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

Have you ever "rinsed" your sand bed?

  • Yes

    Votes: 111 23.8%
  • No

    Votes: 293 62.9%
  • Not sure what that does

    Votes: 62 13.3%

  • Total voters
    466

motortrendz

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I think 3in would just look like alot imo well at least in my tank but I like 1 to 2in. I think sand beds are more work if u don't clean it every other week or so it's going build up with nastyniss. But I like them.
Mine is actually below the rim at this point so anything I have in the sand bed you cant see unless your standing and looking in. That's 1 reason for raising it up. My sand is relatively clean so I'm not too worried about that either. I'm adding it slowly as to not overwhelm the bio system in the sand. But I thi k by adding a deeper sand bed itll give is more cryptic zones for anaerobic bacteria to flourish.
 

motortrendz

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I prefer my sandbed DIRTY with lots of worms and pods

IMG_2833.JPG



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I really like how your sandbed looks.
 

GoVols

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Before going BB, used the Python No Spill once an week during (18%) water change with long extension tube.





Would sill replace sand every spring. Love those Tropic Eden "Reef Flakes"... :p

Still use it today with an BB reef.
 

reef r madness

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I completely replaced my sand bed 2 months ago. Went from black to white sand. I rinsed it really well and and completely stir it up with no clouding. It’s nice when the sand burying wrasses bury, they send up grains of sand but it settles again within seconds. I vacuum it with my weekly water changes to keep it clean.
Got any before and after pics I'm thinking of changing my candy to black
 

LovesDogs_CatsRokay

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Got any before and after pics I'm thinking of changing my candy to black
There’s some pics on my build thread if you want to check it out. I wouldn’t recommend the black sand though. We spent a year and half losing coral after coral and trying everything under the sun. Finally sent in for a Triton test and found out there was elevated levels of nickel and valadium so we swapped out the sand. Almost immediately the few corals we had left in there perked up and started improving and we finally have some sps surviving and actually growing. The black sand is made from lava and contains metal. The Carib Sea Hawaiian black that we had is supposed to be the safest but it still caused us a ton of issues. There’s a bunch of threads on it if you search.
 

EmdeReef

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How big is your tank?

Be careful taking out sand in a larger tank. It’s one of the easiest ways to crash a larger tank.

The rinsing threads often omit to mention that they’re dealing with tiny tanks.

If possible I would watch for o2 depletion and have a lot or water ready for changes. You will
Also be stressing your fish regardless if from chemical reactions or just the physical sand disturbance, keep that in mind.
 

reef r madness

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There’s some pics on my build thread if you want to check it out. I wouldn’t recommend the black sand though. We spent a year and half losing coral after coral and trying everything under the sun. Finally sent in for a Triton test and found out there was elevated levels of nickel and valadium so we swapped out the sand. Almost immediately the few corals we had left in there perked up and started improving and we finally have some sps surviving and actually growing. The black sand is made from lava and contains metal. The Carib Sea Hawaiian black that we had is supposed to be the safest but it still caused us a ton of issues. There’s a bunch of threads on it if you search.
Well I'm glad you told me..I had the caribsea Indo Pacific black in my last tank and really liked how it looked..
 
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Daniel@R2R

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How big is your tank?

Be careful taking out sand in a larger tank. It’s one of the easiest ways to crash a larger tank.

The rinsing threads often omit to mention that they’re dealing with tiny tanks.

If possible I would watch for o2 depletion and have a lot or water ready for changes. You will
Also be stressing your fish regardless if from chemical reactions or just the physical sand disturbance, keep that in mind.
It's a 50g. I was monitoring ammonia the entire time. Never had any detectable levels. It's mostly out now.
 

brandon429

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Emdereef

There is no difference in rinse biology from large to small tanks. Scan the rinse thread, there’s pages of large tanks doing work, there is no crashing in the thread 1 gallon to 200 is our largest full rinse. Half the jobs in 24 pages of work are non nanos

large tank owners are often moving homes, thats a 100% required sandbed access interval and they want a plan that does not fail, we had to practice on many large tanks.

The bacteria in a sandbed do not matter to any reef tank when typical live rocks are present, even base rocks will cover filtration (doesnt have to be prime tonga rock for example) immediately upon sandbed rinse (or removal or change out, same ends)

the sand rinse thread ends the speculation in the hobby regarding required ramp-up time for rocks to take on "more bacteria" in place of missing sand, this does not occur and ramping down is not required.


The sole risk in a sandbed access/flip/transfer is upwelling half rotten detritus to kill or shock sensitive animals, though that hasn’t been a problem with Harold or Paul using in-tank cleaning as a mode of export. We can simply close the gap on crashes or mini cycles among 200 rinsers for example if we simply have them remove all detritus at once, after the tank has been taken apart to isolate sensitive animals. its simply a way of guaranteeing zero losses on giant work threads where everybody's tanks are set up differently, moved differently, rinsed differently.




*the procedure that guarantees safe rinsing/changing/swapping above does not mean anyone should rinse their sand...its just a way to do it without fail if we have to for some reason-invasions or having to move homes for example.
 
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BGrand

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Emdereef

There is no difference in rinse biology from large to small tanks. Scan the rinse thread, there’s pages of large tanks doing work, there is no crashing in the thread 1 gallon to 200 is our largest full rinse. Half the jobs in 24 pages of work are non nanos

large tank owners are often moving homes, thats a 100% required sandbed access interval and they want a plan that does not fail, we had to practice on many large tanks.

The bacteria in a sandbed do not matter to any reef tank when typical live rocks are present, even base rocks will cover filtration (doesnt have to be prime tonga rock for example) immediately upon sandbed rinse (or removal or change out, same ends)

the sand rinse thread ends the speculation in the hobby regarding required ramp-up time for rocks to take on "more bacteria" in place of missing sand, this does not occur and ramping down is not required.


The sole risk in a sandbed access/flip/transfer is upwelling half rotten detritus to kill or shock sensitive animals, though that hasn’t been a problem with Harold or Paul using in-tank cleaning as a mode of export. We can simply close the gap on crashes or mini cycles among 200 rinsers for example if we simply have them remove all detritus at once, after the tank has been taken apart to isolate sensitive animals. its simply a way of guaranteeing zero losses on giant work threads where everybody's tanks are set up differently, moved differently, rinsed differently.




*the procedure that guarantees safe rinsing/changing/swapping above does not mean anyone should rinse their sand...its just a way to do it without fail if we have to for some reason-invasions or having to move homes for example.
Agreed. I did mine before installing the tank.
 

smartwater101

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Siphoning (at least a bit of) sand should be part of the routine water change schedule.

Rinsing is just more work than necessary and isn't going to help you long term. A little bit of siphoning goes a long way.
 

smartwater101

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Nope I have a hermit vacuum cleaner for that.
1568250520704.png

Hermits are darn near useless as a clean-up-crew member. They're cool to watch though.

Besides, it simply isn't possible to keep enough CUC members to remove all that detritus, in our tiny pieces of captivity. Manually siphoning is a must.
 

schooncw

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Everytime I change my water, I try to stir parts of the sand bed to clean it some, but it's always a detritus trap. I don't think I'd ever want to go BB, but after reading THIS THREAD on sand rinsing, I'm going to try this. I'm going to pull my sand bed and rinse it completely till there's no cloud left coming out of it.

Who else has tried this?
Doing this, negates the reasons for having a sand bed in the first place! I assume it's a "deep" sand bed, 4.5-6" and you will be destroying the beneficial, anaerobic bacteria, that is so difficult to cultivate.
 
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Daniel@R2R

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Doing this, negates the reasons for having a sand bed in the first place! I assume it's a "deep" sand bed, 4.5-6" and you will be destroying the beneficial, anaerobic bacteria, that is so difficult to cultivate.
Nope that's an incorrect assumption. :) Sand is about an inch or maybe a little deeper. It's primarily aesthetic.
 

smartwater101

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Doing this, negates the reasons for having a sand bed in the first place! I assume it's a "deep" sand bed, 4.5-6" and you will be destroying the beneficial, anaerobic bacteria, that is so difficult to cultivate.

No. Sandbeds need to be stirred and siphoned. The days of deep sandbeds is old-school and is loooong gone. There is more than enough beneficial bacteria in the system and plenty of options for filtration.
Leaving a sandbed untouched for extended periods is just asking for trouble. It's a ticking time bomb. Sure, some people never have it blow up, but it's not worth the risk.
 

MombasaLionfish

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Hermits are darn near useless as a clean-up-crew member. They're cool to watch though.

Besides, it simply isn't possible to keep enough CUC members to remove all that detritus, in our tiny pieces of captivity. Manually siphoning is a must.
Well mine is great at CUC it is larger than a golf ball. I have never siphoned.
 
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