample it doesn't sterilize it. kitchen and bathroom cleaners must be used bc tap water is filthy, its not a cleaning agent alone. we need its effect on sand tested.
if a tap rinse kills the sand sample even out to 3 days, then redo another section of sand only as an ro/di rinse to see if that preserves it.
*i truly dont know if rinsing kills the bac, getting tap anywhere near my lab samples used to contaminate them horribly/bac are alive in tap so for the rest Im guessing/would enjoy seeing an actual test. in the sand rinse thread we dont care if sand bac die or not, thats why tap rinsing hasnt been critical. rinsing a sandbed in tap water and putting back is no more harmful than removing the sand altogether to go bare bottom, lots of people do that nowadays. we think sandbed bac dont matter, whether or not they're killed Id love to see in tests.
