Rinse or don't rinse bagged live sand?

[Quietman]

No rinse here, just followed the directions. A bit cloudy overnight, crystal clear the next day or two...but had it blacked out so couldn't see it anyway.

 

[Kenny D]

I followed Brandon’s advice and rinsed 3 bags of Caribsea live sand and I’m glad I did. I couldn’t imagine what the tank would’ve looked like or how long it would’ve taken to clear. The picture below tells the story. It took 9 - 5 gallon rinses to clean 1/2 a bag so about 90 gallons of tap water per bag. That stuff is filthy!

You can follow the progression from start to finish by the appearance of the water.

KD

 

[brandon429]

I’m used to dealing with about one pound of sand in my vase, and it’s a 20 minute full on rinse to clarity, that’s very neat scaling above / 90 gals my goodness! it’s why we can’t use ro or saltwater for the rinse only tap flows endlessly

 

[brandon429]

Team

Just to track settling over time can someone who didn’t pre rinse reach in a grab sand and drop it on a cell phone video so we can see if it still clouds badly

Tanks with gobies and sand turning mechanisms in place are likely free of the silt by now, I've seen that demo'd in drop test vids, ability of diamond gobies.

curious how floc only sandbeds hold up for access after stocking and settle time. Don't kid glove the test, reach deep. We r seeing how an unplanned event like dislodged powerhead or rock stack fall might or might not impact unrinsed beds

 

[Cment]

I dont get "live" sand anymore bc I always rinse. I hate the cloudiness new sand creates in a tank. I found that sometimes i deal with it for months and months if I forget.

 

[Braves Fan]

I used to ,, don't anymore ,, use that liquid stuff that comes in the bag of sand and the water will be clear the next morning and look great till the diatoms hit

 

[Perry]

I have had great success with doing a larger, 25% or so, water change, and using siphoned water from the display to rinse off both dry and "live" sand. Water from display will clean and help to seed new sand and may cycle less, or more quickly. Good time to add sand with less water in display, then new water, works well for me. Use 2 bucket method, one with display water, then put sand in another, like maybe a 1/3rd full, pour water to half way, disturb sand with your hands, then drain and repeat until water clears.
Cheers

 

[brandon429]

Nowadays there's so many refs with good test kits (seneye, mindstream, standouts) wanting to post measures to age old aquarium questions
Someone could do neat bac assessment on pre and post rinse sand.

Dose a system using sand from bag as sole surface area, demo that the sand arrives nitrifier live. No pre rinse. You could put sand in nylon, stack it in a canister filter, test out a ten gallon tank of sw at half a ppm. 2 ppm ammonia is an arbitrary number set by bottle bac sellers also factoring in today's massive ammonia kit variation on accuracy. It is not a required proof level.
If the original sand isn't truly bac live, then cycle it up and make it so, test, then do rinse test.

Making half a ppm disappear overnite using known and controlled surface area sand is exactly as valid, and decent scaling considering the rinse portion. Any bac that remain we'd like to see, or see proof they're gone/sterilized.

Then do another section same bag rinsed in tap until it runs clear.
Retest, but add another follow up test in four days. You're testing for stress rebound vs total sterility. Four days is faster than dry sand can pick up enough microbes to pass a light oxidation test so if it can do half a ppm within a few days after rinse, same benefits to the overall tank are conferred.

 

[jason17star]

I always get too excited and skip the rinsing lol.

 

[Wildblue4]

Nowadays there's so many refs with good test kits (seneye, mindstream, standouts) wanting to post measures to age old aquarium questions
Someone could do neat bac assessment on pre and post rinse sand.

Dose a system using sand from bag as sole surface area, demo that the sand arrives nitrifier live. No pre rinse. You could put sand in nylon, stack it in a canister filter, test out a ten gallon tank of sw at half a ppm. 2 ppm ammonia is an arbitrary number set by bottle bac sellers also factoring in today's massive ammonia kit variation on accuracy. It is not a required proof level.
If the original sand isn't truly bac live, then cycle it up and make it so, test, then do rinse test.

Making half a ppm disappear overnite using known and controlled surface area sand is exactly as valid, and decent scaling considering the rinse portion. Any bac that remain we'd like to see, or see proof they're gone/sterilized.

Then do another section same bag rinsed in tap until it runs clear.
Retest, but add another follow up test in four days. You're testing for stress rebound vs total sterility. Four days is faster than dry sand can pick up enough microbes to pass a light oxidation test so if it can do half a ppm within a few days after rinse, same benefits to the overall tank are conferred.

Brandon
I am getting ready to switch from a 2 year old 125 gallon tank to a 250 gallon tank. So you say I could get the sand out of my existing tank, rinse it until clear with tap water, final rinse with RODI water and add it to my new tank? Then I could get live sand and do the same rinse with it and I should be fine in my tank swap? I have coral and fish and was trying to figure out how to do my swap.
I’ll read your post on rinsing sand but not sure where it is posted.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[brandon429]

Hey that's a big job we would really like your transfer pics and follow up for this upcoming surgery. Even though it's bulky read if you'll skim some of the pages we have moves from those sizes of tanks. The highlights are

If you have any degree of normal matured live rock being transferred, it handles your current fish load even with sand gone, reduced, rinsed, boiled etc. it's hard to trust the instant change but the pages show patterns for prep. Live rock is this trustworthy.

We rinse live rock during the move in saltwater only. Swish it in old tank water or something, we want all detritus evacuated from live rock pores before being set back up

What we do to the sand won't matter if we do it thorough mean and clean. The working safety measure for half a million bucks of other people's reefs here is transfer no cloud. Zero, no detritus moves over and things work fine consistently. Tap water blasts for sand. Saltwater blast rinsing or swish rocks submerged in it for live rocks so that in the new tank nothing clouds even if you fill it with new water roughly like a wave crashing against a reef crest.

New tank gets non production level lighting for a week, ramp up like u got new LED's. We found over time the new system needs to ramp back up to avoid stress from blasting sun over the system which is 99% free of pent up organics now. That new tank will be hungry for new feed, to fill it all back up with organics next year cyclically as we do. Ramp up prevents coral bleaching somehow, it’s simply a pattern noticed and ramp up wouldn’t harm any system as insurance measure.


You will see we haven't lost any corals or full systems with this surgery. We have reports of diamond gobies dying, two fish in 30 pages of work. I don't keep fish to know how to avoid that goby stress but this is like bringing them home to a new tank from lfs lemme know if better/slower/precision acclimation steps helps w goby xfer

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

As a matter of pride we don’t use bottle bac as insurance. Nobody is affecting tank bacteria with rough handling, it’s a free procedure no profiting required

*this isn’t the only way to move reefs without loss, we’re rather rough on diversity with the method admitted. The reason we don’t use any other method is because rinsed out bugs come back eventually, all is cyclic-we can now purchase refugium charger kits for the new system if they don’t, and it takes temporary loss of heterogeneity in the system to flush out detritus during the move.

Not flushing detritus during moves - no work threads exist for multiple pages of moves using that method. So far this is the only safe way we can pattern out before you begin. Any other move transfer thread is someone’s own move...that’s different from other people’s moves/patterns can be seen. Being accountable live time for loss tests patterning even further.

Using dosers and bottle bac at the rate we’re doing in the hobby, paying other people’s sports car payments with random purchases, not allowed here lol

 

[Wildblue4]

I do have live rock and I will rinse it off like you suggested. I have been curing rock for the last few months to add to the new tank just in case. I don’t have a diamond Golby but I do have a Gold face Golby. We will see how it goes. I moved many tanks but never switched out a tank. I’ll read your suggested post.

 

[tmnails]

Man, for every rinser in this thread, theres a non rinser! Its interesting how people can have such varying outcomes with their methods. I happen to be starting a new 180 gallon soon and wanted to see what the general consensus is for this topic, but there seems to be no definitive answer.

This comment speaks to me the most.

The way I look at it. You will add bacteria anyway and will make it live. So why not just rinse it. Now is the time to not have any regrets

Before we had bottled bacteria cycle starter packs, we ALWAYS needed something to live to seed the tank (live rock, or in this case sand.) But now you can order a bottle to kick start you nitrogen cycle, so live sand becomes a little less important. For me, I plan on picking up either fiji pink or special grade Carib Sea and washing it completely. There seems to be little gained by leaving it un-rinsed, and its one more thing I know i won't have to worry about later.

 

[Wildblue4]

Man, for every rinser in this thread, theres a non rinser! Its interesting how people can have such varying outcomes with their methods. I happen to be starting a new 180 gallon soon and wanted to see what the general consensus is for this topic, but there seems to be no definitive answer.

This comment speaks to me the most.



Before we had bottled bacteria cycle starter packs, we ALWAYS needed something to live to seed the tank (live rock, or in this case sand.) But now you can order a bottle to kick start you nitrogen cycle, so live sand becomes a little less important. For me, I plan on picking up either fiji pink or special grade Carib Sea and washing it completely. There seems to be little gained by leaving it un-rinsed, and its one more thing I know i won't have to worry about later.

I’m am going to use the Fiji as well. What cycle reducer are you planning on using? Dr Tims?

 

[DSC reef]

IMO this thread shows that there are many ways to run a reef tank, not a wrong or right way. Love seeing these discussions as both ways work well.

 

[Saltyreef]

Rinse. Wouldnt ever make that mistake again of dumping in the tank out of the bag.

 

[tmnails]

I’m am going to use the Fiji as well. What cycle reducer are you planning on using? Dr Tims?

Either Dr. Tims or this:

Aquarium Cycle Kit

Aquarium Cycle Kit The Aquarium Cycle Kit--consisting of live nitrifying bacteria and an inorganic source of "fuel"--offers a fast, clean and cruelty-free alternative to older nitrogen cycling methods. Not to be used in systems that contain livestock!

www.algaebarn.com

They probably are comparable, I haven't looked into it much yet.

 

[brandon429]

I have a friendly challenge though, to help people keep their cash in wallet vs paying other people's sports car payments

The sandbed bacteria don't matter in your cycle, your running reef, they don't matter. They're always in excess of what the live rock can do, and that's always enough.

if you buy bottle bac, its due to buying dry live rock, the sand doesn't matter

lastly, you can't rinse bac off sand grains like we prep this sand, so you are still getting live sand after the tap prep/

*saying sand doesn't matter is a bold claim/aware its against the grain

refer to the sand rinse thread-we remove instantly the oldest possible sandbeds you can imagine, and the rocks always handle whats needed. we are removing unneeded bacteria all at once, that's why the system never recycles and we've robbed 1/3 of its surface area.

 

[Wildblue4]

I have a friendly challenge though, to help people keep their cash in wallet vs paying other people's sports cay payments

The sandbed bacteria don't matter in your cycle, your running reef, they don't matter. They're always in excess of what the live rock can do, and that's always enough.

if you buy bottle bac, its due to buying dry live rock, the sand doesn't matter

lastly, you can't rinse bac off sand grains like we prep this sand, so you are still getting live sand after the tap prep/

So if I can get some dry small aggregate to add to my tank it won’t spike the PH in the water or add anything bad? Of course with it highly rinsed!!

 

[brandon429]

Why haven't some non rinsers got us drop test video updates to see if clouding is permanently gone

Reach to bottom, grab sand, drop from mid tank on vid
Systems without turnover fish will be the best test of flocculant integrity

I really am curious to see a months long drop test of a no goby/wrasse unrinsed bed. Given that much time and natural biofilm aggregation the clouding really might be controlled via natural mechanisms. An updated drop test helps us measure long term ability of the added floc/ just wait per directions option