Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Dburr1014

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I need to to a tank swap out here in the next few weeks. same tank size just a full replacement. red sea 650P around 180ish gallons

I have 2" of carib sea special grade my fav. sand.
I plan to put the fish corals and LR in to a tank with HOB filter, flow heater and light for maybe ( hopefully 1-2 days ) while I do the tank swap.

where i am debating is new sand VS rip clean the sand I have....I have have Dinos for 9 months now due the fact I cant get my N&P up under stocked covid and winter was hard shipping in fish.

anyway setting here thinking about it. either way i go new or used sand I will have to rinse the crap out of it. so I might as well use what I got eh?

only advantage of new I see is, I can prep. it for for hand.

thoughts?
You can slowly stick it out with water changes so a bunch of it will be done before you start.
Good luck with the transfer!
 

Devaji

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I went through the same "new vs old sand" decision about 6 months ago but on a smaller scale -- just 40 gallons.

As you said, either way, you're going to rinse the h$!! out of it.
In my case, I went for new and happy I did but that was less than 1/4 cost of what you're looking at.

If you go for new, consider CaribSea "special grade" -- nice grain size and only about 50 cents / pound (((perpetually "on sale" at PetSmart website))):

CaribSea Special Grade Aragonite Sand
yup that is what I have and if i buy new I am doing the same love the stuff only sad I have used in 10+ years of reefing . IMHO it's the best ....well for me anyway.

You can slowly stick it out with water changes so a bunch of it will be done before you start.
Good luck with the transfer!
you know i thought about that to but the new tank should ship hopefully soon guessing i'll have it in 2 weeks, and want to swap out the tanks ASAP just in case.

with it beening on sale I might just get new so I can have it ready then rinse out the old sand and use some of it for a new build.
 

dcrabb80

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ok! complete! Total time took about 4 hours today. Livestock only in buckets for an hour and a half so I skipped in putting heaters and flow in holding containers. LOVE the new sand compared to the fine sugar sand I had. The glass cup test was crystal clear after rinsing and flushing the new sand for about 4 hours total. only had slight cloudiness as I started to put the rocks back in but it's already clearing up. All coral is already opening. I didn't put thing back exactly where they were before so I'm sure I'll rearrange as soon as I think my BTAs are settled as they will likely be on the move.
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20220602_143415.jpg

 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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yes that is wonderful, it's a big vs small job, that's huge effort. we're so lucky to get to add such a clean job to our example sets, thank you so much for posting!

favorites: again no bottle bac used. we aren't losing crucial bacteria in these sand swap jobs. those bacteria are expendable, they compete for systemic resources once they build back up, and the system doesn't miss them after this rinse. we aren't needing to replenish something that is already in excess in our systems: filter bacteria. that's why page after page there are no recycles with delicate animals shown in pictures above.
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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I predict it clears by midnite

isnt there a back chamber flow- through where filter media exists or is painted back wall


you really cleaned that well it looks brand new. The glass is streak free in and out, sand sharp. Rocks zero algae only corals


frag rack, clean, sharp.

you can spot feed corals now and have some extra waste uptake room in the newly cleaned system. This ability to up the protein, the nitrogen positivity, is like workout boosting for corals. We can specially use rip cleans to drive abnormally fast coral growth because they’ll reset clean spaces in the tank we can drive back to full one day with strong feeding to drive corals. Back in the day, 2009 lol, folks just rode the first iteration of the tank into the ground they’d never, ever be caught rinsing.


and then we quit wasting reef tanks. We intervene, command them.


you can repeat this for dinos

or cyano



or just because… rip cleans have made my nano run sixteen years.

its always going to be energizing and positive as an outcome.
 
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dcrabb80

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I predict it clears by midnite

isnt there a back chamber flow- through where filter media exists or is painted back wall


you really cleaned that well it looks brand new. The glass is streak free in and out, sand sharp. Rocks zero algae only corals


frag rack, clean, sharp.

you can spot feed corals now and have some extra waste uptake room in the newly cleaned system. This ability to up the protein, the nitrogen positivity, is like workout boosting for corals. We can specially use rip cleans to drive abnormally fast coral growth because they’ll reset clean spaces in the tank we can drive back to full one day with strong feeding to drive corals. Back in the day, 2009 lol, folks just rode the first iteration of the tank into the ground they’d never, ever be caught rinsing.


and then we quit wasting reef tanks. We intervene, command them.


you can repeat this for dinos

or cyano



or just because… rip cleans have made my nano run sixteen years.

its always going to be energizing and positive as an outcome.
thanks for the help and research threads. The ONLY thing I messed up was not having enough water on hand. I still buy salt and RO so half way through I had to make a panic run to the LFS. They are awesome though....I called them on my way and they said honk and pull up to the door...they rushed out 10g of salt water and told to pay for it later.

Love how it looks man!
 

dcrabb80

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thanks for the help and research threads. The ONLY thing I messed up was not having enough water on hand. I still buy salt and RO so half way through I had to make a panic run to the LFS. They are awesome though....I called them on my way and they said honk and pull up to the door...they rushed out 10g of salt water and told to pay for it later.

Love how it looks man!
day 2. Crystal clear!
20220603_203456.jpg
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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I’m so happy to have this work included
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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Yes thank you so much this follow up is gold

And the lysmata shrimps in our most recent sets of cleaning jobs all stayed alive, this remarks well for rinse quality during disassembly phase






Team

See Danno's rip clean, perfectly done to beat dinos here
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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Hey thanks for posting, that's a big job

Curious about these aspects of our thread for your job, I couldn't see these details in the setup thread:

- lowering of light levels in the new tank, where's the cool blue lighting/ much lower % than the original setup (we never run same strength light on the new setup, we ramp up a week)

- the new sand looks pretty clean upon refill when the tank was half way filing, was that old sand you rinsed in tap water or was it new bagged sand, did you pre rinse it

We are approaching sixty pages with zero losses is why asking, searching for which steps may have been missed. We have ways to avoid coral loss every time if each step is repeated

When lights come on can you post an updated tank pic and zoom in on a lost coral/ let's see if it was dead or just closed up from the move
 
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brandon429

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Best way is surgically, outside the tank with rock sitting on counter

use a steak knife to score each bubble off, rasp the attachment area so that no visible material is left behind, score the attachment point really well with steel

then once clean and rinsed off, put peroxide on the former attachment points to burn off any remaining holdfast cells, hope this works it’s tricky stuff to control / I haven’t seen a better way.
 

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Best way is surgically, outside the tank with rock sitting on counter

use a steak knife to score each bubble off, rasp the attachment area so that no visible material is left behind, score the attachment point really well with steel

then once clean and rinsed off, put peroxide on the former attachment points to burn off any remaining holdfast cells, hope this works it’s tricky stuff to control / I haven’t seen a better way.
Busch Beer GIF by Busch
 
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brandon429

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excellent, what a perfect rip clean

that torch is worth a lot of money for sure. those are rare where I'm from


it's turning brown bc you're shining massive strong lights into a brand new tank that has zero coralline, food base, or anything above base rock that's been sitting in water. it's the most reflective look your tank could have, vs a deep purple/dark color rocks that aren't reflective and impart shading/ current controls etc to zones which results in less invader work

it's a tank maturation thing, you have months of work to expect.



did you tap rinse the sand to perfection

did you re ramp up your lighting/that specifically looks to be full on white lighting/not a ramp up even after several mentions in our thread of blue-heavy lighting to be used.

we should not expect new reef tanks to naturally suppress all invaders, clean up crews do this in nature but don't think buying a mixed lot of CUC is my recommend, it's not-they rarely work.

continue hand guidance, common siphoning the mass out along with normal weekly water changes/no full takedown required now if you did the tap water rinse portion in the new bed. your tank is benefitted now by not casting a cloud about if you have to reach in and grab rocks up for a quick external polish and rinse, or siphon some much up off the sandbed

getting a UV sterilizer is very very helpful in tanks too large for repeated hand-guiding when they're new.


do not let the invasion mass up, keep it suppressed, in case it's dinos / common in tanks that exclude live rock.
 
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