Live Sand?

[brandon429]

I can relay one undoubted shift we've caused in the hobby:

the hands off sandbedders are now the minority (and they're all large tankers, long-term nano keepers know to keep clean)
the rinsers, or the light weekly work top stirrers are now the majority, having responded in technique to all the problems hands off reefing caused over the last 20 yrs. someone start a poll

the dying approach: stick a sandbed arrangement of any type in a reef, arrange it to reduce vs produce nitrate, have tons of fish about it producing waste right into the sand daily, and never touch it (Berlin approach from the late 90s)

the new approach: change the diaper in some creative way. disallow invasions, don't agree to them. save your investment don't take chances with it <---more of a remark about rinsing old sandbeds vs new ones, there's nothing truly bad in a new sandbed just a little powdered silicate nbd but annoying

 

[Brew12]

Rinsing live sand seems singularly pointless to me. Do the beneficial bacteria stick to the sand grains but the harmful ones do not?

I feel live sand is pointless, but I feel rinsing all sand is beneficial.

Good and bad bacteria will both stick unless it is floating around in the water the sand is packed in. When I run a QT system I remove the sponge from the HOB filter every 4 to 5 days and rinse it out very well under tap water. It still processes ammonia just fine when I put it back in the system.

 

[brandon429]

me too, vs replacing all the eheim material in my large fw planted setup I just tap rinse it back to porosity restored/mud down the drain and flow/filtration gtg for 2 mos

 

[Stigigemla]

What I have read about the Berlin system is that they didnt use sand and had circulation in order to not have any detritus buildup on the bottom.
All the bacteria we need comes with the stone if it is cultured or wild. It is enough with 1 or 2 stones to get a population that will spread in to dry rock.
It is not only bacteria. Live rock has worms and pods in it thats continually rinsing the pores. I recommend all my beginners to start that way. Just wait a month before adding sand after removing all the detritus that will gather on the bottom. If you only use dead rock it will clogg in a year or so and You will have problems with the tank. There is many threads here with that problem. With 1 or 2 live or cultured rocks You will have your stones in function for several years.
Brandons post 20 is very good.

 

[Walts O]

How do you like the height of your tank was thinking about same tank just worried about tank height for aquascaping purposes

 

[cracker]

I don't believe live sand is all that alive in the 1st place . I thinks it's all about the silt. It looks bad when every time you stir it there is a cloud. I didn't wash my last & took me 2 years to vacuum this silt out. I also think it will promote the sand to rock up on You. I'll always wash' any" sand I use for these reasons. If it takes out some bacteria it will return during cycling & maturing.

 

[brandon429]

There's no doubt a long term, hands off sandbed keeper with perfect sps over an eighteen year undisturbed bed (again we'll hope for no big power outages, or rock slides, or powerhead dislodgement etc) and they're scoffing at my mention of old bed rinse. Both of them.

better insert a disclaimer

Most everyone here started reefing with a hands off bed, we know it works. What made you shift? Above I'm reading about silt, even after initial floc settling. Agreed, mine used to cloud up until... sand rinse thread



The bell curve time frame for hands off bedding working well tends to comprise the entire lifespan of most young people's reefs, that's why everyone started that way if your first reef was in nineties or early two thousands. Then there are the outliers, artists who can go multi decade not rinsing... rare airs. Given the last twenty years, the majority didn't sway towards that because of inability to replicate results among ten thousand reefs.

Ten thousand clean sandbed reefs run fine, but it takes artistry, tendency for the hobby etc to do twenty years on a hands off sandbed-and hardware luck-we must account for why some people right now could locate that which I speak against.

When I was young I never stayed in one house more than a year or two.

That's within the life expectancy bell curve of a hands off bed. a hands off sandbed will run that long in most tanks, ergo we should never touch the sand based on my whole two years observation, that's early sandbed philosophy. That paired with oceanic studies which don't apply much in our concentrated aquariums caused the early hands off approach.

keepers by and large aren't staying in one location long enough to fully see the bell curve of the hands of sandbed, for the vast majority. As soon as someone loses a six year investment to an invasion we could have prevented with a terribly simple tank arrangement, they'll never be caught storing detritus again. gotta get burned once to feel empowered to break rules of the day.

My first reefbowl would be eighteen by now but darn that early hands off paradigm and my unwillingness to challenge it, at the time. We thought three years was geriatric old for a pico reef back then... it had limitless lifespan potential the whole time, we didn't know. We were told by authors that all sandbeds reduce nitrate and mineralize all detritus into nothingness. Then the sand rinsers emerged/ covered in thick primordial mud; grumbling phrases only the likes of them can understand. driven mad by cyano and lasting diatom invasions.

and we seized limitless biological lifespan-- the slaying of old tank syndrome, without hesitation.

 

[Stigigemla]

My 410 gallon tank made it for around 8 years with a sandbed of 1 to 2 inches. But then it was impossible to vaccum off all the detritus in the sand. It was so much accumulated in the sand under the stones so it did quickly clog the vaccumed parts of the sand. I just took down the tank (12 years with salt) and after removing the stones it was a layer of 1/2 to 1 inch of detritus all over the bottom. Now I will build a new tank of about the same size and use a Rollermat from the beginning. Maybe bare bottom - I will decide later.

 

[brandon429]

I could not help but notice Mike P's new build is like yours/how your new one will be designed in that there's consideration for nonstorage of detritus. I don't recall if he's using a roller catch but in the end he didn't go classic dsb, that's for sure. The arrangement of the classic dsb in my opinion can work, but not with the # of fish we like to keep. outpaces input, their waste, their feed command...I bet a classic setup dsb in a 400 gallon keeping two total clownfish + coral as the complete loading, some fun shrimp n crabs but no more than 2 fish in 400 gallons, would run twenty years the right way.

People who really want the correct dsb function in a reef tank don't use it in the display, they remote it, if any or they'll just remove the detritus in some creative way

 

[member 99594]

How do you like the height of your tank was thinking about same tank just worried about tank height for aquascaping purposes

I have not got to aquascaping, but I love the 24” depth. Lots of room to spread out.

 

[wesman42]

If you rinse it with water that has chloramines I guarantee you're killing bacteria. Not advocating against it, but if you are going to rinse live sand you might as well rinse dry sand and start with it instead.

 

[T Carey]

Two comments. I had a power head fall off it's suction cups (Surpised I know) that stirred up a whole lot of file silt. Ooliytic sand bed. My skimmer pulled that all out very quickly and the cup filled up just as quickly.
Second one, does rinsing live sand with freshwater not harm the bacteria from the osmotic pressure difference?

 

[hdsoftail1065]

So I shot an email to CaribSea because I was curious about the live sand. I used the Figi pink and didn't rinse because I thought it defeated the purpose in buying the product. I wanted to know how they introduced the bacteria, if it was "from the ocean" and if rinsing would do any harm. This was the reply for what it's worth...

Hi Jay,


Sure you could rinse live sand if you wanted but in most cases folks are buying live sand partially because it is rinsed and clean already. Our Arag-Alive line of live sand is very clean and can be used with no rinsing. Yes it does just have a dormant bacteria added back to it but it is a clean product that will help you with cycling.


The other product that we make is Ocean Direct. This is kept constantly moist after it is taken from the ocean. It has the endemic bacteria still on it. It is not as clean and many would opt to rinse but it all depends on what you are looking for.


For a rinse free live sand use Arag-Alive. If you are worried about fines use a variety such as our special grade reef sand that has a bottom size of 1mm. I hope this helps.


Best regards,

Jud McCracken

Sales Manager,

CaribSea, Inc.

And an unexpected second reply..

Hello Jay!

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. First, this sand is from the ocean and we start by stripping the natural material of any original bacteria. In its place we affix selected strains of bacteria, in a spored state, to the grains of sand and pack it in seawater to maintain hydration. Since the bacteria is spored, it does not require food or oxygen for a very long period of time. These bacteria are engineered for rapid exponential growth which truncates the normal break-in cycle. They activate when they are placed in an aquarium and sense the nitrogenous compounds produced by aquatic life. The bacteria and fixing agents also pave the way for other types of bacteria making colonization and reproduction much more efficient. You can use dry sand (we offer a great selection of dry aragonite sands) and bottled bacteria but it will not activate the sand bed as efficiently as bacteria fixed in place throughout the bed. However, bottled bacteria can add additional species and capabilities and is always compatible so don’t hold back if you have it.

Aragalive is prewashed as part of the preparation but since the bacteria on Aragalive is fixed to the grains and in a spored state, a quick and gentle rinse can be OK as long as it is not too vigorous. I have heard of tap water being used and immediately placed in seawater but I would recommend it be rinsed in seawater or at least RO if you feel rinsing is necessary. Never try to rinse an aragonite sand till the water runs clear. It is a soft material and the agitation itself causes cloudiness and you will lose the majority of the bacteria trying. I hope this answers your questions.

Sincerely Yours,

Rick


Richard Greenfield

CaribSea, Inc

 

[MartinWaite]

So to all those who say wash your live sand why in hells name did I waste my hard earned money for buying it to rinse it murder it in all the crap that's it UK's tap water killing anything that was live I may as well have saved over £100 and bought dry sand.
What would you like me to rinse it with make up 1000 litres of RO'd salt water.
Right lets get sensible heads on I didn't wash my expensive live sand I put it straight in the tank and ran a magnet through it as you should with any sand (magnet in a plastic bag) result nothing picked up. I then filled the tank an ran it with floss in the weir box and floss in both socks which was changed periodically. That was a year ago. I then followed the white sand approach that someone on here does and now I can turn sand over with no cloudiness at all. Plus I used live rock from the my lfs system and never had a cycle yet. Now why would I wash it defeats the whole purpose of buying it!

 

[klp]

I have not seen yet a practical demonstration where washing live sand as opp0sed to not makes any difference. 2 tanks with same lives sand, one washed until clear one rinsed slightly and one not washed at all. Maybe a test for BRS to settle it?

Never used live sand so I have no personal knowledge but I am curious. I always thought it was a no no to wash it but there are conflicting opinions.

 

[klp]

3 tanks

 

[brandon429]

1. before responding in challenge to sand rinsing Martin, consider reading the sand rinse thread or make an equal thread to investigate claims and see if you find opposite. we rinse to remove silt, that is a headache. you can use tap to rinse sand, and it doesn't sterilize it at all because its short duration and tap isn't a good sterilizer anyway. anytime you make lemonade using tap water, you ingest millions of live bacteria out of the tap.

2. rinsing doesn't kill anything critical. when you buy live sand, its not worms and crabs, its bacteria, and per above rinsing doesn't hurt. And, the 12 page thread with like 50 tanks rinsing said it.

The sand retailers above are talking about their sand

we're looking at a bigger picture here.

sand and ROCK that is cycled.

nothing you do to sand, boil it if you want to, harms your overall filtration abilities due to the rock we use. we're rinsing off incidentals. this is how the myriad people who went bare bottom and didn't have to recycle pulled it off. The sand bacteria in a rockless setup matter greatly (and rinsing still wont kill them off) but the sand bacteria in a LIVE ROCK setup doesn't matter, clean the sand, rip the sand out, put new in, doesn't matter, we show page after page.

not a single thing the retailer posted above goes against the findings in our sand rinse thread, they're continuous findings. awesome.

 

[klp]

1. before responding in challenge to sand rinsing Martin, either read the thread posted or make an equal thread to investigate claims. we did. we rinse to remove silt, that is a headache

2. rinsing doesn't kill anything critical. when you buy live sand, its not worms and crabs, its bacteria, and per above rinsing doesn't hurt. And, the 12 page thread with like 50 tanks rinsing said it.

I did read it. Just curious to see it tested.

 

[brandon429]

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.

 

[Oldreefer44]

Have added without rinsing, several times over the years with no negative impact. There are several ways, using long tubes etc. to do so which lessens the amount of cloudiness.