is it possible for live sand to be cleaned-replaced- in a running tank?

[reef4life!!!]

Hi everyone and happy new year!!! I have a 65 gallon tank with live rock and live sand which is running for 7-8 years.So i am trying for the past 3 months to lower down my dang phosphates in order to get some corals and they don't seem to come down.My nitrates went down from 80 to 2-5ppm and they for the past 2 months are stable at that range. I've tried nitraphos(auquaforest) 50% water change at the begging, last month i placed phosguard(seachem) inside my canister filter and 5 days ago i started microbacter clean too.My question is could i remove-or replace - the whole sand(or at least as much as i can without disrupting the rocks) and clean in order to release any nitrates-phosphates the sand has?

*i use salifert test kits*


current setup:
1 eheim canister filter with mostly ceramics and 2 sponges
1 deltec mc600 hang on skimmer
live rock
live sand(i don't remever correctly but i thing it's aragonite)
tank is running for 7-8 years(poorly maintenance)

Current livestock: (i added the clowns almost 2 months ago and the rest of the fish 1 month ago, because i lost all my previous fishes from ich)
1 carpenteri wrasse
2 occelaris clowns
1 female meleagris
1 small japonicus

 

[brandon429]

The latest posts in the fish disease forum from Humblefish remark about ich hiding in the sandbed, at least we're hedging against that.

an 8 year old sandbed in any combination will benefit from a sharp instant reset for sure. it will perk up that tank for sure, and those rocks have nice diversity if they're underwater this long


a rip clean removes light topical layers of accumulations off rocks and lightly lightly brushing or better yet swishing casts off growths without harming the bacteria, and the sandbed bacteria don't matter. the rocks will carry the whole new system with or without sand, so hammer the substrate well


even if you put back new sand, which may be better if you adhere to phosphate binding chemistry for 8 year old sand, you still pre rinse any new sand in tap water for an hour or until its clean. do not cloud is the trick.


if that tank was mine it would get eventually all new sand, pre rinsed to gold standard, at least before its packed in coral. apparently the newer sand doesn't have years of being in close contact with waste, to absorb phosphate, I do not know if that's true or not its just a trend stated in the chemistry forum.

further irony is all new sand is phosphate hungry, and quickly uptakes new po4 lol / a roundabout.

 

[reef4life!!!]

this is my first ever post if anyone want to see details https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nitrates.755945/

The latest posts in the fish disease forum from Humblefish remark about ich hiding in the sandbed, at least we're hedging against that.

an 8 year old sandbed in any combination will benefit from a sharp instant reset for sure. it will perk up that tank for sure, and those rocks have nice diversity if they're underwater this long


a rip clean removes light topical layers of accumulations off rocks and lightly lightly brushing or better yet swishing casts off growths without harming the bacteria, and the sandbed bacteria don't matter. the rocks will carry the whole new system with or without sand, so hammer the substrate well


even if you put back new sand, which may be better if you adhere to phosphate binding chemistry, you still pre rinse any new sand in tap water for an hour or until its clean. do not cloud is the trick.

yeah i've read that old tanks have so much different features than a 2-3 year old tank.So what i might do here is to remove parts of sand and replace with some live sand(i now have dead aragonite) and i will slowly brush some rocks every week along with the addition of phosguard or rowaphos

 

[brandon429]

you are doing the extended run vs the overnite one/all at once? where's the data link to show that way works/is safe

 

[reef4life!!!]

you are doing the extended run vs the overnite one/all at once? where's the data link to show that way works/is safe

sorry maybe my english are very bad but can you explain me what exactly you ask?

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Evening,

I will throw in my 1 cent. I am with Brandon as to trying other ways before rip clean. I will also say his method works, I did similar to my 180. Swapped all the gravel out and replaced with sand in a day.

I do not think sand is your issue with Po4. Most likely rocks have captured it from years of feeding. I like Seachem and other product, but I would go to a high capac GFO, one like from bRS.

Just a thought

 

[reef4life!!!]

Evening,

I will throw in my 1 cent. I am with Brandon as to trying other ways before rip clean. I will also say his method works, I did similar to my 180. Swapped all the gravel out and replaced with sand in a day.

I do not think sand is your issue with Po4. Most likely rocks have captured it from years of feeding. I like Seachem and other product, but I would go to a high capac GFO, one like from bRS.

Just a thought

hi

yeah i am suspecting that rocks may have captured A LOT of phosphates over these years and they are just releasing them back now.Also now with the feedings it's much harder to get them down.That was my thought but an lfs told me that beside the rocks the sand may have captured a lot of food-waste etc.Also in my country there is not any GFO(many people in this foroum recomended to me) so i have to go with other products.

 

[reef4life!!!]

So @brandon429 what do you advise me here? I don't want to remove every fish because i don't want to stress them so much so should i be good if i just siphon parts of the sand in every WC, just rinse it a couple times and put it back in place?

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

The problem is doing a portion at a time is you will release a lot of nitrates/detritus at a time doing this. If you do go this route, use a larger vinyl tube without the vacuum attachment and stick that sucker in the sandbed. Again, I nearly crashed my nano doing this so do like 1/4 of the tank or less at a time.

When readding the sand use a 2L bottle with the bottom cut off. Fill with sand and submerge and unscrew so the sand doesn't blow everywhere.

 

[reef4life!!!]

The problem is doing a portion at a time is you will release a lot of nitrates/detritus at a time doing this. If you do go this route, use a larger vinyl tube without the vacuum attachment and stick that sucker in the sandbed. Again, I nearly crashed my nano doing this so do like 1/4 of the tank or less at a time.

When readding the sand use a 2L bottle with the bottom cut off. Fill with sand and submerge and unscrew so the sand doesn't blow everywhere.

I am also thinking of just buying fresh live sand and do the same thing,siphon a little bit of sand and then replace it with live.I really don't know what i am going to do here xD

 

[brandon429]

we are missing the data plot/ there wasn't room for anyone to infer that we are stressing fish, with those outcomes + 8 month feedback provided on many settings logged.

Maybe being in less than ideal reef conditions is more stressful, cumulatively...opposites can clearly be in play here for sure.

The way sandbed works is this: do you want a pristinely clean sandbed, unable to kill your tank or fuel an invasion? if so, the thread provides the roadmap.

if that's in doubt, then I'll be amazed to see if the final selected plan comes from any documented work or if its just customized.

 

[reef4life!!!]

The way sandbed works is this: do you want a pristinely clean sandbed, unable to kill your tank or fuel an invasion? if so, the thread provides the roadmap.

if that's in doubt, then I'll be amazed to see if the final selected plan comes from any documented work or if its just customized.

well i would like the pristine sandbend but i woudn't mind if there was small parts of detritus-algae etc in my sand.Perhaps i won't even do anything with the sand rather than maybe siphon small parts every WC but if i do something i will post it over here to show the work-results.

 

[wonroc]

I syphon clean every week

 

[biophilia]

What I'm seeing from these pictures and the description you're giving is a tank that likely has a lot of phosphate bound to the rock after many years of high nutrients in the tank. Scrubbing them won't solve it and it's unlikely that neither will taking a dramatic action like replacing all of your sand bed. That may accomplish _some_ reduction in bound PO4, but it'll also decimate any population of benthic invertebrates you have living in the sandbed if that's of any concern to you.

Releasing years of bound PO4 is going to require something to bind PO4 continually over time. Water changes alone won't accomplish that, but a really simple way to do this would be to experiment with dosing small quantities of lanthanum chloride (Phosphate RX is a product I've used). You can dilute the dose you decide on into a cup of RO/DI water and slowly drip it into the neck of your protein skimmer. Doing this now and then over a few weeks will slowly bring your PO4 down.

Looking at your tank, I'd also suggest that you could probably use to beef up your cleaning crew. Some more snails and even a few urchins will probably help immensely with algae issues.

Lastly, keep in mind that lots of people have run successful reef tanks with phosphate levels similar to yours. You're more likely to harm corals by driving phosphate too low than having it too elevated so take it slow and ultimately focus on keeping it "middle-of-the-road" and stable rather than super suppressed.

 

[reef4life!!!]

What I'm seeing from these pictures and the description you're giving is a tank that likely has a lot of phosphate bound to the rock after many years of high nutrients in the tank. Scrubbing them won't solve it and it's unlikely that neither will taking a dramatic action like replacing all of your sand bed. That may accomplish _some_ reduction in bound PO4, but it'll also decimate any population of benthic invertebrates you have living in the sandbed if that's of any concern to you.

Releasing years of bound PO4 is going to require something to bind PO4 continually over time. Water changes alone won't accomplish that, but a really simple way to do this would be to experiment with dosing small quantities of lanthanum chloride (Phosphate RX is a product I've used). You can dilute the dose you decide on into a cup of RO/DI water and slowly drip it into the neck of your protein skimmer. Doing this now and then over a few weeks will slowly bring your PO4 down.

Looking at your tank, I'd also suggest that you could probably use to beef up your cleaning crew. Some more snails and even a few urchins will probably help immensely with algae issues.

Lastly, keep in mind that lots of people have run successful reef tanks with phosphate levels similar to yours. You're more likely to harm corals by driving phosphate too low than having it too elevated so take it slow and ultimately focus on keeping it "middle-of-the-road" and stable rather than super suppressed.

well i've read good and bad things about lanthanum chloride mostly that if u dose a little more than you have to then there is a chance of destruction for your tank etc.As for the corals i've read that stability is the key to succes for reef tanks but when your phosphates are constantly at 1.0ppm a few corals might be good for some time but eventually i wil have problems.As for clean up crew i plan on adding 10 trochus snails,1 urchin and perhaps some big hermits so they don't kill my snails for their shells.

 

[reef4life!!!]

so @brandon429 i decided to go for a full sandbend rinsing in my tank.I just want to make sure some last tips and advices.I've read a thread of you about tearing apart the tanks and rinsing the sand.So first things first,i put fishes,shrimps,snails and a green star polyp in to an old SW bucket with a heater and a wavemaker and the rocks in to a seperate container with old SW.Then i need to remove every water from the tank and keep the first 1/2 of the water and get rid of the other 1/2.After that i take the sand out and rins it very very well and put it back to the tank.Then i put the rest of the clean water i have(except the buckets of the fishes and rocks) back in to the tank and get the rest of the water that i need to fill the tank with matched temp.After that i place all the rocks and last i acclimate the fishes.Am i right ?


*Question: In the water transfer time i might need to add more than 50%(which is 120 liters) of new water in to the tank.Am i ok to do this if i need to?

 

[reef4life!!!]

@NeonRabbit221B That "like" you made in my post means that i am 100% correct at everything?? Will my tank be ok if i need to add more than 50% new water???

 

[Garf]

@NeonRabbit221B That like you made means that i am 100% correct at everything ?Does that like also means i am ok in the question i've made too?

You may wanna edit this, cause it makes no sense.

 

[reef4life!!!]

You may wanna edit this, cause it makes no sense.

haha sorry i thought my english was better..This is what happens if you only use them in that foroum haha

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Sorry I got distracted. A large percent of the water will likely be new regardless. I think 50% new water isn’t terrible as long as salinity and temperature match. Your plan sounds good. You can even use the old SW as the first rinse if it’s already going down the drain.

after everything is back in, ramp your lighting period back up slowly to reduce stress

 

[reef4life!!!]

Sorry I got distracted. A large percent of the water will likely be new regardless. I think 50% new water isn’t terrible as long as salinity and temperature match. Your plan sounds good. You can even use the old SW as the first rinse if it’s already going down the drain.

after everything is back in, ramp your lighting period back up slowly to reduce stress

Yeah the question is if i have to add more than 50%, let's say 60% of new water, is it ok if i match the salinity and temp with my old SW??? The last 1/2 of the water will go down the drain for sure so i don't think i will use it for rinse.I will probably just use tap water and the final rins with RODI

Also my lighting setup is 2 T5's which i don't have a controller to control when the lights are off and on, so if i am guessing right you mean to open for like 2-3 hours first day and each day increase by 1 hour?