Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[brandon429]

yes that wont hurt at all, to move a little over

hey curious on this aspect of your new system: is the nano running to the side of it/along with the new 80 or are you combining life from the nano/established system into the new 80 along with its dry rock?

 

[InvaderJim]

I'm still undecided if I want to keep both tanks going or just move it all over to the 80. If I do keep both going I planned on moving most of the rock over to the 80 and leaving just a few pieces in the nano

 

[brandon429]

That really frees up the responsibility of the dry rock, very free to arrange as needed. Any degree of live rock relocated will carry a bioload most wouldn't guess it could


any mix will help repel dinos, sounds good plan

 

[Reefahholic]

@brandon429 Here’s some of the sand I rinsed and cleaned back in the day. Fluff this stuff around. Dip your hand in there and cake flip it. ;Hilarious

 

[brandon429]

On pic one those little specs on the edges looks like they’re rinsed away lol pretty thorough job there

Dan_P has shown me some sandbed rinse work charting and analysis he’s done in private message where the volume of water we pass through/ waste in the name of cloudless start-ability can easily be reduced if we are more active during the flipping/disturbance period of the rinse, it’s not about how much water used it’s about the mix activity to separate heavier grains adhered to the silt fraction. A simple drill paint mixer spinning in a bucket did clearer rinsing if left in place a while vs less disturbance and much more basic water passed through.


idea: how about a sand company actually produce rinse free cloudless start sand, and also deal with package settling which is probably why caribsea needs so much pre work. I bet it leaves their facility cleaner than it is after being hoisted and thrown around in packing and then sitting on a store shelf months.

 

[brandon429]

Team


In the fish disease forum, they are contantly writing how fallow and QT practices can be felled by disease organisms taking refuge in a sandbed.

our method doesn't leave a refuge for anything in the sandbed.

Anyone here want to re clean a bed out before you re-fallow for handling disease?

As I read the fish disease forum it seems that to not address the bed leaves a huge chance of catching disease again, after fallow preps. good thing we specialize in bed zapping. matter of fact the best approach it would seem would be to use the tenets we apply here to remove the whole bed instantly, run it bare bottom during disease controls.

when darn sure disease free, add back sterilized sand/that is a no cycle arrangement.

if sand is going to be kept in the matured tank getting re fallowed for disease work, then it seems a clean bed is your best use of time and the risk of reinfection is high if its skipped.


Not everyone agrees on QT and fallow preps for disease control, but they're the hottest new approach going nowadays and people were hesitating about sandbed access

we have a thread for that...

 

[LJLKRL05]

I am going to be tearing my 210 down over the Christmas break since I am off work for a week.
I will rinse the sand well and get it clean, but what is the best way to clean my rocks? I don't want to kill the bacteria in them. Would a brush and a powerhead in salt water be sufficient to get them good and clean?

 

[brandon429]

yes and not too harsh on the brush, a lot of great items are attached as benthic anchors and they help suppress other bad growths, mainly jetted saltwater and twist-swishing is best bc that jets out all the detritus from the rocks in a bac-friendly manner. thanks tons for posting such a big job coming up

hey do u have before pics/curious for any details standing out in such a big move prep. im confident we can make it go very smooth aside from the actual physical work part/wow

 

[LJLKRL05]

yes and not too harsh on the brush, a lot of great items are attached as benthic anchors and they help suppress other bad growths, mainly jetted saltwater and twist-swishing is best bc that jets out all the detritus from the rocks in a bac-friendly manner. thanks tons for posting such a big job coming up

hey do u have before pics/curious for any details standing out in such a big move prep. im confident we can make it go very smooth aside from the actual physical work part/wow

I will take some pics before I tear it down and as it progresses. I have been battling dinos for a while now, and I think it is just time to rip it out and clean it all good. I also want to rearrange my rock scape so this is a perfect time to do it.

I will move all my fish and corals into a 40 breeder for however long it takes. Should only be a couple of days at the most.
I have my RODI water running now so I will have all new water to start with too.

 

[brandon429]

nice. I think the new tank light ramping is the most important part, we know to be very thorough on sand rinsing using tap water/final rinse in RO and rocks in old saltwater swished and twisted, but that light ramp for new tank is last trick so relocated coral wont bleach



this poster JJ just completed a full instant sandbed swap in a nano. We like to log every job for patterning

Operation Save A Tank

One strong benefit you’ll get from deep cleaning vs using dosers is you get to skip compound clouding when people dose fluc or vibrant to kill mass gha, it dies and rots in system and adds to old waste stores, which were feed for the original growth. This way above you did takes that rot out...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Tanggy]

I removed and discarded my old sand bed a few days ago. I rinsed the new sand. I've read somewhere that new sand binds phosphate. Is that correct? If that's the case would I need to slowly add the new sand back without disturbing my nutrient level? thanks.

 

[brandon429]

excellent question. I gather from recent posts in Randy's chem forum its a guaranteed/certain po4 sink

its never mattered to us not once. They also pointed out a copper risk from contacting tapwater to pre rinsed new sand, again we've not factored it. I figure if they're piping it for me to drink in smoothies, its ok for my reef. aware this is not every location, but its the location for participants here/tap water has never hurt us and by lowering the lighting/re ramping after the bed swap, that extra week of low light prevents any coral issues.

did you pre rinse your new sand before install? if not curious how cloudy is it

 

[Tanggy]

excellent question. I gather from recent posts in Randy's chem forum its a guaranteed/certain po4 sink

its never mattered to us not once. They also pointed out a copper risk from contacting tapwater to pre rinsed new sand, again we've not factored it. I figure if they're piping it for me to drink in smoothies, its ok for my reef. aware this is not every location, but its the location for participants here/tap water has never hurt us and by lowering the lighting/re ramping after the bed swap, that extra week of low light prevents any coral issues.

did you pre rinse your new sand before install? if not curious how cloudy is it

thank you for your reponse. I did pre rinse. First rinse was very cloudy. It took me about 3 days (30-45 minutes a day) to get it completely clear.

 

[brandon429]

excellent thank you for the added data on preps, patterns are what we're seeking. looking for outliers, unpredicted outcomes if ever, or consistency if that's the result of a bunch of sand flips (done cleanly)

its fascinating how in any other thread, messing with phosphates by reduction causes dinos. we may not always cure dinos by physically forcing a clean condition, but we don't ever cause them that's for certain.

 

[don_chuwish]

idea: how about a sand company actually produce rinse free cloudless start sand, and also deal with package settling which is probably why caribsea needs so much pre work. I bet it leaves their facility cleaner than it is after being hoisted and thrown around in packing and then sitting on a store shelf months.

Tropic Eden comes the closest. Love their sand - I still rinse it but it takes very little work to get clear water.

 

[brandon429]

good to note I haven't tried it before/ people buying many bags at once don't want to be rinsing hours and hours for prep

 

[Tanggy]

Just added new sand. It's so nice when it's white. I normally vacuum the sand once week when I do water change. Occasional stir sand also. What other things can I do to make it remain white and clean?

 

[brandon429]

Such healthy green slimer and healthy fat corals nice job scaping


high flow to keep detritus in suspension to land in floss or socks plus stirring now that it’s in the clean condition is great not sure of better options / the occasional rip clean as needed

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/ there we are, many before and afters logged. Hey if you w post a pic of your tank here we can make you a custom job to save all the reading

www.reef2reef.com

******Look at Gators rocks**** they are literally transformed over nite. Zero delay. Shocking full sand swap using tap water pre rinse, and 12% peroxide surgically applied to rock GHA takeover along with actual dental tools as the pre-rasping. Do you see how his rocks look normal, but missing all former algae


that’s spot application surgery, WOW Gator. Rocks and sand kicked into position, an ultra resolved rip clean is added to our file.

from Gator’s logged works: before

after human resolve manifests

how much did system params factor in the action taken: zero


how much did identifying the target factor: zero


when you read the flow of that thread, you can tell from Gator‘s first sentence what his after pics would be, I knew what was coming. I can smell total resolve a mile away.


the after pics are so clear the tank looks empty of water.

 

[LJLKRL05]

I will take some pics before I tear it down and as it progresses. I have been battling dinos for a while now, and I think it is just time to rip it out and clean it all good. I also want to rearrange my rock scape so this is a perfect time to do it.

I will move all my fish and corals into a 40 breeder for however long it takes. Should only be a couple of days at the most.
I have my RODI water running now so I will have all new water to start with too.

I started tearing the 210 gallon tank down on December 26. Got all my corals and fish moved to a 40 breeder, and then took the rocks out and put them in bins of tank water. Had way more rocks than I thought.
I siphoned out as much sand as I could and then started scooping with a plastic cup.
I had one 5 gallon bucket full and another about 3/4 full.
I thought for a long time I was battling dino's, but for the heck of it I ordered a silica test. My tank was at .5 silica and my new rodi water was at 3 ppm.
I had been unintentionally dosing silica every time the auto topoff ran.
I waited way too long to change my filters on the rodi unit so I changed the sediment, carbon and di resin and began making 210 gallons of water on December 14.
Zero silica in the new water with the new filter.
It is a 210 gallon tank with a 40 breeder sump. I used right at 200 gallons of saltwater to fill it back up, sump and all. Rocks and sand displace a lot of water. This is great information for when I use the dosing calculators on BRS website.

I cleaned the sand with a garden hose in a big home depot black plastic bin. about six 32 oz cups at a time. Took a couple of hours, but not too bad. I still have a few specks of shells in it but it looks fantastic compared to before.

I scrubbed the rocks gently with a brush and then rinsed them good with a power head, and then swished them in a bucket of clean saltwater.

I did not put all the rocks back in, and some of them are white because I put them in the tank about 6 months ago. I was doing some re-scaping and just decided to tear it down and clean it all but put it off until now.
Those rocks got well seeded in the six months they were in there.

I brushed the glass to clean it but did not scrape off the coraline. It might live, but I did not keep it wet the whole time.

I am still working on placing my corals, and I have a ton of hammers that I will get rid of because they were taking up so much room. I can always grow more.
The clam is in the same position for reference.

All the fish and corals and the clam are doing great. The water is so clear it looks like air.

I am so glad I did this but I sure hope the brown crud does not come back.

It is a big deep tank and was a huge amount of work but well worth it.

These are before pictures:

Brown crud all over everything.

These are after pictures:

Everything is bright and clean now.