I'm going to rinse my sand bed. Who else has done this?

[schooncw]

Laugh away.....I'm 59 and my mother was raising seahorses before I was born. I spent many years in the aquaria industry in both manufacturing and distribution, worked with national aquariums and have visited thousands of aquaria stores in The USA and Canada. I don't say this to toot my horn but to point out that I'm not just spouting anecdotal information. Done correctly, the DSB is the closest emulation to the ocean.

 

[schooncw]

Go find a DBS, take a siphon, and put it in there. Hell, just take your hand and mix it up. Even a tiny bit. It is absolutely filled with detritus. DSB stores detritus. It does not remove it (Not to any beneficial extent anyway, because there is simply not enough worms/pods to ever clear it up.)

Obviously don't do this (because you'll set off the time-bomb), but that's kind of the point. You keep saying "set it up correctly." Well a good way to set one up is NEVER touch it, because you've just created something that has the potential to be very harmful to your tank. The best way to set up a DBS? Don't set up a DBS.

THE RISKS FAR OUTWEIGH THE REWARD.

I'm beginning to think people don't really understand why this trend died.

This is short, dated article, which may explain why some DSB's fail. http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html

 

[brandon429]

I believe fully anyone practiced with dsb balancing can repeatedly pull it off in person. It's a staple design for our hobby, the most investigated or at least most replicated approach, all of us pretty much cut teeth on classic dsb.
That many can master it / not a surprise.

What we discovered is the method can only be ran consistently in person, it cannot be taught in writing and then copied by someone else, that's the key detail. It makes both ways, rinsed and unrinsed, valid approaches but when to use one or the other needs to match a final plan for any reef tank

Don't just default stack sand on bottom and leave it to see what happens. We have 24 pages of what happens already collected.

Sandbed microfauna are by rule whole pellet waste producers, no jointed leg insects fail to meet that designation, land and sea.

They don't eat waste without pooping more out, slightly varied in form after their digestion. It collects. Bugs and starfish aren't fast enough to cast up waste, they just produce it.

Gobies and wrasses, now they kick up sand~True turnover creatures. Anything moving slow is contributing to detritus, not reducing it and we measure that when people do house moves without rinsing, they risk a recycle by breaking up strata in the aged bed. And if they grab sand and drop it, a massive cloud results to confirm detritus presence * but * that didn't mean their tank was in distress before it was disturbed. Left alone, balanced, it could have gone ten years if the aquarist has Bob Ross skills.

The goal of classic dsb is for balance and stratification to move waste top to bottom and wind up as inert minerals at the base without the keeper having to do much but make an arrangement and watch the wheels turn. It takes true intuit in person to pull off classic dsb long term, and I bet nobody/ all book authors included / can make a thread showing dsb science and wrangle fifteen pages into any kind of consistency. Can't be done. Only a safe article or book can make the claim, but a rolling live thread we won't see applying the test- nobody wants the sting of live time feedback for testing total storage sandbed approaches using other people's money on the line.

Every posters tank by age three years in every single tracked classic dsb tank has varied outcomes from always storing... even if you tell them the best tricks all up front.

But three more years in the sand rinse thread, watch for variation. None, tight controls. That's at the cost of lots of work/calories rinsing and it lessens bed biodiversity, but it also streamlines outcomes such that we can cause literally any container in your home to become a coral producing aquarium. The clean method can be copied, transmitted, and distilled for people to copy in reefing to a very high degree. Invasions drop, tank health increases consistently and has zero bell curve, it's the current best known method for everyone's tank to live to full potential.

I can't wait until less work gets same consistent results long term

 

[schooncw]

Here is a decent thread that goes fairly deep into the topic. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/pros-vs-cons-deep-sand-bed-vs-shallow-sand-bed.87740/

 

[Bleigh]

I haven't read the linked post, but I'm a sand cleaner....when I do tank transfers. I take the sand and using a 5 gallon bucket, fill about 1/3 of the way with the dirty sand and using a garden hose, fill and dump maybe about ten times until water is running clear. The sand is then spread of large trays and allowed to dry.

I'm sorry, I couldn't see your post. An amazing pool (that I am so jealous of) got in the way! ;Hilarious

 

[JVU]

How is rinsing your sand better than just vacuuming it? It’s easy to vacuum an entire sand bed by running the gravel vac to a filter sock in your sump. You can vacuum all day long if you want and get all the detritus.

Taking your sand out of the tank and rinsing it in tap water will destroy all the beneficial critters that are currently living in your sand bed and helping you out. Not to mention it seems like a ton of work.

This is what I do too

 

[BudgetReefer007]

there may be other things going on but i find i have more success with zoas when i DO clean the sand regularly. ive always felt that it was additional feeding and since i am a ligjt feeder it helped.. im trying my first bb and starting to feed more but this has been my exp.... anyone else seen similar or can verify the additional feeding?

 

[brandon429]

love this poll. that we have 100 rinsers is awesome growth for this branch in the hobby.

Rinsing vs vacuuming

varying levels of thorough. a total rinse needs no touchup for time X where partial removals are simply more frequent.

people experiencing invasions might get more invaded by partial work/upwells.

rinsing hammers the invasion, the food etc all at once, if one can access the tank thoroughly.

also noted: the success stories seem pretty tight consistency from all participants who did/do rinse.

for those not sure what this does: it takes any misbehaving DSB and forces it to behave.

rinsing and or partial rinsing/vacuum work is just a mode of keeping detritus/waste from sinking into the bed and staying. Old tank syndrome, a catch-all term associated with a condition called eutrophication (plant dominance, poor orp, clogged surfaces) is modulated moreso by detritus accumulation than any other factor in an aging reef tank.

Detritus is also important feed for certain zones in a reef tank/in the wild and many classic systems use that nutrient reserve to feed corals (see fat plerogyra and lps prior pages) and other animals, but its also been discovered to be the sole source of concern in any misbehaving sandbed tank so finding the balance remains a core skill in choosing to store vs get out the waste somehow.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I don't rinse or vacuum or disturb the sand in any way. I leave that to the creatures of the night. I thought the daytime crew was pretty good: hermits, starfish, snails, stomatella. But the night shift is downright scary, amphipods scurrying all about, several types of worms, some pushing a foot in length.

 

[brandon429]

that kind of balance will help prevent dino invasions, they're eating any that might try to group.

 

[redfishbluefish]

@redfishbluefish What's with the fake Owl sitting on top on the 55gal drum? Lol.... I'm curious now....

@skimjim , Here's the story with the owl. When the cover is on the pool, the birds use it as a large bird bath (with a couple inches of rain water on the cover.) When I pull the cover off, they don't realize, and still think it's a bird bath, and drown. The owl is there to scare away the birds for a couple of weeks after opening the pool. It doesn't work. I've watched birds dance back and forth alone the edge of the pool to eventually jump in. If I'm there, and fast enough, I can scope them out. Otherwise, they drown.

I'm sorry, I couldn't see your post. An amazing pool (that I am so jealous of) got in the way! ;Hilarious

@Bleigh , you're too kind. It's just a water filled hole in the ground into which I pour money....(and hardly anyone uses.) Please, if you're in the area, you're more than welcome to jump in. But not now....it's covered for the winter.

 

[ReefRondo]

A few months ago on one of my 4 tanks I decided to go bare bottom and honestly would not bother with sand again for a personal tank and that is purely from a maintenance point of view and being able to crank the flow up real high. This keeps all detritus in the water column and then down into the filtration. The tank is squeaky clean. I was cleaning my sand before this and it was a constant battle with nuisance algae and other problems. However I recently set a tank up in my business and without sand just didn’t look right at all for the customers. Without the reflection of light from the bright sand it just looked a bit flat. I guess when corals grow out it would look better but who knows.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

I marked yes but it’s more of hmmmm not sure if my method counts. I’ll be honest the more we mess with the tanks we generally do more harm than good. Yes I’m sure there those who don’t but humans don’t have a great track record.

Could one rinse or vacuum their sand bed yeah. However why would anyone risk the potential of losing something coral, fish whatever? I hated my sand bed looking terrible I did. So I used a golden head goby and and my sand was actually extremely clean.

Now how in the world do I know this? Well I literally painfully just moved my 240 from my old home to my new home yesterday and finshed set up today. (Omg moving these is such a nightmare, and the fact it looked gorgeous and perfect prior and then looks like a hurricane whipped through).

Anyway I hade to scope out all of my sand which (is really white), once in buckets the sand water comes to the top and is all brown and gross etc. wish I took a pic but the water was pretty clean and that’s from removing all the sand. Now I advised the company who moved my tank to place the base rocks in first half way up, then add the sand, then finish with the top rock and corals. They dumped the sand in and filled the tank 3/4 and blindly placed rock.

Now my tank was half way set back up by 11pm last night. By 8 this morning it was perfectly clear, no cloudy water, sand was very pristine, about the only that went right.

So do we need to vacuum and do all this with the sand beds no. Proven because I literally had to move it, but if I had no had my golden head goby then it would have been way way worse. I did fine that 90% of my sand errr was in the back of the tank because of him.

I was surprised to see the Rocky Mountains at the back of my tank. Literally I had one mound of sand almost 6 inches high behind a rock. I know for a fact I didn’t put the sand there. The rock weighs more than I do and I always put rocks in first then sand then water.

There are some down sides with gobies but name anything we do that doesn’t have a down side. Messing with our tanks as much as we do usually leads us to having major issues. It would be an interesting poll to see how many people changed something and their tank just took a huge nose dive? I would creat one (I have no idea how to on the new setup, too be fair I didn’t know how on the old one either lol).

I would really sleep on this and find something that doesn’t involve you and or chemicals. Rinsing your sand bed even in salt water gets rid of all the good bacteria. You will have to aka re seed it and your right back to square one.

 

[Proteus Meep]

I dont rinse but every 3 months i change half of the sand in my nano for fresh, as well as a weekly vacuum as the way i remove water for the water change

 

[Paul B]

Old tank syndrome, a catch-all term associated with a condition called eutrophication (plant dominance, poor orp, clogged surfaces) is modulated moreso by detritus accumulation than any other factor in an aging reef tank.

"Old Tank Syndrome Indeed"!
Thats why I run a reverse Undergravel Filter. I don't have all these silly problems and in 18 months it will be running for fifty years.
(State of the Art in 1971)

I don't really stir up my gravel to clean it as detritus is inert. I just do it so the thing doesn't clog as I want oxygen in contact with every worm and pod all the way down to the nether regions.

IMO DSBs have a lifespan, I was never a fan of them as the technology that seems to make them work is flawed. Nothing works forever without maintenance which is why we need to change the oil in our car, brush our teeth, cut our nails and have elections.

 

[brandon429]

Paul a few years ago you'd mentioned sandbed diversity/pods/worms being a direct defense against dino invasions and I didn't believe it/was skeptical

I believe it now

The dirty method/allowing massing of beneficial pods and competing microbes really is working for the masses pretty well, better than 5-8 years ago when the first big dino invasions were taking the hobby and nobody had a plan. They were running GFo to try and kill/starve the target and it was making the overall system more starved and with more dino mass

We still like to combine action/heavy rinsing or bed removal with challenge tanks that are small enough to allow that kind of deep access, but adding back pods people buy as recharger packs to the cleaned condition tank, or waiting after some good deep cleaning for the positive microbes to build up, really has been an effective combo in our sand rinse thread

 

[Paul B]

Brandon, I like the gravel/sand to be as full of life as it can be. I didn't invent that, it was Robert Straughn "The Father of Salt Water fish Keeping". ("The Salt Water Aquarium in the Home") written in the fifties.

The UG filter allows more real estate to grow bacteria, pods and worms as oxygen saturates all areas. Worms, pods and even bacteria can't live through a DSB because of a lack of oxygen. Of course there is anerobic bacteria living there but even that will die if there is no water getting there. No water means no food and no way to allow the Hydrogen Sulfide that exudes to escape. Worms are very smart, smarter than some political candidates so they don't go to places where they will die from oxygen starvation. I wouldn't go there either. Why would I or a worm?

The only reason some DSBs don't crash in a few years is because the toxins have no way to get into the water column unless you stir it up.

They were invented by Dr Sh- something, I forget his name but it will come to me. I have always disagreed with him on this and I got into the hobby the same year.
(Schmitt or something close)

The sea had a DSB, but life only lives in the first few inches and those inches are constantly moved around and in Typhoons that occur all the time really stirs them up totally airating them and removing hydrogen sulfide.

I have dove in the Tropics right after a hurricane and I noticed brain corals as large as my car up side down as the sand was stirred up for a few feet down.

Oxygen is our friend and we want it to permeate every part of our tank. Do something else for nitrate removal as anerobic bacteria is not the best way and probably the most dangerous way.

If you drilled a hole in the bottom of a tank with a ten year old DSB, I doubt any water would leak out as it is clogged like cement.
Just my opinion of course.
After almost 50 years the lower parts of my gravel are loaded with worms amphipods, copepods, anemones, bacteria and Godzilla Larvae. It is the bacteria that run our tanks and we are just here for them to make fun of.

Those creatures are the beginning of the food chain. Ask any Tuna. ;Wideyed

Caribbean

 

[brandon429]

Here here!

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I'm not sure how this thread turned into a DSB debate. I'm not a DSB guy. I think there are better/eaiser ways to export nutrients. But at the same time I would never rinse my sandbed. Its completely unnecessary, and in IMO, likely to do more harm than good.

 

[Saltyreef]

I removed my sand and went barebottom but heres like 4 rinses into one of my buckets. Sand was stored wet afterwards in rodi water and sealed in a tote. Still to this day half a year later, opening the tote, there is no smell whatsoever. IMHO we cant recreate a never ending DSB or anerobic dead spots with no flow as in the deepest parts of the ocean, so i believe keeping the 1-4" of sand most of us have in our tanks clean. A little bit of dirty is ok but in my case, 6 years of sand transfers between tanks with no rinsing and minimal siphoning of the sand bed crashed my most recent tank before my restart .