Reuse sand after crash?

[Jim the noob]

Hey guys, just had the pleasure to come home from work to a crashed tank.. 1 fish survived (so far)

Im cleaning it up right now, and my question, can i reuse the sand or is it so full of whatever killed everything (and the following amonia) or do i have to get new sand before i can restart ?

 

[brandon429]

you need to rip clean the sand for sure, it's not worth the risk not to.

your rock filter bacteria are not dead for any reason, you would rinse out all the sand in tap water for hours, hours until 100% clear

then final rinse in saltwater

then put it back in the tank with the same rocks moved over, back into all clean water. this is a skip cycle setup for round two; crashes don't undo filters. this is a no bottle bac job; you specifically do not need to buy bottle bac just in case, we're out to fifty pages below doing what I've said above with no losses, all skip cycles, and no bottle bac:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I need to to a tank swap out here in the next few weeks. same tank size just a full replacement. red sea 650P around 180ish gallons I have 2" of carib sea special grade my fav. sand. I plan to put the fish corals and LR in to a tank with HOB filter, flow heater and light for maybe (...

www.reef2reef.com

you do a rip clean after:
a tank crash

before you move tanks

before you upgrade tanks

if you want to change a sandbed out for a new one

to beat cyano/dinos etc

or as preventative maintenance, they're not harmful. being un-rip cleaned is harmful. all a rip clean does is remove all the waste from inside the sand grains. we don't need bacteria on sand, only the rocks, don't fall into the trick that your sandbed bacteria matter: per above they surely do not. sandbed bacteria are extra bioload; they are something our tanks tolerate, they're not core bacteria placed in a 3d contact scape like rockworks is, and we mainly rinse rocks in saltwater above. tap sandbed gets harshed, rocks get care.

 

[exnisstech]

^^^ This. Sand is too cheap to take a chance especially on a crashed tank. I've cleaned old sand before and won't do it again. It just isn't worth the work IMO

 

[Jim the noob]

thx for the fast replies better put in a heater then, cant get new sand until tomorrow, shops closed now

 

[brandon429]

I would probably buy all new agreed.

and still rinse it, don't add any unrinsed sand/ not worth it. new sand is silt clouding/not the same risk as waste clouding/but still ugly for days. pre rinse any sand and if you use the old that's ok too/rinse either way.

 

[Spare time]

What caused the crash? if it was a pollutent then maybe. If you are just restocking the tank, then I don't see why you would replace it. You can do a big sand cleaning if you'd like, but why destroy the sand-biome if its not causing an issue? I think you need to know what killed everything before you can answer it. The only thing that would call for sand removal would be if you have a lot of hydrogen sulfide built up in the sand.

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Replace the sand. It’s your best bet.

 

[Jim the noob]

What caused the crash? if it was a pollutent then maybe. If you are just restocking the tank, then I don't see why you would replace it. You can do a big sand cleaning if you'd like, but why destroy the sand-biome if its not causing an issue? I think you need to know what killed everything before you can answer it. The only thing that would call for sand removal would be if you have a lot of hydrogen sulfide built up in the sand.

i have no idea what caused it, yesterday it seemed fine when i fed them. Came home from work 2½ hour ago, to clouded water, startet looking i couldnt find any fish... A search revealed 1 dead in a hole in rockworks, and since i couldnt see anymore, i assumed that my cuc ate the rest, so startet emptying and moving anemoniesa, corals and cuc, just to find 1 fish alive behind rock, the rest dead behind rocks & in corners.

No idea what killed the first, but i asume the rest died of amonia

 

[brandon429]

If you did not initiate fallow and quarantine first go, you need to now and it's highly unsafe not to if you added anything wet from a pet store in the last few months

Has anything new been added since may for example or was the tank not recently changed at all and then it fish crashed

 

[Jim the noob]

havent added anything to that tank for about 2½-3 months

edited: added 2 corals allmost 2 months ago

 

[Spare time]

i have no idea what caused it, yesterday it seemed fine when i fed them. Came home from work 2½ hour ago, to clouded water, startet looking i couldnt find any fish... A search revealed 1 dead in a hole in rockworks, and since i couldnt see anymore, i assumed that my cuc ate the rest, so startet emptying and moving anemoniesa, corals and cuc, just to find 1 fish alive behind rock, the rest dead behind rocks & in corners.

No idea what killed the first, but i asume the rest died of amonia

It could be an ammonia spike, or oxygen deprivation (my guess). Something big died (i.e. a large fish) and led to a bacterial bloom which killed the fish or something killed the majority of fish and led to the bacterial bloom I think that if you want to replace the sand, that is fine, but I don't know how it would help anything. My advice, if the fish were never quarentined, would be to act like a disease killed them and have new fish go through QT while the display is fallow. You could then siphon clean the sand as much as you want during that period. If you do decide to replace the sand, maybe keep a handful from the DT before.

 

[brandon429]

the risk % of disease being your cause of crash isn't zero then. It may or may not be higher risk for you than for folks in the US based on shipping/holding/acquisition variables but articles like this one show why I would recommend you instate fallow and quarantine if you want the solid $ savings best bet:

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

since you added something wet in the last 5 mos ish/recently, you have a low or decent % chance of that risk above. its not zero for sure. if you can rule out doser issues, cleaner poisonings / things kids dump in reefs without telling us/electric shock stuff then disease is for sure something to consider in tracing out your cause and eventual prevention of this happening again. since you are getting new fish, the idea is really important in my opinion.

 

[brandon429]

reef tank cycling has undergone some changes in the last few years thanks to the ten thousand plus reefs on seneye all uploading what nh3 ammonia does in tight scope across tanks from all over the world


in direct relation to your causative hunt, all seneye use collectively shows that reef tanks never lose ammonia control before a fish loss, it by rule comes after one and only when carcasses are allowed to degrade in tank/happened here.

I agree with your assessments about the order of loss/X fish die then a cascade starts after X tipping point between surface area, flow, and meat load degrading in the tank. ammonia never got 'undone' or lacked control to cause that; a disease is very very very possible given that article above. hope this tracing clue run helps. ammonia did not rise before the fish loss, only after. you can also add to the clue hunt that one fish dead in the rocks won't kill anyone's tank, you had more than one fish die triggering the cascade.

 

[Jim the noob]

guess thats just a very ****** day then, didnt realy expect to find the cause anyway.. Just bothers me that it happened without a warning sign. As mentioned everything seemed fine yesterday... At least it was only the fish that died.. my cuc and anemonies seems ok, at least for now...

 

[brandon429]

this raises the % chance it was disease even higher. specifically if we watch Jay troubleshoot in the disease forum he says losses that center on fish and exclude the other main organisms when tied to recent biosecurity concerns = disease likely. not trying to harp on that / legit distilling causatives. I think you had a disease loss/qt and fallow for next round is best bet. simply wait three mos to add fish back; that's half the battle (completes fallow time, don't break bioscty during this time)

you could then buy only qt fish, prepped by someone else, and start really back in control of your most likely cause. future additions wet from a pet store would clearly have to pre-pass through a smaller fallow holding mini system.

 

[Jim the noob]

wouldnt my anemonies be carrier of any diseases without being affected ?

that kinda limits my options to be causious when adding fish again.

 

[brandon429]

I believe that's why taking 3 mos from now / your post rip-clean date to add fish is the required fallow period. without a host, the disease agents die off /that's the going science.

then when you add in new fish, try and have them at least quarantined already before adding them. if you skip it, the same risk presents itself and that does NOT mean your fish will die, it simply means you're opting in for the chance without taking a new path in the assembly process. nano reefers on nano-reef.com for twenty years have been skipping disease preps and doing largely fine but that's two common clownfish recurring tank to tank

once you get into the mixed species you previously had, something has changed nowadays where unlike 2006 unprepped fish are dropping like flies/per the disease forum trending.

 

[Jim the noob]

not much i can do right now anyway.. tomorrow ill go get som fresh sand, get i running, and put the survivors back in..

But so far, thx for the help to you all bedtime for me here

 

[fubanachi24]

you need to rip clean the sand for sure, it's not worth the risk not to.

your rock filter bacteria are not dead for any reason, you would rinse out all the sand in tap water for hours, hours until 100% clear

then final rinse in saltwater

then put it back in the tank with the same rocks moved over, back into all clean water. this is a skip cycle setup for round two; crashes don't undo filters. this is a no bottle bac job; you specifically do not need to buy bottle bac just in case, we're out to fifty pages below doing what I've said above with no losses, all skip cycles, and no bottle bac:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I need to to a tank swap out here in the next few weeks. same tank size just a full replacement. red sea 650P around 180ish gallons I have 2" of carib sea special grade my fav. sand. I plan to put the fish corals and LR in to a tank with HOB filter, flow heater and light for maybe (...

www.reef2reef.com

you do a rip clean after:
a tank crash

before you move tanks

before you upgrade tanks

if you want to change a sandbed out for a new one

to beat cyano/dinos etc

or as preventative maintenance, they're not harmful. being un-rip cleaned is harmful. all a rip clean does is remove all the waste from inside the sand grains. we don't need bacteria on sand, only the rocks, don't fall into the trick that your sandbed bacteria matter: per above they surely do not. sandbed bacteria are extra bioload; they are something our tanks tolerate, they're not core bacteria placed in a 3d contact scape like rockworks is, and we mainly rinse rocks in saltwater above. tap sandbed gets harshed, rocks get care.

Can you switch some rocks ? My tank recently had a high spike in amonia . I have another 40 gallon tank I put my fish in for right now X but can I switch some rocks ?