Any Way to Undo Precipitation in Sand?

[BradVol]

I've read a ton of threads about sand precipitation, but nothing about a solution for it. Maybe it's 'set in stone' so to speak.

I had a lot of precipitation when my tank was new. Some sections of sand in corners and near live rock are as hard as concrete. I've tried scraping them with a spoon, poking them, etc but they aren't coming out and I'm not making any progress making them smaller. Is there any way to reverse the precipitation or cause the pieces to break up enough to at least be able to remove them? I'm guessing not, especially without disrupting the tank, but figured it's worth asking to be sure.

 

[brandon429]

we have a sixty page thread on removing sand/official sand rinse thread

no losses for sixty pages was all done by taking apart tanks, removing sand as the last thing in the tank with nothing else present, reinstalling all new rinsed sand cloudlessly, then putting all the removed stuff back/no cycling. for sixty pages.

then you'd change up the current system that caused hardening and it'll be fixed. if you want to remove the pieces in the tank, without the take down work that is protective, it's done at your own risk. there are no sixty page threads of in-tank sand work because that kills setups occasionally, messing with dirty sandbeds.

change the bed out the right way for the power move

you recently posted some invasion issues: coincidentally, a rip clean helps there too because as your tank is taken apart you can clean off the rocks and the walls of the tank housing the invasion. the pre rinsing will correct the invasion that used to be in the sand. this pre rinsing of sand before reinstallation removes organics that are playing a role in the accretion in the bed and in the sustained invasion

sand re hardening seems completely excluded in our rip clean threads. Ive never seen one instance of it ever happening after a proper bed replacement. proper meaning the new sand is pre-rinsed to total perfection in tap water, then as a final rinse RO or saltwater is used to jet out the tap and perfectly clean sand is used up under the rocks and all new water is put back in the tank matching temp and salinity to the prior water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've read a ton of threads about sand precipitation, but nothing about a solution for it. Maybe it's 'set in stone' so to speak.

I had a lot of precipitation when my tank was new. Some sections of sand in corners and near live rock are as hard as concrete. I've tried scraping them with a spoon, poking them, etc but they aren't coming out and I'm not making any progress making them smaller. Is there any way to reverse the precipitation or cause the pieces to break up enough to at least be able to remove them? I'm guessing not, especially without disrupting the tank, but figured it's worth asking to be sure.

I do not believe there's a simple way to fix it besides ignoring it or replacing it.

 

[BradVol]

Thanks guys. This isn't a recurring issue, it's all from 3 years ago. I'll just try to chip away at it as I can.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I do not believe there's a simple way to fix it besides ignoring it or replacing it.

@Randy Holmes-Farley similar question but different. Last week you mentioned sand in newer tanks tends to get precipitated (is that the right term) when I was asking you a question about smoking high PH values.

Below is my current situation. I have just started noticing some sand is sticking together. It is super easy to loosen it up. How can I prevent this? Should I back down from so much dosing (lower DKH to the mid 7’s, but I have a fear of being too close to the low side) ? Lower PH from holding at 8.55, to say 8.35. I have a ton of coralline on my rocks, and I assumed a high % is going there but the sand hardening caught me off guard. Or, is it just what it is? Thoughts?

I am already seeing some of the Montis and Across responding to the high PH, which I dig.

How do you guys keep up with increased dosing demands? I need some help...

Sorry, it's late and I hope I am making sense... So I am struggling to keep up with the explosive exponential demand of dosing I am currently experiencing. I included a bunch of screenshots that if you understand what you are looking at, it should all make sense. I am doing this on 2 tanks...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[BradVol]

@Randy Holmes-Farley similar question but different. Last week you mentioned sand in newer tanks tends to get precipitated (is that the right term) when I was asking you a question about smoking high PH values.

Below is my current situation. I have just started noticing some sand is sticking together. It is super easy to loosen it up. How can I prevent this? Should I back down from so much dosing (lower DKH to the mid 7’s, but I have a fear of being too close to the low side) ? Lower PH from holding at 8.55, to say 8.35. I have a ton of coralline on my rocks, and I assumed a high % is going there but the sand hardening caught me off guard. Or, is it just what it is? Thoughts?

I am already seeing some of the Montis and Across responding to the high PH, which I dig.

How do you guys keep up with increased dosing demands? I need some help...

Sorry, it's late and I hope I am making sense... So I am struggling to keep up with the explosive exponential demand of dosing I am currently experiencing. I included a bunch of screenshots that if you understand what you are looking at, it should all make sense. I am doing this on 2 tanks...

www.reef2reef.com

This could be wrong but I believe he's said before that keeping Mg up helps prevent precipitation. The other thing that helps is all the organics getting bonded to the new surfaces, so maybe keeping nutrients up a bit would aid in that. Hopefully Randy will chime in.

Having started a new tank and trying to control nutrients from the start, I learned the hard way I should've been way more hands off and only start controlling nutrients when they get above a certain level, not trying to control them from the start when they're already low.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

This could be wrong but I believe he's said before that keeping Mg up helps prevent precipitation. The other thing that helps is all the organics getting bonded to the new surfaces, so maybe keeping nutrients up a bit would aid in that. Hopefully Randy will chime in.

Having started a new tank and trying to control nutrients from the start, I learned the hard way I should've been way more hands off and only start controlling nutrients when they get above a certain level, not trying to control them from the start when they're already low.

Interesting. My MG is 1460 and my NO3 is 10.4 and my PO4 is .03. I can for sure bring those up a bit slowly.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

This could be wrong but I believe he's said before that keeping Mg up helps prevent precipitation. The other thing that helps is all the organics getting bonded to the new surfaces, so maybe keeping nutrients up a bit would aid in that. Hopefully Randy will chime in.

Having started a new tank and trying to control nutrients from the start, I learned the hard way I should've been way more hands off and only start controlling nutrients when they get above a certain level, not trying to control them from the start when they're already low.

What did you run your MG at and if you had to do it again, what would you run it at?

 

[BradVol]

Interesting. My MG is 1460 and my NO3 is 10.4 and my PO4 is .03. I can for sure bring those up a bit slowly.

That's plenty for Mg. I don't think anything over 1400 really helps.

What I've seen recommended for the other nutrients is a 100:1 ratio of Nitrate to Phosphate. So if you're at 10 ppm nitrate you want 0.10ppm. If I was starting from scratch again I would target 10 and 0.1. I would dose to keep it up to that if needed. You'll go through the ugly stage and may have a bit more algae but man, running lower nutrients caused me big problems that I'm just now getting corrected 3 years in.