120 gallon rip clean

[brandon429]

tough call there, that's paid for biodiversity but Im certain human olfaction is a heckuva ammonia proofer; ill trust anyones nose over api any day of the week. curious: can you get any liquid to test out in a cheap ammonia tester/curious if it does spike up

 

[CoralClasher]

tough call there, that's paid for biodiversity but Im certain human olfaction is a heckuva ammonia proofer; ill trust anyones nose over api any day of the week. curious: can you get any liquid to test out in a cheap ammonia tester/curious if it does spike up

Yeah I just unpacked the four bags and filled them with saltwater I have to go back to work for two hours I’ll check the water for ammonia.

 

[CoralClasher]

tough call there, that's paid for biodiversity but Im certain human olfaction is a heckuva ammonia proofer; ill trust anyones nose over api any day of the week. curious: can you get any liquid to test out in a cheap ammonia tester/curious if it does spike up

Definitely a little green on the API

 

[brandon429]

if it was mine Id try and extract any clearly bad stuff. once you put that into 120 gals dilution, all that surface area, not worried. the organics concentrated there and challenged in shipping w just mix right in but id add slow, and try and separate / pre remove any obvious rots.

 

[CoralClasher]

if it was mine Id try and extract any clearly bad stuff. once you put that into 120 gals dilution, all that surface area, not worried. the organics concentrated there and challenged in shipping w just mix right in but id add slow, and try and separate / pre remove any obvious rots.

Sounds good thanks again for your advice.

 

[CoralClasher]

Wow I thought my sand was nasty. Maybe I should have rinsed this stuff.

 

[CoralClasher]

Well 48 hours later still a little cloudy but everything survived. Should I start stirring the sand yet?

 

[brandon429]

Wow ! That initial cloud must have been heart wrenching J
but it wasn’t in addition to other clouding :) u had a clean base, nobody else would have.



yes in my opinion all it did was age the system a few months ahead of how it matures normally if we added nothing. Can begin stirring as sink prevention

Your thread is really sinking in some standout patterns: we know dinos control is about biodiversity for competition (and as you show page one, absolute mass denial at the start) and over time as biodiversity increases, requisite waste from the diversity increases which requires more export. All of us cyclically refill these spaces made clean by sand cleanings or gobies or diving wrasses etc, yours above was a shot of good competition against dinos so it’s inherent aging waste seems worth it

those interstices in the sand were going to fill up anyway, at least with this method it brought new animals into the tank to try for selection against dinos, worth it.

 

[SMSREEF]

Well 48 hours later still a little cloudy but everything survived. Should I start stirring the sand yet?

Your tank looks absolutely fantastic!

I've been following along watching your plan and progress. So happy to see it turned out so well!

 

[kput]

I'm about to reboot my coral QT tank because I've been fighting off Dinos for a couple months.
It's bare-bottom so I don't have to worry about sand, but I don't want to lose my cycle or affect my live rock.

My current plan is to pull all live rock, throw it in a tub, scrub the sump clean, vacuum out the tank, drain all water, refill, toss rock back in, and dose Dino-X.

There will be no livestock, and I will scrub down the tank / drains / clean the powerhead off. Anything else I should be doing?

 

[CoralClasher]

I'm about to reboot my coral QT tank because I've been fighting off Dinos for a couple months.
It's bare-bottom so I don't have to worry about sand, but I don't want to lose my cycle or affect my live rock.

My current plan is to pull all live rock, throw it in a tub, scrub the sump clean, vacuum out the tank, drain all water, refill, toss rock back in, and dose Dino-X.

There will be no livestock, and I will scrub down the tank / drains / clean the powerhead off. Anything else I should be doing?

I really don’t like Dino-X all that did for me was kill coralline algae.

 

[CoralClasher]

I’m thinking lights off for three days and DE filters was way more effective than Dino-X

 

[CoralClasher]

Finally got the bacteria tests. This first test was two months after the first rip clean without any added bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

that makes this whole thread such a shocking thorough big picture scope. Im off to compare to other tank posts using AB measures, how great Jon

 

[CoralClasher]

This test was two weeks after the second rip clean and with a order of live sand activator, new macros, pods and liquid N reducer from Hawaii.

 

[CoralClasher]

Now I wonder what that grunge I added did to the microbiome. I’m probably going to get another test soon.

 

[brandon429]

Peaks and troughs over time

I see something very neat in play here, see if this summary is fair representation of this threads data vs just me being slanted happy towards people who do reef surgery lol:

Before you rip cleaned things looked great and coralline was strong and I was slightly hesitant to deep dive this gem. Your instincts pressed for preventative experiments, so you ripped

After rip one, things looked great rocks ejected of waste, things shine, same reef, minus the detritus.

Second rip
Rocks, corals still look like before pic / this was a preventative job. Now Is uber clean.

Comparing your measures to those who don't do rip cleans as the basis might not be right order of ops, maybe the constantly invaded tanks that make up this hobby should be compared TO a system that had all green lights the whole time

Maybe we should select for the microbiome you show, I want nothing of what the masses have to offer only 1% rip clean and command reefs, the rest follow and see what happens.

We want to perpetuate the goals and measures of the tanks compliant, under control, start to finish.

Your icp tests pass. Microbiome comparisons, baseline validity in question, still passes.


You handled your reef harsher than any reef in the hobby is that right- but it still passes every measure of legitimacy ranging from coral and fish health to the deepest we can currently read regarding chemical and bacterial balances- fair summary?

 

[SMSREEF]

This test was two weeks after the second rip clean and with a order of live sand activator, new macros, pods and liquid N reducer from Hawaii.

Fantastic work and documentation of the changes you are making. This thread is extremely informative.

This second test is really interesting and It makes me want to buy that Indo Pacific kit with live sand.

what I don’t understand is if the kind of bacteria in your tank being very different than average reef tank (showing as red on scale) is:
good, meaningless or not good.

maybe @AquaBiomics could help answer that for me.

 

[brandon429]

J

how are we here in this rocket tank

i was about to link your thread in a 100 gallon cyano challenge but why not just bump it all instead.





prediction = every rip clean is more years added in life, backflushing has never harmed any filter it restores efficiency

instead of being harmed, Jon is making his tank stronger because filtration interstices aren’t packed with mulm like every reef on record.

Jons surface area is the cleanest, most exposed, best ORP that can be in place. There is no limit to how many rip cleans a reef tank can endure, each one builds lifespan vs reducing it.

Every single rip clean removes competing scum layers that present oxygen-consuming mixed heterotrophic bacterial communities to the vital surface area oxidizing bacteria consume, our bioload carriers


the accumulation scum most reef tanks keep are additional bioload, on top of what we purchase, to ammonia oxidizing bacteria in the system we depend on to prevent crashes



removing competing organisms never causes a deficit in the good ones; rip cleans remove bad bacteria and you already have the good ones, no need to buy bacterial dosers to ‘boost’ anything, these tanks will self regulate as long as back flushing occurs either by nonstorage design for the tank or the sheer will to clean it when needed. *detritus removal isn’t required in reefing, we’ve seen the entire basis of the hobby revolve around storage. I like to see work examples like this one as a study on new directions to be considered, pro and con

 

[brandon429]

Do large water changes cause dinos? that’s another legit question people want to know


it seems fitting to study one of the busiest 120 gallon setups in reefing for an answer, not just a 120 gallon on a forum post that changed 80 gallons and got dinos.