Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[brandon429]

Wonderful feedback and Hotashes has also confirmed and provided supporting pics about the -massive- amnts of detritus even a few pounds of live rock continually produces -on its own- not even counting the inputs from degraded waste and feed from other areas...you are posting the helpful visual pattern here as well to show how that waste keeps coming, we cannot stop it, but we have choices on what to do with it.

Me personally I just let it store up then rip clean once or twice a year, with no fish I can go longer. I miss fish ha/woes of the eight pound reef tank.

*what I also enjoy about your updates is the nutrient balances and ratios shown in pattern solely by handling detritus this is a great pattern to tie into for those who do store waste, and then want better ratios...they can see how hand guiding moves balances back in place, we were once told that rip cleaning removes balances!

The tiny bits of invader left -are- in balance with nature, this is what I enjoy the most. Your tank isn't blanketed with them, they're controlled, it's now on the grazer balance mode...whenever we find the right willing grazer, he takes care of those spots so you don't have to...or, since your tank is accessible, you can still be the grazer. Cyano and cousins have adapted to find a way on the reef, I saw patches of cyano in the caymans and in the 90s their water was perfect, params don't have to be imbalanced to have an invasion, we just need no conchs. Or no diamond gobies, nature uses grazers and we cheat when required to do what they do.

About the only tank invader I consider pure evil is the hitchhiking plant called neomeris annulata (I have now accused a plant of being evil ha) all other invaders simply exploit some form of imbalance. Too white lighting is on the continuum...big imbalances in nutrient parameters can boost them, but the center of the link wheel is deteritus as the main causative I find as our team keeps posting before / during / afters as the pages build

 

[HazMatreefer7]

Thanks everyone for the well wishes, The area around us is still flooding but for the most part things are going back to normal.

You could dose some prime to be on the safe side till you can get around to the wc if your worried

Yes I made sure to do that before I reported to work just to be safe. I can honestly say I was lucky, everything bounced back and almost two weeks after the rip clean including the power outage it's still clean. My skimmer went nuts for two days after the power came back on and I was able to get a water change in today. I tested the water before the change and nothing really spiked like I expected, just elevated amount of nitrate (15ppm). I assume the prime dosage may keep my API test kit from seeing some of it. Here is a FTS.

 

[brandon429]

Wonderful timing for all events, able to weather the storms/pro reefing great job

 

[WVU2RVA]

Every piece of substrate that isn’t sand in my 14 month old mixed reef 210 is covered coralline. I typically don’t mind the amount of purple that covers the rock and back glass but some rocks have just become smoothed purple masses. It seems as my coral grows it has trouble attaching itself to rocks covered in coralline.
Anyways, back to the substrate, i want it out. The entire sandbed doesn’t need to be removed just get out the purple, it sucks up alk too which has become a problem.

What’s the safe way to get it out?
Should I just cover it up? Or will the larger pieces just resurface?
What type of sand is safe to slowly put into the tank without effecting the system?

Any suggestions or concerns are appreciated

 

[brandon429]

I had to restudy your pics after reading the description because I couldn’t grow that much coralline if was paid to, incented, desired to for my own enjoyment etc and if your problem was mine I’d be ok with that



But I know 210 system + coral uptake command + calcification in general from non corals is expensive and technical challenge for alk commanders ...and coralline is hungry

your pics have big tie ins for our science:

We always talk about coralline being one of the best biorejecting surfaces in reefing, it literally fends off space invaders. We do early tank cleaning and hand guiding so it will take over and exclude algae, which you’ve shown above sharply and I guess too much coralline other than being the most enviable look in reefing presents dosing issues and live rock porosity reduction.

Dr. Shimek has written about coralline reducing the porosity of rocksin extreme cases, I read it in his posts on reefcentral in 2003

It will never ever cause your tank to fail to manage its bioloading, ie it’s no particular big deal to your biofiltration but it does prevent live rock from expressing its inherent detritus back out to the tank as anyone who temporarily moves live rock into white paint buckets can attest...detritus is left behind.


My brainstorms off your pics:
First of all, you have a virulent strain of coralline if those are led lights and not compacts out of 1998. People want power coralline that punches through led

It’s so purple and awesome I would scrape some of that into my own tank to seed it, would be so lucky if it took similar hold under kessils...you might have a marketable transmissible supercoralline / play around with selling samples or give to barren wasteland scape friends to try and seed. Test it to see before you kill it all off, might could market it

If you stumble upon coralline variant like 1998 and can bring back the viewing window type look people had to scrape into place, some might pay for that, I would, do brainstorm.

Second, in my opinion regarding depositional science here, the substrate is merely the landing zone for such beast coralline that you some how seeded and are ioning into the hulk. If you had no substrate, it w take up on the bare glass. ** sandbeds are much more surface area/attachment points for coralline, so to go bare bottom is less ion command on your system because a flat pane of glass is much less coralline loading than that of sand grain attachment points, if indeed coralline is the tipping point to alk command as considered and I agree it’s highly likely, you have purple everywhere


So our thread seems fitting for your large tank challenge because the collected works of many show that taking apart a tank and doing anything you want to the bed can be done without any loss if we order ops the decon and recon

If you replace that bed incrementally or all at once, it’ll cake again in a year and we’ll need to re access again

If you go bare bottom now it seems the least future work considering I’ve never seen anyone in ten thousand tank pictures have a coralline problem anytime recently, so glad you posted. I’d scrape that stuff into my tank it’s amazing.


If your tank was mine I’d do nothing to the sandbed, support whatever ions the beast wants, and revel in pure algae excluding wonder and I’d subtly rub it into others posts along the way that they couldn’t have this much purple if they spray painted it into their tank but they could gaze at this scape for a while if that helps any.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Every piece of substrate that isn’t sand in my 14 month old mixed reef 210 is covered coralline. I typically don’t mind the amount of purple that covers the rock and back glass but some rocks have just become smoothed purple masses. It seems as my coral grows it has trouble attaching itself to rocks covered in coralline.
Anyways, back to the substrate, i want it out. The entire sandbed doesn’t need to be removed just get out the purple, it sucks up alk too which has become a problem.

What’s the safe way to get it out?
Should I just cover it up? Or will the larger pieces just resurface?
What type of sand is safe to slowly put into the tank without effecting the system?

Any suggestions or concerns are appreciated

I will take a cup if you want to get rid of it.

Does it get ridges?

I am looking for plating coralline to add to Hotel Coralline.

We have plenty of purple and a little red in darker places.
Would love to find some green and yellow as well.
Those are supposed to be extremely low light.

Let me know how much you want for it.
[emoji4]

 

[brandon429]

How rare team to see all the collectible kinds that’s great, the Hotel is rocking wow

 

[WVU2RVA]

I have 5 rocks in my sump that look exactly like this purple gem in the first pic.
I thought everyone had this problem.

Thanks for all the info. The alk and calcium are stable but I’m dosing 2 part at an alarming rate to keep up.

 

[WVU2RVA]

I will take a cup if you want to get rid of it.

Does it get ridges?

I am looking for plating coralline to add to Hotel Coralline.

We have plenty of purple and a little red in darker places.
Would love to find some green and yellow as well.
Those are supposed to be extremely low light.

Let me know how much you want for it.
[emoji4]

It’s free, especially if you live near Richmond VA

 

[WVU2RVA]

I had to restudy your pics after reading the description because I couldn’t grow that much coralline if was paid to, incented, desired to for my own enjoyment etc and if your problem was mine I’d be ok with that



But I know 210 system + coral uptake command + calcification in general from non corals is expensive and technical challenge for alk commanders ...and coralline is hungry

your pics have big tie ins for our science:

We always talk about coralline being one of the best biorejecting surfaces in reefing, it literally fends off space invaders. We do early tank cleaning and hand guiding so it will take over and exclude algae, which you’ve shown above sharply and I guess too much coralline other than being the most enviable look in reefing presents dosing issues and live rock porosity reduction.

Dr. Shimek has written about coralline reducing the porosity of rocksin extreme cases, I read it in his posts on reefcentral in 2003

It will never ever cause your tank to fail to manage its bioloading, ie it’s no particular big deal to your biofiltration but it does prevent live rock from expressing its inherent detritus back out to the tank as anyone who temporarily moves live rock into white paint buckets can attest...detritus is left behind.


My brainstorms off your pics:
First of all, you have a virulent strain of coralline if those are led lights and not compacts out of 1998. People want power coralline that punches through led

It’s so purple and awesome I would scrape some of that into my own tank to seed it, would be so lucky if it took similar hold under kessils...you might have a marketable transmissible supercoralline / play around with selling samples or give to barren wasteland scape friends to try and seed. Test it to see before you kill it all off, might could market it

If you stumble upon coralline variant like 1998 and can bring back the viewing window type look people had to scrape into place, some might pay for that, I would, do brainstorm.

Second, in my opinion regarding depositional science here, the substrate is merely the landing zone for such beast coralline that you some how seeded and are ioning into the hulk. If you had no substrate, it w take up on the bare glass. ** sandbeds are much more surface area/attachment points for coralline, so to go bare bottom is less ion command on your system because a flat pane of glass is much less coralline loading than that of sand grain attachment points, if indeed coralline is the tipping point to alk command as considered and I agree it’s highly likely, you have purple everywhere


So our thread seems fitting for your large tank challenge because the collected works of many show that taking apart a tank and doing anything you want to the bed can be done without any loss if we order ops the decon and recon

If you replace that bed incrementally or all at once, it’ll cake again in a year and we’ll need to re access again

If you go bare bottom now it seems the least future work considering I’ve never seen anyone in ten thousand tank pictures have a coralline problem anytime recently, so glad you posted. I’d scrape that stuff into my tank it’s amazing.


If your tank was mine I’d do nothing to the sandbed, support whatever ions the beast wants, and revel in pure algae excluding wonder and I’d subtly rub it into others posts along the way that they couldn’t have this much purple if they spray painted it into their tank but they could gaze at this scape for a while if that helps any.

Kessil AP700s, 2 Actinic, 2 purple plus. This is my results

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/live-sand.462804/page-2


How many years have we spent working Fiji pink sand in this thread



The manufacturer of Fiji pink responds in that thread above. Compare and contrast to previous statements in the sand rinse thread.

 

[xiholdtruex]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/live-sand.462804/page-2


How many years have we spent working Fiji pink sand in this thread



The manufacturer of Fiji pink responds in that thread above. Compare and contrast to previous statements in the sand rinse thread.

So what they are saying is the sand is prerinsed. If it is prerinsed why is is so cloudy out of the bag?

 

[brandon429]

Agreed

And our filter bac aren't spore formers

Dormancy is different, cysting sometimes confused with spore forming.

That's likely csr rep vs lead microbiologist

 

[xiholdtruex]

Bought 30 lbs of fiji pink sand for my new biocube 29 . I'm going to rinse it and take a video so we can post up here.

After I went through what I went through with my 12g cube idc if it says rinsed 20 times over I'm rinsing it again with tap water just to be sure lol

Agreed

And our filter bac aren't spore formers

Dormancy is different, cysting sometimes confused with spore forming.

That's likely csr rep vs lead microbiologist

 

[brandon429]

Yes do, perfect. I'll link back there

anything in the realm of substrate dealings counts here. In no way will it rinse clean first pass. I know of no substrate that can avoid self-fragmentation when stacked in shipping pallets. Compression fracturing will occur in the majority of bags, silts result. Large grain bags don't count. Anything small enough to be reef useful needs a pre rinse although I want to state they've invented micro powder epoxy grains now that is true cloudless powder but it's for fw

Petsmart sells it Amazon substrate I use it in planted tanks it's neat

but we neutralize any reef substrates that cloud with a simple pre rinse, nbd.

 

[xiholdtruex]

Yes do, perfect. I'll link back there

anything in the realm of substrate dealings counts here. In no way will it rinse clean first pass. I know of no substrate that can avoid self-fragmentation when stacked in shipping pallets. Compression fracturing will occur in the majority of bags, silts result. Large grain bags don't count. Anything small enough to be reef useful needs a pre rinse although I want to state they've invented micro powder epoxy grains now that is true cloudless powder but it's for fw

Petsmart sells it Amazon substrate I use it in planted tanks it's neat

but we neutralize any reef substrates that cloud with a simple pre rinse, nbd.

so just a clarification, if we can rinse sand and keep BB, that means that we can rinse the filter sponges and media and such in tap water and still retain out bb correct?

 

[brandon429]

Absolutely true, I practice it. I take apart my eheim 206 canister filter for my 55 planted tank and rinse off detritus, unclog the filter pores put back. I'll even soak first level pads in light peroxide to whiten


There is no need to use special water for filter rinsing. Biofilms encase both fw and sw filter media as well as all tank surfaces, detritus being flushed out takes priority in accurate biofilter application. It is a searchable fact that old schoolers have been tap rinsing filter media for thirty years or better

 

[wowkingjames]

Following.....

 

[Heavymman]

Following.....

Me too

 

[brandon429]

ok

post pictures of your sandbeds, lets see where they're heading, pros/cons of the arrangement based off pics



Biology of sandbeds summary based on 12 pages and a few years:

-what the masses have to do to keep a sandbed from not causing problems is different than what the skilled/artistic and lucky minority can do. When that changes, there will be a 12 page thread on how not cleaning a sandbed allows one to move it, upgrade, downgrade, remedy invasions etc. So far, only the actioners provide that work. Be careful where you get your sandbed information from, we're not keeping mini oceans here. We're keeping crowded setups.

-you do not have to consider what happens to bacteria when you rinse, clean or even tap rinse a sandbed. Bacteria are the strongest communities you keep, not the weakest. They're the first thing to arrive, and the last thing to die in your reef.

-bacteria acquire their own feed, humans don't control whether or not bacteria on sand or in a biofilter die by whether or not they add feed or withhold it. Bacteria do just fine, always have, unless they're being worked in a positive pressure microbiology lab using aseptic handling techniques, and prep, for all media. No home setting can mimic this. We're contamination feeding our filters always, in everything we do. Even tap water ADDS not subtracts bacteria when you add it to a sample (or autoclaving wouldn't be required, med techs would just tap rinse the tools)

-a working remedy for cyano invasions is featured here

-the human tendency is to underdo cleaning and hesitate with rinsing or any deep access to a sandbed, this is ironically dangerous unless you've kept it clean the whole time. Being partial on an aged sandbed is how we get to loss and invasion, being thorough trains a reefer to take command of their whole tank, starting from bottom up literally. we're collecting examples of applications to build trust.

-nearly all aquarium examples you can find about early and current sandbed information are based on large aquariums and/or ocean sediments. Once you have to deal with small aquariums, or really small ones, then dilution changes reveal some basic tenets of sandbed biology. Constantly invaded large tank sandbeds reveals the other portions the masses must deal with. ideal sandbed info comes from a mix of the two realms, as even large beds are destined the same as the small bed/just at different times.
the best information isn't from mine or anyone else's summary of what they think of sandbed biology, it comes from self-analyzing hundreds of other tanks and finding your own patterns. Take from the offerings what you can

-not all sandbeds are diapers, or should be rinsed. Remote sandbeds, not as the primary waste trap for a huge fish bioload but rather a pre-filtered, slow moving remote location sand biome really can reduce vs produce nitrate, we're talking about display tanks here, keep that distinction clear. There are some sandbeds that you don't touch and they mineralize, not pump out half rot.