How to restart tank and completely cure live rock and sand?

[Dawson_hatton]

due to the worst and most uncontrollable dino outbreak i’ve ever seen in my nano that killed all my fish (lack of O2 and the toxicity) and is taking a toll on my coral, I am completely restarting the whole tank. how do I go about making sure the dinos are completely eradicated? and how do I completely cure the live rock and sand and make it basically dry rock? I know this will be a long process as I’m recycling the tank and everything.

 

[KrisReef]

Hydrogen peroxide

Read the SDS and follow the safety instructions. Much safer to handle than bleach or acid, ime.

 

[Sam816]

mild acids can clean/kill most organics/ life on/in rocks n sand. bleach+water for worse case scenario.
I did bleach + water for my rocks after i had ich breakout. didn't bother with sand though as it takes a lot of washing before you can get rid of bleach. I bought new sand.
If budget allows for new rocks and sand then better do that. just take out everything from the tank. clean it with vinegar and then run fresh water for a day or 2. then dry completely.
in the meantime get some bio media and cycle/cure it so that you have bacteria on the ready to cover most of the surfaces.

 

[brandon429]

recommend: not do the first plan in post #1.

beat them using other methods, as they sit. if open to this let me know/lots of links avail. we just beat dinos in two tanks in private message, nano keepers who were willing to deep clean. most aren't

in my opinion if the current nano has not been rip cleaned, you're missing the best likely fix, keeping all your stuff.

we remove your sandbed, beat the dinos, put the sandbed back a few weeks later all cleaned up. not a hard job. all the stuff you read about the popular method has about a 30% fix rate.

ours, much higher

you don't see pico reefs with dinos, you see nano reefs with dinos for a very specific reason. pico reefers cut teeth on rip cleans, people who developed picos never agreed to small changes of water and by extension we lucked into no dinos. they'd never entertain the rascals. nano keepers follow large tank rules, and will keep the dinos in place, told that water changes are bad.

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

lemme see dinos that beat that run. two perfect examples.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Listen to Brandon. He has a good technique. I did it on my 17 year old 110. Now I’m at 20 years and sps packed.

 

[brandon429]

I formally retract all the assumptive statements prior said about large tankers willingness to entertain tank wreckers. fishing meme, reeling in strongly, my perception is stunted from solely pico reefing in a tiny sphere for a long long time. both you and Jon M do not play lightly.

120 gallon, handled like a fishbowl. rip cleaned about four separate times in the thread, and it wasn't even invaded.

120 gallon rip clean

I’ve decided to perform a rip clean on my 120 with 100% new water. The tank has been running for 5 years and was battling Dino for several months. I used the bacteria method from elegant corals and worked great I haven’t seen Dino in months now. But I tried several other methods including...

www.reef2reef.com

Jon was so against dinos he did rip cleans before ever getting any on the return, didn't wait. I was taking mad notes.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Ha. It took me six hours to rip clean my tank. I only did 80% of the rock, and about 95% of the sand. I only scrubbed the rocks in old tank water with a stiff brush. The water looked like coffee when I was done. I used five gallon buckets. It was totally worth it. I have a twenty year old tank. My sps took off after this and Dino’s gone, and GHA on the rock gone.

 

[brandon429]

what I like about the method is at the expense of lots of work and water, we get to feed more vs withhold in the name of starvation.

we didn't do the work to preserve the ultra clean condition, that was to make way for protein cycling.

reef body building for sure.

I wish it didn't waste so much rinse water, but we had to find a tradeoff somewhere. raw mean export

*caveat

we do see times where keepers have to manage growback, but now its 99% less mass. the various things we add, can be less

the param changes we make, can be less, theres total benefit to effecting the low/zero mass condition and then hoping for luck. if not, the uphill battle is much easier.

it will not be possible to get out of dinos by starting clean on this tank. Clearly the OPs stocking sources, prep methods incorporate dinos. This is a lucky opp to fix in situ for sure. learn total control, next time act on day 1 with no delay.

 

[Dawson_hatton]

thanks for all the replies guys, I really appreciate it. I actually decided to set this empty 20 gallon up as a SW tank with everything from the old tank. I plan on getting a new sand bed and scrubbing the rocks out and cleaning out the refugium. i’m going to then cycle it for about 2 months while adding nutrients to assist the cycle. does that sound like a good plan?

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Sounds like a plan. May I recommend any sand new or old gets good cleaning under tap water, then a rinse in ro to remove all the dusty fines out of it..

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Why the additional tank setup? For me the key was to actually remove the sandbed (and a general rip clean) that saved my tank. Identifying the type of dinos and how they react to darkness is best. Hydrogen peroxide can help when scrubbing the rock (spot treat the areas). Rinsing and replacing the sandbed works well, you likely don't need to get a new sandbed unless you have extra cash on hand.

 

[brandon429]

the 20 above is a skip cycle setup, using your current rocks, so there's no delay in reuse.

Jons tank was taken down/cleaned/put back w no delay. your job would be all clean sand, downsized amount of cleaned live rocks, current corals, some fish, all in on the same day like Jon's.

 

[fishhead1973]

due to the worst and most uncontrollable dino outbreak i’ve ever seen in my nano that killed all my fish (lack of O2 and the toxicity) and is taking a toll on my coral, I am completely restarting the whole tank. how do I go about making sure the dinos are completely eradicated? and how do I completely cure the live rock and sand and make it basically dry rock? I know this will be a long process as I’m recycling the tank and everything.

Sorry for your lost this time around temp 80 degrees water change every other week . Don’t add no chemicals keep it simple