Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[AdamD76]

I have a 36" 4 bulb t5 fixture and I added some 100w LEDs. This tank has been up and running for 4 years now. I didn't have bad algae issues until the clowns and dominos started digging holes in the sand. Its mostly gha and cyano. It's not bad right now but it's starting to come back and I just don't want it to get out of hand.

 

[AdamD76]

Pictures of problem areas.

 

[brandon429]

Peroxide in a mister bottle when drained if sprayed on that algae portion wall and then cooked in the air a sec / refilled will specifically turn white and die within a week, leaving the coralline intact but bleached in the area a few months. It plates back over fast, scraping that out might gouge or score when the accretions are removed by force, I recommend drained peroxide mist it works wonders with no scraping at application time. Much of the wall portion is live rock, truly produced by calcification in the tank, very hard to remove without damage let's spot kill

Hit the rocks with spot application not full dips that's too much coverage, be exacting. Like a dentist, debride and scrape plaques you don't want, peroxide jet rinse as a target. Your reef is a giant set of teeth.

Not any organism in that tank is on the sensitives peroxide list, as long as there's no cleaner shrimp I'm missing. The tank can certainly take up fifty minutes drain first pass even though you'll never need that much air time, unless to prove a point






*******We have a poster using lab gear and lab rendering techniques to find out the nutrient loading profile of detritus I’ve not seen this before

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/substrate-vacuuming-an-analysis.494690/

We spend our time managing and avoiding the results of detritus being stirred up here. That thread is ranking it like we would rank feed profiles, the fact detritus isn’t fully reduced really calls into question some of the original claims about the Berlin method

 

[brandon429]

Bump,


Can we get additional cyano challenges team, post the before pics

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/beeping-green-hair-algae.527285/page-3

Rarities from that thread summarized:

-pure resolve, willed on a set of rocks.
-no coaxing, hoping, waiting, endless nitrate and phosphate tinkering, he wanted clean and he willed that condition.
-after pic shows no way to be cloudy
-this thread is so good for others to see action and skip cycle precision work, he's a surgeon.
-clean up crew going into the clean condition tank not the invaded condition
-all animals fine, he isolated the detritus from the sensitives
-this is a rare rare rare rare rare rare full documentation of willing a tank into compliance. The tool was secondary, and could vary and still earn the same after pics. If this was 1999 and he had only a brazing torch/plumber's rig, to burn the cleaned areas, same outcome. Algae is simply not allowed here. Some growback work is expected, nobody maintains dandelion free garden with one removal

this aquarium is accessible for future rework, yes, even if some algae pops up on lower rocks. No excuse is allowed
He will not allow this tank to be invaded, and algae is natural it belongs on a reef. That his tank grew algae we didn't like is a human vanity condition lol he didn't endlessly tweak his parameters in response to algae as parameters were never the cause.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...ophic-aerobic-bacteria-hab-test.525357/page-4

Team
Keep an eye on that thread, look at the terminology they're using, and check that thread for similarities to how we handle aquariums here

Is that thread indicating that stored up + high bacterial count tank water is ideal, or are they indicating that clean waters are ideal?


Also
We're almost out of 2018, someone enter in a funky invaded reef tank for us to turn around. New year's resolution: I won't store detritus. I won't allow invaders to take over on purpose, ever again

B

 

[Tyler Miceli]

Hey Brandon, just wanted to say thank you for all your research and success stories with this method. I must say it has worked wonders in my tank. I never really had much algea or cyano, but I did have a lot of dust in my sand, never cleaned it as the bag said dont rinse it. I had around 35 pounds of sand in my biocube 32 and I did a 1/4 of the sand bed weekly with each water change. The amount of dirt and dust that I got out of my sand was unbelievable. I must of rinsed each bucket 40 times before a last rinse with saltwater and putting it back in the tank. This well become a staple in my maintenance every few months. My sand looks amazing. Trying to take pictures for you guys , but these Steve led lights are messing with my camera lol no picture does it justice

 

[Tyler Miceli]

Best pics I could get

 

[Squeaky McMurdo]

I ended up with a small orangish yellow snail that came in my Ocean Direct. I didn’t buy it because it was live sand, I got it because it was the cheapest shipped aragonite I could find. This was back when my first sw tank was brand new and my rocks were fake so I don’t know where else it could have come from. It was the size of a pea.

 

[brandon429]

SM that's neat I believe it, it's truly direct. Somewhere in the pages is someone showing a fish hook they got in theirs one time ha it's live. Pre rinsing is still best/doesn't kill the bacteria and that little guy can be moved to main display.

Tyler! Clean after pics runs this bad boy nice job, great documentation. To simply blast out the invader with a total clean, or to clean preemptively, is still a rarity but pics like that help us keep the pace of opting out of invasions by managing detritus physically

 

[brandon429]

That live rock is exceptional as well, the way you're working around it is preserving it's color and pigments, nice contrast against the white sands

 

[Tyler Miceli]

That live rock is exceptional as well, the way you're working around it is preserving it's color and pigments, nice contrast against the white sands

I was hesitant to siphon out the sand bed, but it worked out awesome. I'm just amazed at how much detritus and dust came out of it. The difference is night and day, the sand literally glows now. It was never crazy dirty in appearance, but this just polished it up immensely

 

[hotashes]

Best pics I could get

Always good to see, glad you got in and intervened to gain a good result rather than leave be and face issues which are bigger soon after. Sand looks great, especially against those rocks. Keep up the good work.

A.

 

[xiholdtruex]

4 months and 14 days after rip cleaning and my tank is still looking clean and healthy

 

[brandon429]

As far as I can recall, that is the longest timespan update we've collected thank you tons for showing that. It is very hard to get updates, when things go right people move along their way how nice to see the ecosystems response to the original rip clean.

You are giving forecasting ability to those considering undertaking the option to be invader free right now, vs hopefully possibly medicated free after months of trial and error. To rip clean a tank is to stabilize it, not to de stabilize it. Part of the reason that live rock still looks diverse and how it should is because dislodging detritus opens up pores, increases the surface area of the entire system, increases exchange within the live rock and it's water column, the system breathes and calcifying organisms are selected for vs plant and bacterial communities.

To be physical with one's tank is to invite toughening, calcification and to disinvite plant dominance. Like on kickboxer where van Damme had to shin kick that tree trunk into submission, his leg was calcified and not to be trifled with after that we can see heh

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I don’t think twice about ripping a tank apart. I do it all the time.

When I am really redoing a tank, as I’m doing ATM with an acrylic tank that was badly scratched and needed a better buff than the sandpaper/magnet cleaner could provide, my system is as follows:

- pump 80-85% tank water into bins
- place livestock in bins w/some sort of filtration
- remove rock, flush it out in remaining water to blow out detritus, place rock in one of the bins

Now I’m left with sand bed and 10-15% tank water. I then:

- pick through sand to remove old shells, etc
- push/stir through the entire sand bed to turn it over, releasing detritus
- after doing this, push all sand to one corner of the tank
- pump out the remaining water/detritus, etc
- sand goes into a bucket(s)

Once the tank is ready to go back together, I do the normal set-up stuff. Once the water is added back to the tank, I finish off by siphoning our whatever detritus has settled back onto the sandbed.

It’s a fountain of youth move. For most clients, I do something like that every 2 years, whether the tank needs some additional work done to it or not.

As long as you are careful with your corals, they don’t seem to mind being moved around at all. But once you set it back up, they tend to take off noticably. And the tank just looks better, for a long time.

Now, if you have a gigantic wall of SPS that can’t be moved, maybe don’t rip it apart. But for other tanks, even with huge colonies, it pays off.

Hurricanes happen in nature. Not sure why we’re afraid to let a storm go through the tank every once in a while.

 

[brandon429]

Thats great input. I always have thought the types of systems that could be left literally unexported except for skimming and water changes (whole particulate storage and mineralization within philosophy aka all of the 90s) were people's unique home examples.

Where they're home and nimble with every response required to prevent eutrophication though all organic stores select for it

But if one is advising on web threads, or in your case in person/bulk people who expect to succeed for their dollars, the clean condition has the tightest statistics on positive working and the hands off has a horrible track record for the masses-aka our whole thread. To reef clean is the only real way we can make fifty out of fifty reef tanks comply. And six sandbed worms might die in the process


We can use work until magic inventions make us not need it, and those inventions will be found successful in fifty out of fifty example tanks when they're better than occasionally imparting the cloudless condition to a reef tank.

 

[Be102]

I don’t think twice about ripping a tank apart. I do it all the time.

When I am really redoing a tank, as I’m doing ATM with an acrylic tank that was badly scratched and needed a better buff than the sandpaper/magnet cleaner could provide, my system is as follows:

- pump 80-85% tank water into bins
- place livestock in bins w/some sort of filtration
- remove rock, flush it out in remaining water to blow out detritus, place rock in one of the bins

Now I’m left with sand bed and 10-15% tank water. I then:

- pick through sand to remove old shells, etc
- push/stir through the entire sand bed to turn it over, releasing detritus
- after doing this, push all sand to one corner of the tank
- pump out the remaining water/detritus, etc
- sand goes into a bucket(s)

Once the tank is ready to go back together, I do the normal set-up stuff. Once the water is added back to the tank, I finish off by siphoning our whatever detritus has settled back onto the sandbed.

It’s a fountain of youth move. For most clients, I do something like that every 2 years, whether the tank needs some additional work done to it or not.

As long as you are careful with your corals, they don’t seem to mind being moved around at all. But once you set it back up, they tend to take off noticably. And the tank just looks better, for a long time.

Now, if you have a gigantic wall of SPS that can’t be moved, maybe don’t rip it apart. But for other tanks, even with huge colonies, it pays off.

Hurricanes happen in nature. Not sure why we’re afraid to let a storm go through the tank every once in a while.

I am currently going through a fallow period and this sounds very interesting. When I first set my tank up I was convinced by my lfs I needed crushed coral and sand in my tank. Fast forward a few weeks and I hated the coral. I used a standard aquarium net to remove as much as I can (as the finer sand passed through). Unfortunately it didn’t do an amazing job and I just dealt with it.

I have never really thought what would happen if I was to mess with the tank that much.. but I had to do nearly the same thing around a year ago when I upgraded my stand and installed a sump. I’m interested in potentially trying this method out although I did have a few questions

I think I am following almost everything you said.. but was just hoping to make sure I didn’t miss much.
When you say you push all the sand into the corner. Do you then remove it entirely? Or just push it in the corner to then spread it back out? Do you then rinse it in a bucket with anything?
Would this be a bad time to add more sand? (Unsure what I would really even use at this point just found this thread and read your post) but I think I would like more sand in the tank.

I’m thinking now would be one of the best times to go about doing something like this considering I have not much livestock in the tank mostly corals and random inverts. ( although that may be a problem I have a lot of tiny little snails)
How long do you wait to put stuff back in the tank?

 

[xiholdtruex]

Also in my tank i purchased the duncan right after rip cleaning and have been heavily feeding reef roids and a seafood mix to all my nems and corals 4 times a week and the peramiters are solid. Grabbed some sand and lifted it and there was zero silt or detritus. Duncan started with two heads now has 7.

I have been to quite a few peoples houses with cyano and algae problems and even some at aquarium shops who have used various meds without good results and refuse to rip clean even after I have shown them my tank and this thread

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I am currently going through a fallow period and this sounds very interesting. When I first set my tank up I was convinced by my lfs I needed crushed coral and sand in my tank. Fast forward a few weeks and I hated the coral. I used a standard aquarium net to remove as much as I can (as the finer sand passed through). Unfortunately it didn’t do an amazing job and I just dealt with it.

I have never really thought what would happen if I was to mess with the tank that much.. but I had to do nearly the same thing around a year ago when I upgraded my stand and installed a sump. I’m interested in potentially trying this method out although I did have a few questions

I think I am following almost everything you said.. but was just hoping to make sure I didn’t miss much.
When you say you push all the sand into the corner. Do you then remove it entirely? Or just push it in the corner to then spread it back out? Do you then rinse it in a bucket with anything?
Would this be a bad time to add more sand? (Unsure what I would really even use at this point just found this thread and read your post) but I think I would like more sand in the tank.

I’m thinking now would be one of the best times to go about doing something like this considering I have not much livestock in the tank mostly corals and random inverts. ( although that may be a problem I have a lot of tiny little snails)
How long do you wait to put stuff back in the tank?

With the sand, I usually end up taking it out because I have other stuff to do in the tank. You certainly don’t have to. I just like to get it out of the way.

Sometimes I rinse it, but usually just flushing it in the remaining water in the tank does the same thing. I would assume that not rinsing it in FW does preserve some of the fauna/bacteria in the sand. That said, whatever is removed from the sand bed exists in many other areas of the system, so it will all come back soon enough.

When I put stuff in depends on the job. Right now, I have a 110 gal reef that I took apart to buff the viewing panel and then add dark blue acrylic panels to cover the black the tank was built with. Because of the fact this tank is in an office and being the holidays, the whole system will end up being down for a week.

Sometimes when I do the ‘rip’ just for the sake of freshening the tank up, it’s a 2-4 hour process (depending on the size of the tank). Take it out, flush it, put it back together. Doesn’t matter.

Corals are tough. As long as you aren’t banging them on stuff, they don’t mind being moved around a little.

In ecology, this is a variation of the ‘intermediate disturbance hypothesis’