Tank upgrade. Will I need to cycle again?

[Lasse]

Not sure I understand what logic you don't get. Old sand beds accumulate organic waste. Ceptic tanks accumulate organic waste. That is why I enjoyed the post by FishThinkPink. It was a fun analogy in my opinion.

And then you clean it and move it - it becomes a bomb. But if you do not move it - let it be in the tank it is. It still is as dirty as before but in your opinion its not a bomb - that´s the logical somersault

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

An old sand bed does not have to be deep to destroy your tank. Threads pop up all the time here illustrating that.
Depending on the bio load and how much waste has been accumulated, you can easily nuke a tank by transferring a sand bed that is less than 2 inches.

Not if you rinse it from organic matters before but leave most bacteria films (no nuke with bleach)

Sincerely Lasse

 

[ApoIsland]

Not if you rinse it from organic matters before but leave most bacteria films (no nuke with bleach)

Sincerely Lasse

You do realize we are saying the same thing with one very minor difference.

We both agree you should rinse the sand in between transferring tanks. The only difference is that you believe the beneficial bacteria on the sand is worth saving so you would rinse it in salt water and not fresh water in order to preserve the life. I believe there is no significant benefit to keeping beneficial bacteria in a sand bed alive so I would rinse it thoroughly in fresh water which is much much easier.

 

[brandon429]

Why would anyone want to risk their whole system using an experimental approach with no work threads for patterning? partial rinsing, or saltwater rinsing has no pattern, it has only verbal reports of both loss and wipeouts as mentioned by ApoIsland

What doesn’t have any losses and constitutes the only sourced work on the matter is 100% tap rinsing to completely blast the sand clean


ergo, anyone who cares about not killing someone’s system would recommend the steps are taken such that we get a new entrant for page 53 of the sand rinse thread which is all tap rinses.

as recommended / partial rinses or caring for the bacteria rinsing works about 99% of the time with no loss, but not 100% I have six examples of it failing, with another ~60% getting minor invasion challenges for a short period afterwards by under rinsing and moving waste out of fear of bacteria loss. Percents are just my estimates


but blast rinsing / total tap destruction rinse of all sand before moving has zero outbreaks after and 0% loss, it works always because it evens out the variables that kill 1% who under rinse and I don’t think it’s ammonia i think the loss risk is bacterial compounds or metabolites in some systems

when RMCoy killed his whole fish load by inputting one handful of sand from the old tank, into the new one after it was up and running, I don’t think that was ammonia I think it was toxin X that the sand rinse thread will never see. One handful of seemingly ok old sand killed all the fish in a 200 or so huge new reef. Before the handful, all were fine, after handful-dead. it’s one of the six or so fails we have on file

of course for ten pages people doubted the cause, but they had no prior patterns to evaluate from so as long as tap rinsing remains 100% we should consider that one handful of old sand, or any clouding from a partial rinse, is bad risk.

 

[brandon429]

I honestly don't believe a 2 month old running tank for example carries risk, move it as is if you want.

but the work of the pre rinse simply aligns them all. all presentations on the continuum of risk are changed to zero risk, no bottle bac needed transfers and on several occasions we even removed a third of their existing rock to have lesser amounts in the new tank, same fish loading, and all tap rinsed sand (final rinse in RO to evacuate the tap)

moving live rock that is already vastly beyond what the needs are for biofiltration was key, no bacteria were lost.

to press the matter even further, when totally obliterating sandbeds we sometimes have them attack the rocks with peroxide lol talk about biofilter insult. tracked on seneye, these still pass. no nitrification rate change.


that still doesnt recycle. here's one from yesterday / a rinse job completed.

to transfer this into a new tank, simply re assemble it in a new tank:

Look what **Stansreef*** did
Copied from the peroxide thread

shows sand rinsing mixed with direct rock prep and plant removal plus kill step:

Been battling dinos, cyano, green hair algae, etc. on my Fluval Evo13.5 for months now. Chasing nutrients, different chemical treatments, urchins, snails, etc. with no lasting results! Was at my wits end, came across this thread and thought why not rip and treat!

Read through the various posts and techniques for sand cleaning and hydrogen sprays and came up with a game plan.

Pulled all my coral frags first, scrubbed them with a toothbrush dipped in h2o2 (avoiding fleshy areas). Dipped in RO, then tank water, then placed in a 5 gallon bucket with tank water and a heater. Put fish in a separate 5 gallon bucket with heater.

Pulled all rocks, scrubbed down all areas hard with a toothbrush again being sure to avoid zoas. Rinsed/dunked the rocks numerous times in salt water to get rid of debris. Then sprayed the rocks with 3% h2o2 and let sit for 4 mins. Dipped in RO then salt water before placing back in tank (after sand treatment).

Kept the rocks moist with saltwater misting while I worked on the sand. Pulled all the sand and rinsed with cold tap water numerous times in another 5 gallon bucket in the sink. Kept tap rinsing until water was crystal clear (lost count of rinses). Rinsed with RO a final time before placing back in tank.

Placed the rocks back in, refilled with water, added the fish and corals back! Corals are still ticked off but I they'll pull through. 2 days after rinse and I'm very pleased! Just waiting for zoas to open up fully.

A couple before and after pics shows the story! Just need to rearrange rocks and some corals in the future. Thanks for the thread @brandon429

 

[Lasse]

You do realize we are saying the same thing with one very minor difference.

We both agree you should rinse the sand in between transferring tanks. The only difference is that you believe the beneficial bacteria on the sand is worth saving so you would rinse it in salt water and not fresh water in order to preserve the life. I believe there is no significant benefit to keeping beneficial bacteria in a sand bed alive so I would rinse it thoroughly in fresh water which is much much easier.

I always rinse in freshwater but leave a little bit "mulm" - it will do not kill the bacteria at all - i have not mentioned fresh or saltwater at all.

And I answered this statement below from you - I can´t see the word rinse in this statement at all

An old sand bed does not have to be deep to destroy your tank. Threads pop up all the time here illustrating that.
Depending on the bio load and how much waste has been accumulated, you can easily nuke a tank by transferring a sand bed that is less than 2 inches.

Sincerely Lasse