Live Sand?

[hdsoftail1065]

Sorry folks, my intent wasn't to start a debate or cause any friction. I was simply sharing information because that's what we do here, we try to help each other out. For my needs my questions were answered. I have a better understanding of the product I purchased, and feel good about my decision based on my little bit of research and what my goals for my tank are at this moment.

 

[brandon429]

No harm at all, your email made me extremely happy. In all the years/never seen the manufacturer reply to things we used to guess about in the thread. Their prep measures, how bacteria easily live in the bag without feed, all confirmed above. Linked now to sand rinse thread, wonderful resourcing

Your email confirmation is among the coolest ones we're collecting... The Dr Tim one also ranks quite high

 

[hdsoftail1065]

No harm at all, your email made me extremely happy. In all the years/never seen the manufacturer reply to things we used to guess about in the thread. Their prep measures, how bacteria easily live in the bag without feed, all confirmed above. Linked now to sand rinse thread, wonderful resourcing

Awesome, thanks!

 

[KenO]

I have a great test


literally any reader reading with a sandbed, fire up your phone on vid.

reach in the tank right now and grab sand all the way to the bottom, and drop it, on vid. If you feel comfortable doing this test, then you've read the sand rinse thread

anyone who tries this challenge today will cloud bigtime, lets see. My tank could easily pass this drop test and not kill the whole tank and its 13 yrs old.

the above is a test for established systems, to see if not rinsing is dangerous (it is, don't try it ha)

but for new systems who didn't rinse, test is the same. someone drop test a one month old reef, you don't have enough waste yet to kill the system, that cloud w be evident.

Their sands are pretty clear, but not clear enough for our liking, so we rinse anyway. I know of no sands that don't need pre rinsing to be as clear as we're used to.

ive already ran the test on new sand, someone else can do it. it wont rinse clear first round, post the cell vid and we'll have the test completed. someone reading here today is setting up a new tank/easy to verify.

I know of 0 retail sands that wont mix up initially into a massive cloud, ocean direct included. Its what I use/familiar big time. I hear reef flakes are pretty clean, lets see em pass an unassisted drop test on vid.

I just added Reef flakes to two of my tanks. I had to rinse it over and over before the water stopped looking like milk. So even Reef flakes need a heavy rinsing before you add it to the tank. Even after all that rinsing, the water still had a slight white color to it. It did clear within a couple of hours.

 

[brandon429]

that's how I find all sands, great to know. we have someone right now getting some Fiji pink/new stuff to take a vid on the install without a pre rinse, its predicted to cloud.

None of this matters massively long term agreed. the retailers usually provide little packets of aggregating material but we're just always tuning these reefs in one way or another, this decade and likely next ill still be a rinser

this bed was three years old at the time of this drop test (it has been maintenance rinsed/it looks new but is ~36 mos or so due to maintenance is my point)



this is ocean direct.

without a pre rinse, the water is milk. With a pre rinse, its that snowglobe effect above. I don't know how they could describe the sands as any type of pre rinsed, they all milk pretty much.

-there's less flash silt/high surface area silicate to go into solution to cause diatom headaches for some reefs if we pre rinse... keeping the silt in the system even as a floc isn't ideal. flocs can be broken, and don't weigh much themselves, a powerhead falling down is still a death storm but not in one like this vid shows. disturb it however you want, no doom

any new tank clouding that happens in a pre rinsed bed is never, ever going to be the sandbed causing it, and that's happening in about half the posted cloudy water threads on any forum

 

[KenO]

I've used Fiji Pink in the past. It also needed a long heavy rinsing before using it.

 

[Be102]

I’m planning on buying new live sand ($5 more than Carib sea dry aragonite) and rinsing it whilst replacing my current substrate which is a combination of sand and crushed coral. I am choosing to go this route rather than trying to sift the sand out and remove the crushed coral. I’d like a full new sand bed and thinking of the benefits outweighing the drawbacks whilst rinsing say 3 new bags of sand.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

So seems to be lots of opinions on what to do on live sand. I was always told to rinse it in saltwater only because (we don’t put tap water into our tanks, some can contain trace elements of metals and copper). With this said was told to use a fine strainer and rinse in salt water. All of the fine sand gets through and the big rocks and or none find sand stay in the strainer. Personally I would never rinse in normal water since we are trying to prevent metals and alage growth in our tanks. So curious as to why some rinse with tap water at all.

With this said, there may be things I’m unaware of that’s a new technique or has proven it doesn’t matter. But even my lfs (when I was checking on sand for my 425 on Monday told me to rinse it with salt water over a strainer). So what am I missing here?

 

[hyeclass]

I am worried don’t want ick or any type of deceases, should I be worried