Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[john.m.cole3]

Hard work in one day vs. tedious and chase like work over weeks or months of time is the difference @shollis2814 demonstrated. Your new scape and substrate has a personality unlike any other I've ever seen. Very neat to keep some collectibles of your fathers in your tank. It gives it sentimental value for sure. The nassarius snail idea is good, but don't hesitate to regularly siphon that sandbed every water change. the good siphoning does outweighs the bad in my opinion!

My vote for a coral on the fan would be an encrusting superman montipora.

 

[shollis2814]

Thanks for your kind words. I wanted height and stability. I did get a little Stonehenge on the left, but I also tried to layer as well as give some depth. I know I have a lot to learn about scaping and aesthetics, but this has really made me love my tank again. I was hesitant about the black Hawaiian sand, but after seeing how the colors came alive at my LFS display tank, I decided to give it a shot. It does make my zoas pop.

I am going to watch nitrates carefully over the next couple of days, since I did reuse some water. I have 10 more gallons of saltwater standing by for a few small water changes as needed.

 

[shollis2814]

OK, so one more update. Yesterday after I filled my tank up, I took a water sample in to my LFS. He told me my nitrates were 45-50 ppm. Since I had just done all that work I wasn't going to do a water change yesterday. I planned on doing it this evening. I went to test out of curiosity...


I am sure some of this might be due to 'settling', but I am encouraged already. I did see a few mats of cyano forming last night that made it over from the tear down. I removed them with a turkey baster.

 

[brandon429]

Nice

It's really hard to do a full swap and not up well nutrients (feeding small patches of invader...opportunistic among tanks...cyano in your tank might be a small tuft of GHA in another, depending on conditions) we just guide them right on out. Your guide work lessens in time relative to bioload and lighting etc. all your actions to guide the tank are just what I would have done.

removing the nutrient sink as was shown here means most invasions if hand guided early will be short lived. Any brief nutrient changes in the upper water column may very well rear up as a cyano, diatom or minor algae spring up at any time, but you have the base under control which means big battles won't take over unless basic guiding is skipped (assuming a grazer hasn't done prevention initially=ideal)

 

[shollis2814]

Yes, now that I have a sand base, I have room for one last fish, and some sort of sand sifting goby or blenny is at the top of the list. No susbtitution for vacuuming/water changes, I know, but still.

I have noticed some caluerpa, bubble algae and now some little hydroids (yikes-hope it's not aiptasia) have started to spread a little. Hoping my two new emeralds find the first two quickly.

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/draining-tank.243724/page-2#post-2914375


a deep cleaning/skip cycle reassembly above, thanks for the updates~

 

[shollis2814]

OK, so one thing I have noticed, that the black sand does not keep pH up like the crushed coral does. I noticed my zoas closed and my cup corals bleaching a bit. pH was 7.9 (yikes)! Can a drop in pH cause some bleaching? The only other thing I have done is drop my photoperiod a hour or so and dropped the intensity of my white LED's.

pH 7.9
kH 9
Calcium 400
Nitrates 0

 

[brandon429]

recommend doing not much to pH at those levels when alk is good, simple diurnal pH changes our tanks do, night v day, and test kit variances (unless that is calibrated pH probe) make it a parameter of low concern (at those levels) as I read in the chem forum. Would be curious to see your tanks pH reading at both 7am and pm





before making systemic changes off cup corals and the zos, who can be finicky after moves, I would target feed the azoox cup corals for a month to make sure it wasn't feed withholding stressing them, zos should open back up soon enough if other corals besides these are happy. Someone mentions 7.9 in here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ph-and-alkalinity.247872/


A bubble test I read from the chem forum tells you if your home is retaining CO2, and/or your tank:

take a cup of water that tests 7.9 for you and put an airstone in it and bubble it outside (the air into the cup comes from outside/low known co2 source) or in a room of better venting than where the tank is. if the act of simply bubbling for ten mins drives up the pH you are retaining waste gasses in the aquarium and simply changing that w drive the pH back up, without a bunch of chem tweaks and dosings to the water

 

[john.m.cole3]

recommend doing not much to pH at those levels when alk is good, simple diurnal pH changes our tanks do, night v day, and test kit variances (unless that is calibrated pH probe) make it a parameter of low concern (at those levels) as I read in the chem forum. Would be curious to see your tanks pH reading at both 7am and pm

if t



before making systemic changes off cup corals and the zos, who can be finicky after moves, I would target feed the azoox cup corals for a month to make sure it wasn't feed withholding stressing them, zos should open back up soon enough if other corals besides these are happy. Someone mentions 7.9 in here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ph-and-alkalinity.247872/


A bubble test I read from the chem forum tells you if your home is retaining CO2, and/or your tank:

take a cup of water that tests 7.9 for you and put an airstone in it and bubble it outside (the air into the cup comes from outside/low known co2 source) or in a room of better venting than where the tank is. if the act of simply bubbling for ten mins drives up the pH you are retaining waste gasses in the aquarium and simply changing that w drive the pH back up, without a bunch of chem tweaks and dosings to the water

Brandon for president!

 

[brandon429]

am seeking to be president of the local rc club which is a camp of antisoc droners who secret away in the woods and contemplate radio distance personal records interacting not much with greater society except via web and remote cellular.

total camp membership is in fact one so far- good chance of winning

 

[brandon429]

Patrick documented a rip cleaning of an aged reef in fine detail here, as readers consider how to rinse or replace the sand of a challenged tank and force-clean the rocks in a large tank just as a reboot of the system... without new restocking but at a loss to all stored waste. this is another valuable document to collect all in one place w pics. Am lucky to know these posters mid-move and mid-cleaning and be able to reference these works for our thread involving sand rinsing, skip cycling, tank moving to new homes, tank cleaning in current home, and mean cleaning:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/75-gallon-rebuild-and-algae-battle.248397/#post-2927022

 

[shollis2814]

Just as an update to my substrate change last month. I did have an outbreak of GHA, but I also tweaked my lighting schedule, so I can no t contribute it solely to the substrate change. I added a sea hare and did a totaly blackout for a couple of days. Most of the GHA is gone and I am going to do a 25% water change today.

Nitrates are still at 0, but the GHA was soaking up *something*.

 

[FlyinBryan]

I let it all settle for a day, it clears up very fast. I've never seen a fast cycle. I let the protein skimmer do the rest.
I've never rinsed sand nor would I ever. The ocean is a dirty crappy place full of junk. I want that in my tank.

 

[brandon429]

I think the distinction is shown in the tank reset threads where there is a need for cleaning


the algae correction threads where working over waste from the darkened sandbed or moving homes with all waste in tow. The follow up algae blooms posted are a headache for many, we try to demo here full prevention of that condition. Agreed many tanks run years with hands off sandbed



Sometimes just the act of having to move homes puts one at a crossroads--keep or discard the waste, readers want to know the benefit of keeping the waste vs the benefit of harsh export

Another key aspect of rinsing was the high surface area silt portion detailed as better not included in most beginning setups... In time it will show here that rinsed beds work as well as the hands off mode, no downgrade happens if someone chooses to go cleaner and lessen offsets for low export. Much more common mode for nano reefing- big tanks are typically exclusive of the busier methods agreed

 

[brandon429]

Triple post

 

[brandon429]

Error post triple

 

[brandon429]

Shollis

That description is really in line with what we want to make as predictions for most of these tank resets. It's not a one off guarantee no work again for algae (half the time live rocks are their own detritus ecosystem) it's a guarantee to have robbed all algae feed, sustenance, all at once. It's that the duration of repeat work to guide a hands off tank back into compliance is now greatly reduced.


Anyone reading considering a tank reset will benefit from the bucket test on live rock before beginning (this tells if your live rock houses ammonia-emitting detritus)

*Take live rock from the tank to be worked, and brush it clean outside tank of any growths that may be causing withholding of wastes within the pores. Don't peroxide this test rock, this is for detritus hunting. Make the surface free of any invaders by light physical removal, and rinse well in saltwater. Make this test rock very clean after a saltwater rinse, post scrub, no outside detritus that we can see or shake off (so that any pumped into our clean holding bucket obviously indicates what's inside the live rock throughout the tank, this is a detritus hunt. One can also break off a small section of live rock to see a cross section...all valid parts of true tank reset detailing)

Then we bubble the rock in a simple clean test bucket, white preferably as detritus stands out nicely in the bottom, for two hours.


If that bucket has detritus, after all that work, we needed to know that about your other rocks so they are isolated from sensitive species during the cleaning. also a handy growback source locating tool, just a little live rock test before the big clean, this is prep.

 

[john.m.cole3]

I'm helping a local reset his tank right now due to off the charts nitrates, phosphates, and more bristleworms than pores. So far he has removed the rock and rinsed the sand bed. What's the best way to go about resetting the rocks? He has soaked them in a tap water and peroxide solution for 2 days to rid all bristles from rocks (hundreds). The rocks have been sitting outside for a w eek now. what's the next step to ensure no nutrients leach back into the system?

 

[brandon429]

In my opinion it would be your excellent rubber maid type setup, strong power head aiming right at rock stack, sits is blast current for few weeks in right temps, cooled if needed. The proof is the accumulation after about a week/WC in/out detritus. Each layer hand scrubbed off the top of that kind of live rock imo frees up under stores to be pumped out.

If someone installed them anyway in a tank at least bed cleaned, then busy work in-tank will be predicted as they remove the detritus accumulations cast out... few weeks imo

Fun wheres waldo429

Doing sandbed reefing mid altitude simult this is good cell sig location

 

[shollis2814]

Shollis

That description is really in line with what we want to make as predictions for most of these tank resets. It's not a one off guarantee no work again for algae (half the time live rocks are their own detritus ecosystem) it's a guarantee to have robbed all algae feed, sustenance, all at once. It's that the duration of repeat work to guide a hands off tank back into compliance is now greatly reduced.


Anyone reading considering a tank reset will benefit from the bucket test on live rock before beginning (this tells if your live rock houses ammonia-emitting detritus)

*Take live rock from the tank to be worked, and brush it clean outside tank of any growths that may be causing withholding of wastes within the pores. Don't peroxide this test rock, this is for detritus hunting. Make the surface free of any invaders by light physical removal, and rinse well in saltwater. Make this test rock very clean after a saltwater rinse, post scrub, no outside detritus that we can see or shake off (so that any pumped into our clean holding bucket obviously indicates what's inside the live rock throughout the tank, this is a detritus hunt. One can also break off a small section of live rock to see a cross section...all valid parts of true tank reset detailing)

Then we bubble the rock in a simple clean test bucket, white preferably as detritus stands out nicely in the bottom, for two hours.


If that bucket has detritus, after all that work, we needed to know that about your other rocks so they are isolated from sensitive species during the cleaning. also a handy growback source locating tool, just a little live rock test before the big clean, this is prep.

Oh, I agree. The GHA had a lot of contributing factors which I go into in this thread. It was 100% preventable, but life happened. A 2-day blackout, sea hare, and toothbrush did wonders. I just got back with some cool frags to replace the ones the GHA crowded out.

That's a great idea for the bucket test on some live rock.