Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[LittleFidel]

Ok, I move in one week. In preparation, I took the sand out of both tanks a while back (several months ago for the 20g and about a month ago for the 29g). Everyone is doing fine, I like how I can see detritus buildup in real time and remove when necessary.
My next most pressing question is how to actually initiate the move. Do I use old water and take it to my new home? That seems like a headache.

 

[brandon429]

the reef will not matter, can easily make new water.

the more planted setup I really would take over as much old water as possible but some new is ok, its like a big wc on the other receiving side. thanks tons for posting nice diverse aquarium move examples for sure. Your detritus will be well-aerated and per findings from posters like Taricha and Dan P and Lasse the aerated forms are pretty inert. those wont be the liability that pent up sandbed waste will be, nice setups!

 

[LittleFidel]

the reef will not matter, can easily make new water.

the more planted setup I really would take over as much old water as possible but some new is ok, its like a big wc on the other receiving side. thanks tons for posting nice diverse aquarium move examples for sure. Your detritus will be well-aerated and per findings from posters like Taricha and Dan P and Lasse the aerated forms are pretty inert. those wont be the liability that pent up sandbed waste will be, nice setups!

What’s the logic behind moving the water from the planted setup? Macroalgae are more sensitive to parameter changes than corals?

 

[brandon429]

keeping its nutrients currently working so well is easy to do w moving its water

but if someone already does large water changes on planted marine tanks and everything is acclimated, not a prob to move it. I was thinking planted setups might like the current water adapted vs laser clean, that may not be the case I dont have any planted marine setups.

for the reef items we never mind using 100% new water in the new setup, making sure no detritus moves over was our aim there and since most folks do want the cleanest start water for a reef thats a nice way to attain it wo having to move lots of old heavy water in the move too.


100% instant sandbed swap in a packed nano, no bottle bac used. tap water pre rinsed sand.

EMERGENCY - Substrate change

I went for the caribsea pink Fiji alive, was this a mistake? I know some places you can pick the grain size of that sand but it typically comes in a .5-1m which is a little small for my liking. I prefer the Reef grade by Carib sea. Perfect size grain for my universal needs, does not blow around...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[LittleFidel]

keeping its nutrients currently working so well is easy to do w moving its water

but if someone already does large water changes on planted marine tanks and everything is acclimated, not a prob to move it. I was thinking planted setups might like the current water adapted vs laser clean, that may not be the case I dont have any planted marine setups.

for the reef items we never mind using 100% new water in the new setup, making sure no detritus moves over was our aim there and since most folks do want the cleanest start water for a reef thats a nice way to attain it wo having to move lots of old heavy water in the move too.

I would not call the planted setup “lazer clean” but it does receive a 25% water change every few weeks. I suspect it will be fine with fresh water. I will keep maybe 10g from each setup to transport rocks and livestock. Thanks for the advice. I just don’t want to move the water as well.

 

[brandon429]

Bump

we have done about fifteen sandbed replacements and rip cleans in the last 4 weeks, all of them turned out great. Whos next we want a hundred pages of jobs by ‘22

 

[LittleFidel]

Bump

we have done about fifteen sandbed replacements and rip cleans in the last 4 weeks, all of them turned out great. Whos next we want a hundred pages of jobs by ‘22

My tanks are still running strong one week after sand removal and 100% water change during move. Everything is bare bottom which makes it easy to see the rate at which detritus builds up.

 

[brandon429]

Ok excellent we need those follow ups for sure





***this below is a shocking clean rip run and its a standout example of aquarium control, old tank syndrome reversal in one pass without dosers

A week without power - Recoverable?

So, tank went without power for a week following hurricane Ida. There was no flow(obviously) and temps hit 85-86 during the day. I came back to the city to rescue my 2 clowns who are currently living in a 5 gallon bucket with a bubbler. Basically my question is: what are my options from here...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

Shadow_k

for the win, a shocking rip clean. Shocking command
Rinsed the sand over 75 times back to clean.


JBJ 20 gallon AIO dealing with a bad cyano/Dino back and forth for 4 months.I’ve tried chemicals, natural ways could not get rid of it.

here is my journey for my easy rip clean

Draining the tank after removing all the inverts , fish and corals.

Put my rocks in a bucket to swish around/scrub I did not take a picture of the scrubbing of the rock.

tank cleaned out and rinsed with RODI water

Now I tackled the sand this is My sand after 1 rinse

rinse number 75 and yes I counted haha

Rinse 120 crystal clear water mixed it with my hand and water stayed clear.

My camera doesn’t do this tank justice it’s crystal clear !


(adding in an all white shot, the most revealing shot in reefing, hides nothing, shows complete skip cycle clarity here)

thank you Shadow_k for your work, pics, and smashing thorough rinse job, no bottle bac used here whatsoever. Complete skip cycle rip clean complete.

 

[Aqua Man]

@shadow_k looks good now!!

How much water did you change out?

The cyano might come back, hopefully not! If it does start showing up, stir the sand a bit. Good thread on here called
“ my white sand method” where they stir the sand almost daily.

 

[shadow_k]

@shadow_k looks good now!!

How much water did you change out?

The cyano might come back, hopefully not! If it does start showing up, stir the sand a bit. Good thread on here called
“ my white sand method” where they stir the sand almost da

I basically did a 100% water change everything you see in the tank was rinsed/scrubbed

 

[brandon429]

Shadow I had to add your fine pod pic based on our chat just now. Its too large, and too good not to feature

2 days after a rip clean the pods emerge to take back over, capitalize on newly available feeds, begin the cycle anew

they know to head into the rocks when a drain storm is coming

it’s exciting to see things breath in the tank my pods came back

You did a hundred rinses of sand and they still came back. excellence in pictures there

look at the after pics several days post rip clean, wowx20

one month after rip clean

 

[Dan7575]

I am getting cyano which seems to be getting more and more and I’ve always had a brown covering on the sand. I started to do a dr Tim’s re fresh and waste away but I’m a bit worried about the waste away after reading a few bad posts. I have dosed the re fresh but can’t see any changes.

Anyway after reading through this post I like the idea of the natural approach. I have a couple of questions though.

1. why bother cleaning the sand, why not just put new sand in?
2. I have a lot of coralline on the back of the tank, would this die when the tank is empty, should it be scrapped off, would this cause a problem with alk dosing?

 

[brandon429]

Dan thank you for posting, what a beautiful setup there


the coralline won’t matter if it’s scraped or kept, I like to keep it moist with saltwater while tanks are taken apart so that it will remain when reassembled / it’s makes a tank keep its mature look afterwards though the rest of the areas are boldly clean

whether it’s new sand or old doesn’t matter, our tap water pre rinse equalizes both options


the tank above is in near perfect condition, with months or years left still on the upside of the bell curve vs tanks we mega clean that were on the downslope

I recommend not rip cleaning it for a while, if that was my tank I’d buy a pre quarantined sand cleaning goby or use powerful UV filter to control minor bed growths. If you use standard siphon cleaning and then try the preventative steps with it clean that’s likely to help but the reef is so sharp I wouldn’t disassemble it yet

oversized UV filters can specifically help after a topical cleaning to prevent re massing of cyano on surfaces

** but if you do want to rip clean it that tank will shine afterwards it’ll have bright new sand and by keeping the coralline alive during the setup it’ll reassemble looking still matured but with literally perfect sand at the base

 

[Dan7575]

That’s great advice thanks, I’ll look into those options

 

[brandon429]

A rip clean back in the summer from JD Inshore


90 gallons, not a small job at all.

reason for rip clean—- use the takedown skip cycle process to debride the rocks of mushroom coral overgrowth, this works for aiptasia removal as well.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/jds-90-gallon-mixed-reef.845280/#post-9273351

I also moved this rip clean thread above to page one, thank you for the work and documentation. This can save aiptasia tanks from loss to see it ran on discosoma mushroom infestation














outcome pics two weeks post

contrary to popular opinion, surgical scoring of the rock beats all forms of electric prod shocks, gluing, boiling water injection or any other anemone removal approach. It doesn’t cause fragmentation this tank was fixed in one pass.

even though his tank didn’t have any sandbed invasions we still age reset the sandbed, keeping the waste isn’t the better option per last 45 pages and clean shiny hungry tanks are what we produce. Every tank in the thread is a tap water rinse job.

 

[lanceinhuntsville]

@brandon429 - Planning to upgrade my tank from a 40B HOB setup to a 120 DT + Sump (~150 Gal total volume). I’m planning on going with this method - have dry sand I’ll be rinsing for the new tank, trashing the existing sand. The 40B is a little less than a year old, but the rocks are covered in coralline and my nutrients are well under control.

I tried to read everything in this thread, but it’s huge so please forgive if I have missed a major part, but I’ve got 2 Questions:

1) I’ve got 60 lbs of CaribSea LifeRock I am planning to add to the new tank to increase surface area (and aesthetics). Should I wait to add those rocks until after I’ve moved everything to the new tank (and validated a successful skip cycle), or go ahead and add them when I add the rocks from the 40B?

2) When I rinse the rocks, some are going to have coral on them. I’ve got a 44 gallon brute for this job. With how much intensity do I need to swish the rocks in clean SW to ensure no detritus is brought over? Or should I just chisel off chunks of rock that have corals attached and shake the heck out the rest of the rocks? I’m leaning towards chisel and shake but worried the chiseling will release some well-hidden toxins or something…

 

[brandon429]

Thanks for posting pls take succession pics those increments are helpful to see in pattern

the liferock is neutral impact, surfaces will begin to take on bacteria immediately after association with the other live rocks brought over.


swish as practical per rock the sand is the real locus of waste, clearing rock pores is just nice topping for all the effort so whichever is practical is fine for rocks.

* if I could summarize a hidden rule that runs all these rinse works it would be that no matter what we do to surrounding surface area, even half the live rock we all use will carry the full tank bioload immediately with no ramp up time. We have been trained to always fear lack of surface area but the opposite is true; we have so much beyond need we are free to rinse sand, omit it altogether in some builds, change it for new in many builds, add to or change current rock setup and it’s always going to skip cycle if the new tank is cloudless.

for example as a case comparative look at this instant remote DSB removal job. This is a -lot- of surface area adapted in the reef

Removing remote deep sand bed

I setup a removable deep sand bed in my sump 9 months ago but now I’d like to remove it to give me more room in the sump. What do you think the impact to tank chemistry might be and how to mitigate any negatives?

www.reef2reef.com

it only seems we removed a critical link to the systems filter area, but that only due to the prior training. When factoring updated cycling science rules he was keeping some or all of his current live rock…therefore what we removed ancillary to that was of neutral impact. In your case you are adding inert surface area to active, guaranteed safe.

we can take away from or instantly add to our common live rock core and the operation will always skip cycle if the new setup is cloudless. No bottle bac used, bottle bac isn’t needed to rip clean, we rely on natural bacteria.

 

[lanceinhuntsville]

Thanks for posting pls take succession pics those increments are helpful to see in pattern

the liferock is neutral impact, surfaces will begin to take on bacteria immediately after association with the other live rocks brought over.


swish as practical per rock the sand is the real locus of waste, clearing rock pores is just nice topping for all the effort so whichever is practical is fine for rocks.

* if I could summarize a hidden rule that runs all these rinse works it would be that no matter what we do to surrounding surface area, even half the live rock we all use will carry the full tank bioload immediately with no ramp up time. We have been trained to always fear lack of surface area but the opposite is true; we have so much beyond need we are free to rinse sand, omit it altogether in some builds, change it for new in many builds, add to or change current rock setup and it’s always going to skip cycle if the new tank is cloudless.

for example as a case comparative look at this instant remote DSB removal job. This is a -lot- of surface area adapted in the reef

Removing remote deep sand bed

I setup a removable deep sand bed in my sump 9 months ago but now I’d like to remove it to give me more room in the sump. What do you think the impact to tank chemistry might be and how to mitigate any negatives?

www.reef2reef.com

it only seems we removed a critical link to the systems filter area, but that only due to the prior training. When factoring updated cycling science rules he was keeping some or all of his current live rock…therefore what we removed ancillary to that was of neutral impact. In your case you are adding inert surface area to active, guaranteed safe.

we can take away from or instantly add to our common live rofk core and the operation will always skip cycle if the new setup is cloudless. No bottle bac used, bottle bac isn’t needed to rip clean, we rely on natural bacteria.

I thought that was the case but I’m no scientist so I wanted to make sure it passed the common sense test. I’ll definitely be documenting this upgrade, from setup and plumbing to the actual content transfer. Thanks for cataloging all of this stuff!

 

[Aqua Man]

2) When I rinse the rocks, some are going to have coral on them. I’ve got a 44 gallon brute for this job. With how much intensity do I need to swish the rocks in clean SW to ensure no detritus is brought over?

How much water are you planning to save from your current system?

You could use a power head and blast all the holes in your current rock as you remove them from the 40B. Then a swish/rinse in clean water.