agreed with the detail its total complete aquarium surgery needs good plan. in my opinion do the bulk of rinsing in saltwater for the rocks. save the freshwater quick part for the very final rock rinse, when there are the fewest target cells.
yes toothbrush is ok lightly not super force. that was a good question agreed bc it stood out that among rock rinse steps, the freshwater should be the last. we wanted rubbing and dislodging to carry away the main target sloughs off rocks. that type of initial saltwater rinsing isn't challenging the rock bacteria, and the final freshwater glaze over place back into saltwater clean, for holding, is a harmless squeeze on the cycling bacteria at the expense of dinos who really do not like osmotic challenges. lowering overall tank salinity has been used in many dinos control posts, we are integrating that step in the rip clean.
the number one goal above all is laser cloudless reassembly, from the bottom to the top. that will skip cycle every time, its nice to have the final equalizing action something that we can all totally control and not have to luck into.
they sure work well though lol.
