Live sand

[brandon429]

Did that happen below here?

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sandbed-stirred-up.544852/

We struggle to think that poster was better off not starting the tank with a rinse. Rinsing would've made that not occur, and the tank workings would still be the same.

 

[Leo58]

The silt in the sand is what allowed you to grow seagrass, this is how you build your microflora and microfauna in your sandbed. Your sand and your rocks are the foundation of your ecosystem which is what a reeftank truly is. These things need to be teeming with life to approximate the reef . Your sand and your rocks are the soil of your underwater garden and soil must have nutrients for creatures to strive.

 

[BigT75]

Gonna be honest I just asked if the live sand would be ok overnight in the tank seeing I couldn’t add water till the next day thanks for all the reply’s BUT There’s absolutely no darn way I’d waste my $$ on rinsing live sand that comes in a bag with water that’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard

Yes I’ve done it with dry sand from Carib sea (not live)

My mind has been completely blown on some of what I read about washing live sand in the sink lol thanks again for the help

 

[Leo58]

The picture that you show means that the person probably dumped a whole bag of sand in at once. I used nothing but ocean direct caribsea sand but I first put them in containers with a lid and lower them into the tank. Then I gently remove the lid and let the sand sit in the water for a couple of weeks so by the time I poured it out there is very little cloudiness cause my bacteria already coat the sand. Now I have a pistol shrimp that constantly move the sand and I have no cloudiness.

 

[Leo58]

Gonna be honest I just asked if the live sand would be ok overnight in the tank seeing I couldn’t add water till the next day thanks for all the reply’s BUT There’s absolutely no darn way I’d waste my $$ on rinsing live sand that comes in a bag with water that’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard

Yes I’ve done it with dry sand from Carib sea (not live)

My mind has been completely blown on some of what I read about washing live sand in the sink lol thanks again for the help

Your live sand should be ok as long as it stays moist, it doesn't need to be wet

 

[laverda]

You need to rinse it with tap until it’s clear

Two points about that:

It doesn’t kill bacteria off the rocks, tap water isn’t a sterilizer or lab techs wouldn’t need to use more to sterilize at the end of the work day. Tap water delivers bacteria, it doesn’t kill them in the way we’d expect

The ability to work with your new tank in a cloudless condition is priceless, the bacteria that are in live sand / caribsea are not needed. It’s in excess of the bacteria that cycling provides on the surfaces that count.

At no time is the bacteria in a sandbed the critical breakpoint in having ‘enough’ bacteria to run a bioload of fish and corals provided cycled rocks are in place, using the typical amounts

The rocks are always enough, we remove sandbeds from full running reefs all the time in the sand rinse thread. at no time do live rocks take time to ‘take on more bacteria’ in the presence of a sandbed being removed...not how microbiology works. The rocks maintained their own steady states the whole time, independent of the sand, and their surface area is enough says the bare bottom tank generation. This means you’re able to rinse your new sand in tap water until it runs clear. You’ll be inputting cloudless grains. Easy to move rocks around afterwards, ideal in every way and in no way is not rinsing a better option.

I would definatly not rinse the Carib Sea live sand. Doing so defeats the whole point of using live sand. I have had very good results and minimal cloudiness for a very short time. I have also added bags of it to a bar bottom tank with cloudiness that lasted less than an hour.
Rinsing sand is not the solution to everything you seam to thing it is!

 

[laverda]

That guy in my link though had a full tank clouding after cycling, just cuz a rock fell, we think this is unhelpful compared to just never having the issue

If you want to have sand that can opaque a tank with rock slides or if a powerhead comes loose, not rinsing will deliver that at times. Rinsing also guides out the early diatom fuel by removing the high fraction silicate portion

Another neat way to see it is if you took any measures for ammonia processing before and after a rinse it doesn’t change the readings if re tested. So if being totally cloud free lends the same cycling ability as liability clouding, it’s clear to see how we get so much success in our big sand rinse thread just by starting off a little different than the masses would do. We find no benefit in keeping the silty cloud portion.

Nowhere in that thread de he say he used live sand or how long the tank was set up. Clearly there is more to it then one rock falling over. Looks to me like a powerhead got knocked down pointing at the sand. It has no relavance to this thread at all.

 

[brandon429]

I had him clarify it was a new tank, just for you.

It has 100% relevance because rinsed sand will never do that, even with a powerhead dropping. It's like you commented without reading any of the sand rinse thread, where post cleaning videos have been uploaded. We call it passing a drop test, not that you're in this for friendly scientific exchange but I thought I'd point out the work again.

If your mind is made up even without consulting work threads that's ok, but it's hard to accept what you are saying considering the work linked prior and the fact most detractors don't provide work examples they just provide an assessment and dig in heels. The reason to start a tank rinsed is to avoid that

The reason to never let an aged sandbed accumulate that much waste is also obvious, sand rinsing is at play either way when it's that degree of clouding. nobody has posted a single thing showing harm or a lesser quality start with rinsed sand, but it looks like we have twenty pages showing the benefits of doing so. It's ok if you don't like the notion, I merely provide an alternate take on the matter and some accountability for the claim. We take on big jobs there where miscalls cost $ and even better we log the results in one place for free pattern analysis.

 

[Leo58]

You are probably not a proponent of deep sandbed and you probably dutifully vacuum your sand. I respect your view but I just don't agree with it. I have a 55 gal tank that I don't vacuum the sand for 10 years so when I decide to upgrade it to a 120gal I have to transfer most of the sand and rocks on to the new tank all I found was a lot of silt in the sand and nothing else. No pocket of hydrgen sulfide and no nasty gunk of any sort. The key is to make sure that any food that get trapped in the sand get consumed quickly by the creatures that live in there. An efficient ecosystem leave nothing to waste.

 

[brandon429]

That's an understandable take, the traditional way of sandbedding. No I don't clean it like you say, but on the other hand we advocate deep cleaning whenever required, ranges tank to tank. Sounds like your input/export balance is ideal, sounds good to me.

When dealing with what the public presents by and large, the patterns are still there in our work thread... they require means to fix invasions and address all kinds of issues including full blackout clouding etc. Yours is the rarer balance.

We discuss in the sand rinse thread that sandbeds under fish in the DT are the hardest to keep in line and that remote ones, like in refugiums or remote buckets which take on less direct waste input etc, wouldn't be rinsed. We simply address commonly misbehaving display tank beds, and advise new means to make the tanks behave and not recycle as we stop various invasions, from prior hands-off proponents actually.

I agree that when you have the art down, making a traditional tank behave in your own home is possible but the limitation is you can't apply the method to address the constant invasion challenges associated with hands off, cloudy beds in multi-example work threads.

The only thing keeping us at a 100% no loss rate even with full sandbed rinse is following the rules we post regarding detritus... am also aware nobody agrees with that take either. I fully accept that the work thread with patterns is the only source for an alternate viewpoint on traditional sandbed limitations, it's a bad idea to everyone except the entrants apparently.

At any time I'm accepting of someone's links to any type of counter work, to check for my own patterns in data.

 

[Leo58]

I understand your way has merit and maybe better for folks that are new to the hobby. In my case it is not luck, I have to work to build my population of sand dwellers. I have hundreds of mini brittle stars, tons of mysid shrimp, amphipods, spaghetti worms and pods living in the sand. Yes it is work but I love created such a world as a result my mini carpet anemones spawn twice, my sexy shrimp and my trochus snails spawn as well. I have sponges that at one time threatened to overtake my tank considering that I have a hard time keeping them in the past.

 

[BigT75]

I am gonna say this with all this chatter on rinse the live sand before hand [emoji870] this pic is day 2 and yes I’ve moved (stirred bed) to help get air bubbles out and still clear

Dry sand YES I’d rinse ,,,LIVE sand insane idea to rinse with tap water [emoji97]

 

[BigT75]

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/very-cloudy-water-after-sand-and-rock.559386/#post-5735160

 

[nicodim55]

I am gonna say this with all this chatter on rinse the live sand before hand [emoji870] this pic is day 2 and yes I’ve moved (stirred bed) to help get air bubbles out and still clear

Dry sand YES I’d rinse ,,,LIVE sand insane idea to rinse with tap water [emoji97]

bravo my friend looking good!

 

[brandon429]

Dry sand YES I’d rinse ,,,LIVE sand insane idea to rinse with tap water

if you don't take into acct the massive volume of work posted, yes. microbial bro science=false limitations. rinsing isn't antimicrobial or that's all we'd need to sterilize surfaces, and we'd have a lost tank by now in our rinsing thread.



work has been posted to the counter claim, more will come because its fair to evaluate if rinsing is truly hurting or helping. It's nice to see actual testing of the matter anyway vs just the no portion

 

[brandon429]

Don't think I take the alternate stance just to press against you guys.

Rinsing and being willing to rinse and being willing to access the tank, without fear or -false- concern, is the sole human trait we need to produce uninvaded reef tanks in our restoration work threads.

Refusal to access the tank directly and certainly refusal to ever rinse is what got each reef seeking a cure thread in the first place

How a reefkeeper views their initial rinse and access in general totally affects the rest of their reefing, and investment, going solely off bulk patterns of help thread tanks. There are always outliers, those who do well with any method.

Seizing accurate microbiology early on is the right way to begin, and save a reef apparently.

 

[BigT75]

Don't think I take the alternate stance just to press against you guys.

Rinsing and being willing to rinse and being willing to access the tank, without fear or -false- concern, is the sole human trait we need to produce uninvaded reef tanks in our restoration work threads.

Refusal to access the tank directly and certainly refusal to ever rinse is what got each reef seeking a cure thread in the first place

How a reefkeeper views their initial rinse and access in general totally affects the rest of their reefing, and investment, going solely off bulk patterns of help thread tanks. There are always outliers, those who do well with any method.

Seizing accurate microbiology early on is the right way to begin, and save a reef apparently.

I have no idea where this whole idea of washing (rinse) my sand even is being discussed if you scroll back to my question it had absolutely nothing pertaining to rinsing the sand. It was a simple question not some debate



now I wanna thank everyone here for the help my tank is flourishing and will be amazing I will keep updates on a build thread

 

[BigT75]

bravo my friend looking good!

Thanks Nico your (2) tanks inspire me to keep goin!

 

[Leo58]

Are you using fine sand? Going for a deep sandbed? Anyway everything looks great