Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[mrpontiac80]

Apologies for not reading all 56 pages, but if I buy new carabsea live sand in a bag, do I still need to rinse it? I don't care much for beneficial bacteria, I have plenty on rocks and media already. I just want to avoid wasting hours rinsing if it's not necessary. Wouldn't the cloudiness eventually dissipate after a day?

Back in February or March of this year I upgraded tanks and went with new Caribsea live sand. I rinsed it. No regrets. I still got diatoms on the new build but it wasn’t horrible and the sand is still dust free. That was what I wanted. My previous tank had so much dust when I vacuumed the sand bed in waterchanges, the bucket looked like tan water. My wrasse would kick up sand and dust would. Kick up every night. I could always tell when he went to bed in the sand at night…. But not in the new tank. I’d rinse!!

 

[swilliams2207]

@brandon429 So I'm thinking of doing a rip clean for my 70-gallon. I currently have dinos in a 8-month-old reef that was started with diverse TBS gulf rock that's now covered in coralline. I'm looking to drill the tank and add a sump so I was planning on breaking down the tank to a degree anyway. Now that I have dinos, I'm wondering if I should just do it all at once and vacate the dinos more manually.

I've read through your rip-clean examples on the process and have a strong outline in mind based on your suggestions. I do have a few questions though.

1. Is there a difference between reusing existing rinsed sand with tap/RO vs buying brand new sand and rinsing? Will I be preserving any bac in the old sand with such rigorous rinsing? Is this simply a money-saving tactic?

2. My dinos are mostly on the sandbed and on some soft corals. I want to shake off all rocks/corals in separate saltwater to rid of dinos/detritus and transfer them to a holding bin with tank water. The majority of rocks are loaded with SPS. Is this enough or can dinos remain "stuck" and get reintroduced easily? I don't want to kill coralline or bac on rocks.

3. If it weren't for dinos I would probably reuse the majority of existing tank water upon refilling. I was going to siphon out water through a fine filter sock into tubs to house fish/corals in the existing tank water. Is this method ill-advised with dinos? Will a filter sock suffice? Should I only be using new water to refill? I'm trying to minimize shock as much as possible.

 

[brandon429]

there is no systemic shock in all new water if only temp and salinity is matched. we've done only those two params all these tanks, the key was reducing light intensity a good while in the new system. for your particular setup I advise waiting to put new sand back in once the dinos stay gone from the bare bottom setup. you'd still rinse off/brush off dinos and rinse away in clean saltwater before re inputting rocks back in the cleaned tank, and you can spray peroxide on the affected areas first when the rocks are outside the tank for cleaning in the air to help begin the kill for any attachments on the live rock areas. delayed sand use is best, the bacteria in the sand don't matter per all the jobs. we simply don't care about sandbed bacteria.

make sure to wipe out the tank walls back to clean, clean the hoses and pumps so dinos cells and bioslicks are back to clean, hold off on stocking any new animals a while as dinos will ride back in on your fish's slime coats and present a small challenge to the cleaned system but I bet this will help. if you can get a uv sterilizer to add after the surgical cleaning it will help you bigtime

we should wait to put the rinsed sand back a few weeks to make sure no more dinos can remass. it can be either new or old sand, perfectly rinsed stored in the air/allowed to dry before new use/ you can check it for clarity once more before re introduction, re rinse if needed, then dump in via zip lock bags the rinsed sand back into the fixed tank

the reason sandbed bacteria don't matter is because we preserve rock bacteria in these jobs, rinsing and peroxide doesn't kill rock cycle bacteria

 

[swilliams2207]

there is no systemic shock in all new water if only temp and salinity is matched. we've done only those two params all these tanks, the key was reducing light intensity a good while in the new system. for your particular setup I advise waiting to put new sand back in once the dinos stay gone from the bare bottom setup. you'd still rinse off/brush off dinos and rinse away in clean saltwater before re inputting rocks back in the cleaned tank, and you can spray peroxide on the affected areas first when the rocks are outside the tank for cleaning in the air to help begin the kill for any attachments on the live rock areas. delayed sand use is best, the bacteria in the sand don't matter per all the jobs. we simply don't care about sandbed bacteria.

make sure to wipe out the tank walls back to clean, clean the hoses and pumps so dinos cells and bioslicks are back to clean, hold off on stocking any new animals a while as dinos will ride back in on your fish's slime coats and present a small challenge to the cleaned system but I bet this will help. if you can get a uv sterilizer to add after the surgical cleaning it will help you bigtime

we should wait to put the rinsed sand back a few weeks to make sure no more dinos can remass. it can be either new or old sand, perfectly rinsed stored in the air/allowed to dry before new use/ you can check it for clarity once more before re introduction, re rinse if needed, then dump in via zip lock bags the rinsed sand back into the fixed tank

the reason sandbed bacteria don't matter is because we preserve rock bacteria in these jobs, rinsing and peroxide doesn't kill rock cycle bacteria

gotcha - all this makes sense to me thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Mad_Newbie]

Came home this nighy with a nightmare, just started this hobby again 2 months ago, and it went bad real fast!

Found a hairline crack around output bulkhead fitting, it's getting bigger in a second, and decided to lower the water and observe the mess, and it's quite nasty!!! Luckily my tank has a safety brace so it didn't explode

Ordered a new tank today, and will arrive this night, i have big questions here

Since my tank is just 2 months old, do i need to rinse the sandbed before move it to a new tank?

I have a 10 galons QT, I'm afraid it can't hold all of my livestock, is it ok for me to just put the fish and corals into one of my sump chamber?

My DT tank is 60x30x40 (in Centimeters)
My SUMP is 70x40x40 (with Refugium and deepsandbed in one of its chamber)

New tank will be 80x40x40 (25 galons)


Thanks in advance! Really appreciate the help

 

[C4ctus99]

Came home this nighy with a nightmare, just started this hobby again 2 months ago, and it went bad real fast!

Found a hairline crack around output bulkhead fitting, it's getting bigger in a second, and decided to lower the water and observe the mess, and it's quite nasty!!! Luckily my tank has a safety brace so it didn't explode

Ordered a new tank today, and will arrive this night, i have big questions here

Since my tank is just 2 months old, do i need to rinse the sandbed before move it to a new tank?

I have a 10 galons QT, I'm afraid it can't hold all of my livestock, is it ok for me to just put the fish and corals into one of my sump chamber?

My DT tank is 60x30x40 (in Centimeters)
My SUMP is 70x40x40 (with Refugium and deepsandbed in one of its chamber)

New tank will be 80x40x40 (25 galons)


Thanks in advance! Really appreciate the help

I always end up rinsing mine when moving, figure it can’t hurt. Sump chamber is fine, maybe just add something for circulation.

What all livestock? If that’s a Naso tang, a 25 might be a little small for it…

Honestly, moving everything in one day would be fine. I used 5 gallon buckets for all my rock and a 10 for livestock (coral beauty, 2 clowns, invertebrates) just keep the water the right temp and circulating

 

[Mad_Newbie]

I always end up rinsing mine when moving, figure it can’t hurt. Sump chamber is fine, maybe just add something for circulation.

What all livestock? If that’s a Naso tang, a 25 might be a little small for it…

Honestly, moving everything in one day would be fine. I used 5 gallon buckets for all my rock and a 10 for livestock (coral beauty, 2 clowns, invertebrates) just keep the water the right temp and circulating

So as I'm following this thread since yesterday, my following step is :
1. Move all livestock into the SUMP
2. Move the rock
3. Take out the water (probably use it again to fill half of the tank and to rinse the sand after tap water rinse)
4. Take all the sand, rinse it clean until cloudiness is gone!
5. Put the rinsed sand into the new tank
6. Doing some scappinh with the rock
7. Wait 1-2 hours make sure everything's Okay
8. Take all livestock back from the sump into the DT

Notes : No water test or bacteria dosing needed

Am i right?


For the info my current livestock is :
Fish =
1 Bristletooth (tiny size)
2 Ocelaris clown
1 Naso (small size)
2 Regal Tang (super tiny size)
2 Pepermint shrimp
2 Cleaner shrimp

Coral =
1 Torch
2 Hammer
2 Blasto
1 Acan
2 Rhodactis
3 Zoanthids
1 Brain
1 GSP

I do realize my tank isn't sufficient and future proof as the tangs will get bigger in time, I'm willing to upgrade my tank in 2 or 3 years from now, rightnow my only option is just the size of this, my wife is expecting the babies soon, i can't keep up the amount of work to start a bigger tank

 

[Gort]

...my wife is expecting the babies soon, i can't keep up the amount of work to start a bigger tank

Babies - how many? I'm the father of twins; what an "adventure" that was. Best wishes to you all

 

[brandon429]

MadN what a nice series of posts and pics that really builds up our thread work example set in a positive way glad you posted the tank handling need

Rinsing is this: sand rinsed in sections in a bucket preferably outside so drains don't clog with particulate matter

You'll be amazed how long one tiny section has to be rinsed in tap water, initial rinse must be tap water whether sand is all new or old sand, to become laser clean

Vs taking one pass, this ~50 rinse and stir passes effort per section cleaning shows the true degree of waste storage sandbeds pose for our tank

There is no time a reef tank benefits from not rinsing out its sand...even as a care preventative, with or without bad system performance. As general maintenance to prevent short tank life span, that's for sure what we are testing here aligning 350+ reefs with all the exact same set of moves

This is reef dentistry what you're about to do, no joke its flushing and rasping and rinsing and targeting of areas

When your live rock is out of the tank use a knife, not a brush to target pick any algae off like a dentist targets plaque areas on a big tooth for scraping.

Everybody thinks they're rinsed fully, then they aren't because sand is dirtier than we think... the required pre test is to take a sample section of each rinse group sand and set a rinsed handful into a clear glass of water
Hold to light, see if any clouding. Keep rinsing the group until it doesn't cloud in a cup test

Stack the rinsed lumps in a separate empty bucket for final rinse, after cup testing

If you're ever setting up a small nano, rinse the final lump in saltwater so it doesn't affect salinity when added to a small nano

If the lump of clean sand is destined for a large tank just rinse it all in ro di water as the final step, to evacuate tap. A large tank won't have salinity greatly affected by freshwater sand going underneath then over time via osmosis that freshwater in the bed is pulled up into higher concentration water and in turn saltwater quickly displaces freshwater in the sand for a nice balance.

All your steps are fine, adding in this perfected rinse order is a guaranteed skip cycle setup for you + it keeps our repeating methods test going. Everyone who chimed in supported the rinse method we're testing, really appreciated

 

[brandon429]

If you'll use a good degree of cleaned live rock in the holding tank it'll control ammonia just fine as you complete the dentistry tank run

We don't use prime here, nor ammonia testing, nor bottle bac. The point of repeating the same method over and over is to show a way to be independent from those constraints

Because by nature of design all reef tanks run more surface area in the display than they need for a complete bioload, that means you can run much less live rock in your holding tanks to keep the ammonia from building up. You can leave room to swim, it doesn't have to be packed with rock

By never adding prime, bottled bacteria or trying to pack in extra bacteria here in these jobs we never put oxygen challenges into people's water. We give them clean water over perfectly rinsed sand + live rock that was detailed and picked clean and rinsed in saltwater, which protects its bacteria

The fundamental thing we do in this thread is trust everyone's cycle to be fine during each job and all the custom work details as long as reef clouding isn't permitted. We save money like that plus we initiate better control over costly $ bioload with inherent trust of remaining cycle bacteria to always be enough

Any system can cut its rock loading down significantly and still maintain its bioload, our live rock is this good when placed directly in the flow path of fast water right where the waste is emitted.

 

[C4ctus99]

So as I'm following this thread since yesterday, my following step is :
1. Move all livestock into the SUMP
2. Move the rock
3. Take out the water (probably use it again to fill half of the tank and to rinse the sand after tap water rinse)
4. Take all the sand, rinse it clean until cloudiness is gone!
5. Put the rinsed sand into the new tank
6. Doing some scappinh with the rock
7. Wait 1-2 hours make sure everything's Okay
8. Take all livestock back from the sump into the DT

Notes : No water test or bacteria dosing needed

Am i right?


For the info my current livestock is :
Fish =
1 Bristletooth (tiny size)
2 Ocelaris clown
1 Naso (small size)
2 Regal Tang (super tiny size)
2 Pepermint shrimp
2 Cleaner shrimp

Coral =
1 Torch
2 Hammer
2 Blasto
1 Acan
2 Rhodactis
3 Zoanthids
1 Brain
1 GSP

I do realize my tank isn't sufficient and future proof as the tangs will get bigger in time, I'm willing to upgrade my tank in 2 or 3 years from now, rightnow my only option is just the size of this, my wife is expecting the babies soon, i can't keep up the amount of work to start a bigger tank

Sounds about right. I emptied the tank down to just a few gallons and did an initial rinse of the sand using that to start.

If you can move rocks first, will make catching fish easier. Biggest thing is try not to kick up dust. If the water gets cloudy it can cause problems. Also draining water level makes it easier too.

Those tangs will probably outgrow the tank in a matter of months, not years, so just keep an eye on them. I recently traded in a coral beauty cause it was too active for my 20g long tank, just not enough room for it to swim and it was getting ancy. Just keep an eye on them and be ready to rehome them when it’s time

 

[Mad_Newbie]

If you'll use a good degree of cleaned live rock in the holding tank it'll control ammonia just fine as you complete the dentistry tank run

We don't use prime here, nor ammonia testing, nor bottle bac. The point of repeating the same method over and over is to show a way to be independent from those constraints

Because by nature of design all reef tanks run more surface area in the display than they need for a complete bioload, that means you can run much less live rock in your holding tanks to keep the ammonia from building up. You can leave room to swim, it doesn't have to be packed with rock

By never adding prime, bottled bacteria or trying to pack in extra bacteria here in these jobs we never put oxygen challenges into people's water. We give them clean water over perfectly rinsed sand + live rock that was detailed and picked clean and rinsed in saltwater, which protects its bacteria

The fundamental thing we do in this thread is trust everyone's cycle to be fine during each job and all the custom work details as long as reef clouding isn't permitted. We save money like that plus we initiate better control over costly $ bioload with inherent trust of remaining cycle bacteria to always be enough

Any system can cut its rock loading down significantly and still maintain its bioload, our live rock is this good when placed directly in the flow path of fast water right where the waste is emitted.

Right I'm also planning to remove some of my rock to give my fishy a wider swimming area,

This morning the new tank had arrived !!

Time for action

I forgot to mention about my corals, all fish is goin to sump rightnow but I'm planning to move the coral into a bucket with aerator while I'm doin the job? Is it okay?

 

[Mad_Newbie]

Babies - how many? I'm the father of twins; what an "adventure" that was. Best wishes to you all

We're expecting the twin this month

Sounds about right. I emptied the tank down to just a few gallons and did an initial rinse of the sand using that to start.

If you can move rocks first, will make catching fish easier. Biggest thing is try not to kick up dust. If the water gets cloudy it can cause problems. Also draining water level makes it easier too.

Those tangs will probably outgrow the tank in a matter of months, not years, so just keep an eye on them. I recently traded in a coral beauty cause it was too active for my 20g long tank, just not enough room for it to swim and it was getting ancy. Just keep an eye on them and be ready to rehome them when it’s time

When the fish getting bigger, i may trade it to the LFS or hobbyists, personal collection will double or triple the value than a fish at LFS display as it was well acclimated in a tank environment

 

[C4ctus99]

Right I'm also planning to remove some of my rock to give my fishy a wider swimming area,

This morning the new tank had arrived !!

Time for action

I forgot to mention about my corals, all fish is goin to sump rightnow but I'm planning to move the coral into a bucket with aerator while I'm doin the job? Is it okay?

I think current flow is more important than aeration, but my experience with corals is limited

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

@brandon429 - I am going to post pictures of my RS Max 500 I want to do a rip clean in, you have seen and commented on it recently. When we chatted, I wanted to finish the cure in my new tank and get that up before I started the other. This will allow me an emergency contingency plan for placement if something should go sideways, just like my username... So, my ammonia is at zero in the new display and I am ready to get that tank across the "ready to get started" finish line. But I have 2 questions before I get started...
1) I am looking for actual instructions on how to properly execute a sand rinse. For example, what is the best practice to follow regarding how to physically do this. I have been looking and can't seem to locate it. I have 50 pounds of sand I wanted to start rinsing tonight for the new tank.
2) Regarding the tank I want to rip apart. I ordered all the new sand and it will be here next week. My plan is to rinse it one weekend, let it sit in buckets of salt water and be ready for the following weekend. The questions is: Last night my wife and I discovered that in fact (while we do have GHA, and now we just noticed a tiny patch of bryopsis which I will attack tonight with peroxide and a knife) we have a plaque of biblically proportions of spaghetti worms. Yes, we do feed heavy from time to time, maybe more often than not. My wife has spent a bunch of time reading and, has a good case, that these worms are ultimately very helpful. However, we absolutely need to rip this tank apart. I do siphon a bunch of the sand bed every time I do a water change (either every week, or I will do a larger one every two weeks depending on schedules). The question I was asked is, is the rip clean worth disrupting that eco system? When asked this my natural response was "you know I have over 100 pound of sand on the way... lol".

 

[brandon429]

No it's no harm to the ecosystem, the items in a common reef tank sandbed have been fully overstated regarding systemic importance for 25 years.

The sole reason we're fifty pages out here with perfect safe examples, no bleaching, is because nobody strays from the safe order of ops

Take great pictures along the way please, so helpful for others to pattern your job when needed

Be working on some rocks now, before the move, saving time on the big day of the swap. Lift out a rock and set on the counter

Use a steak knife tip vs any brush and detail- pick using precision force, pick off at the anchor points any algae or attachments you don't want. Don't use dips or broad application, that's for other threads. This one's rock prep is all knife points and small precision accuracy scrapes and rinses like a dentist does on a big reef tooth

Set clean rocks back in, ready to go, their bacteria are cared for this way and they're the only bacteria we need in the new setup.

You'd take any sand that's going in the new tank and part it out in sections to rinse in clean buckets using tap water until that section runs clean. Hours and tons of gallons of water will be required to produce clean sand. Final rinse in ro water for each sub batch

Be testing lumps of sand along the way for rinse purity: deep handfuls into clear glass of water to test for clouding. If clouds, go back and re rinse all. Prepare for hours of rinsing

Input no cloudy sand, not even 1% that's how we win on each job.

You now have clean rocks and clean sand ready to install in any tank and it'll be cloudless

You must not run full power lighting on the new setup, very important. Reduce light power 50% run short photoperiod first several days in the new setting then slowly ramp up lights. Don't even hit full power for a month, and it'll go safe

Don't test for ammonia

Don't use additives of any type nor bottle bac, that's our entire thread, we're free of ammonia guessing for a very important reason... we don't want cheap test kits causing fake doubt

We only want seneye readings if applicable... if no seneye, don't run cycling tests this is known skip cycling biology working well because we rinse each job to cloudless perfection before use.

You can use all new water if you want, the only params to test and match are temp and salinity

This is one reason we're reducing light; handles all new water parameter variation just fine.

 

[brandon429]

From that process above, all we're doing is removing any clouding from the new setup and we're transferring over rocks that are picked clean and all bacteria are preserved. The waste from the sandbed was excluded, cloudless, and live rocks have pods and worms that seed back into the new system


Use no unrinsed sand; not any from the old tank that is unrinsed. We don't need any of the old waste sand.

Must verify each subsection of rinsed sand.... this only works perfectly if 0% clouding is allowed in the new system. I've seen runs before where they didn't rinse correctly and the 10% cloudy new setup is such a let down

The was new/ updated cycling science runs our thread is that we know rock bacteria are enough, for every reef nano to large scale

All the extra areas that had cycling bacteria weren't vital required links in the safety chain- those were merely extra bacteria tolerated by the system, as bioloading like fish collectively, where the extra bacteria were consuming 02 and creating waste acids. To be free of that competition really actually bolsters the rock bacteria and they handle new tank bioloading for all these pages.

Old cycling science, by contrast, is heavily regulated by that test kits say (never takes time to verify accuracy) and old cycling science is overly concerned with # of bacterial cells vs clouding and detritus exclusion... these two tenets are the hidden truth that runs our thread without testing and without using bottle bacteria nor additives for rescue

We're confident with systemic bacteria here, old cycling science is flinch-level scared of losing any and in that hesitation systems can crash.

 

[UndergroundReefCo]

Hello @Brandon429,

I did send you a PM but also sending here.

I came across this HUGE thread in regard to moving established reef tanks and sand rinsing. I wanted to reach out to talk about my upcoming move. I recently came across a reef tank for sale about an hour and 15 mins away from me. The tank has been established for just over a year. The current system has about 10 fish and roughly 15 SPS and LPS corals. The previous owner has some pretty expensive SPS AND LPS corals I would like to move with the most success as possible. Here is my current thought process on the move and was looking for your insight and best practices. My plan is to grab a handful of buckets, and totes to get water/livestock out. 1 tote and buckets for fish, and then another tote for rocks with incrusted coral, and then I can leave any rocks without coral wrapped in newspaper in 5-gallon buckets etc.

Step 1: prep tank for removal, removing lids, sump equipment, etc for movement.
Step 2: Start to drain majority of the water into totes/buckets for the move.
Step 3: remove rocks into appropriate totes/buckets
Step 4: remove majority of the water for fish removal and move them to appropriate totes/buckets
Step 5: Final removal of water, tank breakdown and removal of sand.

Do you suggest getting air stones or bubblers, insulated boxed, run heaters for a move under an hour. Lets not forget, that the fish and coral probably will not be going back into a display tank for a few hours given transport and setup time at my house.

I see a big thing you talk about, and stress is the rinsing of sand. I am going to go with some kind of carib sea sand that I plan rinsing prior to the tank being here. Personally, never thought about doing this prior to seeing your post and threads.

Once I get home I can then setup some heaters etc into the totes until I start moving the water back into the main display.

What is going to give me the best success for my fish and corals. I am happy to take this offline as well and talk via the phone if that is something that works better for you or something you would be willing to do. I am all ears, I am not moving this tank for another week or two. I am trying to make sure that I have everything prepped for a happy and efficient transition.

Most importantly, thanks for your time!

 

[Floyd-]

Dont reuse the sand. Get some new sand and rise the heck out of it till it runs clear. This is a very important step!

 

[brandon429]

@devlinsreef
Also recommended to pattern off five or six prior logged jobs here.

The original description included enough detail i can see you read disassembly/ rip clean threads

If you are using the glass test to verify each rinsed section of sand, so the final wet pile going back into a perfectly cleaned tank is totally cloudless, you're free to use whatever sand you prefer

Don't forget the light reduction at the end, you'd re ramp the light power slowly

most jobs here discuss it which is why studying five or so jobs is likely to catch those details. Nice job planning the move details that will all work for sure

It's all a good order of ops listed. Cover fish, they'll jump and for an hours drive you could easily input bottle bac a tiny bit to support fish transfer along the way as one option. Moving them with pre seeded foam filters from your current tank would be creative

Have a battery powered bait box airstone set ready to use, the live rock can be moved as stated it won't harm anything. That's a water retaining description above nice job on wet newspaper. All my corals could survive that long in wet insulated newspaper carry, so I'm sure your rock will be fine. Have everything rinsed and ready ol in new tank, new water each job shows, so you're just setting clean cloud free live rocks into the tank with rinsed sand and new water matching old salinity and temp.

Those live rocks skip cycle the new setup