What’s your opinion on the role of detritus in a reef tank

[brandon429]

Are wrasses busy by nature over time in a sandbed, like diamond gobies, or would you say they’re passive like starfish or cucumbers or non turnover animals


stick stirring was mentioned above to be a nice preventative of stratification


constantly diving in and out of sand I bet at least helps


thats why I didn’t check for one off examples. We need a work thread, collect ten of those moves on file


anyone here


requested months ago, make the thread. Relocate reefs across posters exactly as above, no rinsing. Title the thread this way you’ll have fifty jobs in one week:

How to move/relocate/upgrade/downgrade your reef with zero sandbed cleaning


every entrant must simply move the entire reef with sand on bottom just drained down, or they can scoop it up placed in a bucket and must put back the exact sand + water from the move bucket. No cleaning.

 

[brandon429]

I have a calendar reminder set for two months to check back here on page nine, we need to see the thread titled above

if by 2021 there is no rinse free sand relocation work thread, that matches today’s standard for rule making I’m fine with that.

i bet we’ve added twenty new moves in the rinse thread by 2021.

team

don’t be stagnant these next eight weeks, do some tank work on file regarding sandbeds, show your patterns. Do work on file with very expensive reef tanks and make a set of actions repeat, we get to see outcomes.

in your thread which retains all waste, we want to see:

more than one invasion remediation. Patterns of fixes and happy updates.


tank house moves before and after, more than one show a few pages of work.


changing out sandbeds for new or doing in-house upgrade work factoring all forms of waste clouding as neutral.

 

[atoll]

Wrasse are not sand stirrer. They dive into the sand at night stay there and don't tend to move until they come out of it usually in the morning. The amount of sand disturbed is minimal.

 

[Vette67]

Are wrasses busy by nature over time in a sandbed, like diamond gobies, or would you say they’re passive like starfish or cucumbers or non turnover animals


stick stirring was mentioned above to be a nice preventative of stratification


constantly diving in and out of sand I bet at least helps


thats why I didn’t check for one off examples. We need a work thread, collect ten of those moves on file


anyone here


requested months ago, make the thread. Relocate reefs across posters exactly as above, no rinsing. Title the thread this way you’ll have fifty jobs in one week:

How to move/relocate/upgrade/downgrade your reef with zero sandbed cleaning


every entrant must simply move the entire reef with sand on bottom just drained down, or they can scoop it up placed in a bucket and must put back the exact sand + water from the move bucket. No cleaning.

I wish I could help out, but I am 18 months away from paying off my house, therefore I don't plan on moving any time soon. So don't count on me having anything new to add to this as far as tank moves, when you look back in 2 months. I'm betting a lot of people move their sand beds. It's not a controversial idea. I just don't know how many people would start a new thread in hopes of it proving a trend. And even if I did move my tank, I would give it about a 99% chance that you would read about it in my build thread, not in a new thread.

I will tell you one thing, Brandon. Back in 2012, I had a massive GHA outbreak in my tank. The general consensus at the time, was that my live rock had probably absorbed as much phosphate as it could and started leaching it back into my water. I mean, I lost 75% of the coral in my 180. It was bad. But seeing your sand threads, I'm now convinced that my sand bed most likely caused the crash. I didn't even think about that at the time. DSB's were all still the rage. I took my rock out of my tank and cooked it. Bleach, muriatic acid, and lanthanum chloride. I killed it all. Only because I had to take my tank down, I hosed out my sand. I had a pretty deep 2 - 3 inch sand bed that I never touched, and as it sat in buckets, it started to smell pretty bad, which is why I hosed it out. I'm willing to bet money that my sand bed had gone anoxic from all the detritus buildup and that is what caused my nutrients to skyrocket. All of the GFO in the world wasn't going to fix my tank (I tried running GFO). And that means I nuked the rock for no reason (it's fine now). But it wasn't until recently, reading your sand rinse threads, that I started thinking back on that event in my past and questioning what I thought was the actual cause. I may sound like a contrarian, but I do listen to all sides and try to come up with the most logical solutions. And I certainly respect your enthusiasm for the topic.

 

[Sallstrom]

I like to keep some detritus in case the nutrient levels goes down too much. Here's a pile I've saved

 

[Reefahholic]

I'm starting to side with Sanjay on this one. Just let it be.

His sump is just full of junk.

I might be too ADD to not siphon it.

BTW....Don't miss ReefBum's interview with Sanjay on 11/15/20 It's around 7pm EST.

 

[Reefahholic]

I like to keep some detritus in case the nutrient levels goes down too much. Here's a pile I've saved

That's a nice pile you got there. @Coral Euphoria loves Detritus. ;-) HeHe

 

[atoll]

I'm starting to side with Sanjay on this one. Just let it be.

His sump is just full of junk.

I might be too ADD to not siphon it.

BTW....Don't miss ReefBum's interview with Sanjay on 11/15/20 It's around 7pm EST.

But hes doing it all wrong lol.

 

[Reefahholic]

But hes doing it all wrong lol.

Yes you can tell by the size of his enormous colonies.

 

[atoll]

Yes you can tell by the size of his enormous colonies.

Exactly.

 

[brandon429]

Upgrade disaster

Recently had a huge leak in our 90 gal reef which forced us to upgrade sooner than expected . The upgrade being a 230 gal with a 48 gal sump . Mistake #1 I added some of the old sand assuming it would be beneficial to have a little bacteria .. I was wrong . Nuked the whole tank killing all fish...

www.reef2reef.com

Only one cause: detritus formerly stratified, destratified.

I dont think that represents all tank transfer moves, just a large portion unaccounted for/unaddressed.

up until detritus removal became the guiding rule for tank transfer moves, we pretty much just moved the stuff and took chances, that's the 30% potential


minding detritus from the old system prevents all forms of mini and maximum recycling. detritus in some forms is very, very consequential.

 

[Swanky]

Far from an 'expert' on reef keeping at this point in my life, but my personal experience has been to diversify organisms, and let nature take it's course. When my 55g was started I struggled immensely to keep things stable. Be it nutrients, dosing, etc. I was religiously vacuuming the sand bed, blasting off rock work, etc.

Large cell amphidinium reared it's disgusting head, livestock losses, horrible odor, the list went on.

When I was feeling ready to throw in the towel, I decided to "let go" and stop reaching in every day. My tank started to round the corner. Things cleared up.

My inexperienced self feels that if you're going to disturb Mother Nature, you better stick to it on a militant-like schedule, otherwise things swing up and down more than we might like. I can see microfauna at night all over the sand and rockwork, and I do my best to not intervene. I'm interested in mimicking a more natural environment - the pretty and sometimes not, but maybe that's just the farmer in me.

My recent ICP test came back so stable and with minimal corrections listed, I was genuinely shocked at how balanced things appeared. I'll always do some maintenance in order to keep a close watch on my gear, but a more hands off approach is working for me!

 

[brandon429]

Is your rock transferred- in live rock or was it a dry rock start

 

[RMS18]

I don't touch it. I have build up in my rock chamber in my sump, it's about .25 deep. Tons of life crawling in and around it. In my dt it doesn't build as much, but I am not trying to remove it, but I'm sure some is removed with sand cleanings.

 

[LittleFidel]

If the detritus was inert, no rot smell would happen. Proof: take used reef tank sand and rinse it detritus free, set in bucket, no stink. Still has bacteria changed oxidation levels but no substrate to liberate nutrients and rot further. This finding lines up completely with our work threads on dangerous detritus.

I noticed nobody has set up tank move threads where all detritus is kept in place yet (never)


in our sand rinse thread where literally only detritus is the risk, we’ve flipped ten more tanks and added two new pages of work

*its not that everyone’s tank has dangerous forms of decay in tow, it’s that some do and by universally excluding detritus from full tank moves we handle the ones that would have been killed by the mud, even if they’re just a few, 100% consistency means we have narrowed down the recycle risks for sandbeds

now if we could just get someone to make a thread moving and upgrading tanks while never cleaning the sand, we can have something to compare outcomes and that will show an interesting dynamic for detritus in the reef tank.

In March 2020, I moved a stable and healthy 20 gal tank with a small hang-on-back filter from my office to my home. I drained the water but did not vacuum the crushed coral substrate, which was loaded with detritus and had caulerpa prolifera growing from it as a form of nutrient export. As soon as the tank was refilled with fresh saltwater at home, I experienced enormous growth of diatoms, red and green Cyanobacteria and hair algae. With every subsequent water change, I removed substrate and detritus until I was left with a bare bottom. Since then, livestock have been healthier, and I have had no major algae outbreaks.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed detritus poses a huge risk, but not 100% across the board so the folks who are successful in keeping it feel we‘re being too detailed and wasting time cleaning it out as a preventative


a little detritus, balanced, aerated, cast up into the water is good feed marine snow. Trick is most reefers don’t have that balance, they have mass poo in the state of poo lol

Upgrade disaster

Recently had a huge leak in our 90 gal reef which forced us to upgrade sooner than expected . The upgrade being a 230 gal with a 48 gal sump . Mistake #1 I added some of the old sand assuming it would be beneficial to have a little bacteria .. I was wrong . Nuked the whole tank killing all fish...

www.reef2reef.com

I assure anyone that if he added new, rinsed sand, his fish would not be dead. Our sand rinse thread is now forty pages of this exact type of job above, with no tank losses, and occasionally when we see an outlier what they did differently was...

 

[brandon429]

Sanjay having high detritus didn’t help that man above, Sallstrom’s pile above is well oxygenated


context matters, we lost that by not having to include any work threads here but just at-home tank testimony.

see how dangerous it is to base paradigms on one-off sage tanks vs what is actually likely when dealing with public tanks?


why aren’t the detritus teachers/sages making and running work threads live time (cuz that’s scary accountability) showing us how to move homes and upgrade tanks without rinsing.

specifically I do not mean a work thread of someone’s aerated detritus being handled, to prove it’s safe

I mean create a thread that invites the public to post detritus challenges, then we see the sages paint live time like bob ross did

I noticed in eight pages of claiming detritus safety here, nobody has taken it upon themselves to test anything in public, it’s always an awesome home reef we use as the marker. We are still testing live time, using others reefs, and in no way is detritus inert or safe for the masses:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

Someone’s awesome single reef will make the rules, 100% will follow them, and 20% will kill corals in doing so due to complete lack of context for the poo in question. When our sand rinse thread hits page eighty, we still won’t have any recycles.* not every reef there with us would have died by skipping a rinse*

but the goal for the thread is zero loss, not twenty pct

rinsing every reef the same way removes the outliers, case closed and only a dueling work thread can show differently, not anyone’s past experience or home reef counts. Only what works for the masses counts here.

 

[MnFish1]

Sanjay having high detritus didn’t help that man above, Sallstrom’s pile above is well oxygenated


context matters, we lost that by not having to include any work threads here but just at-home tank testimony.

see how dangerous it is to base paradigms on one-off sage tanks vs what is actually likely when dealing with public tanks?


why aren’t the detritus teachers/sages making and running work threads live time (cuz that’s scary accountability) showing us how to move homes and upgrade tanks without rinsing.

specifically I do not mean a work thread of someone’s aerated detritus being handled, to prove it’s safe

I mean create a thread that invites the public to post detritus challenges, then we see the sages paint live time like bob ross did

I noticed in eight pages of claiming detritus safety here, nobody has taken it upon themselves to test anything in public, it’s always an awesome home reef we use as the marker. We are still testing live time, using others reefs, and in no way is detritus inert or safe for the masses:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

Someone’s awesome single reef will make the rules, 100% will follow them, and 20% will kill corals in doing so due to complete lack of context for the poo in question. When our sand rinse thread hits page eighty, we still won’t have any recycles.* not every reef there with us would have died by skipping a rinse*

but the goal for the thread is zero loss, not twenty pct

rinsing every reef the same way removes the outliers, case closed and only a dueling work thread can show differently, not anyone’s past experience or home reef counts. Only what works for the masses counts here.

I think one comment that maybe you should include (which you usually do) - is that most of the work you guys have done is on smaller tanks. With regards to detritus - in a large tank - covered in colonies of acropora you can't just take whole rocks (which are 20 lbs) out and rinse every nook and cranny - or somehow get all the 'detritus' out from the base' - so maybe its not so bad after all?

 

[atoll]

What works works masses or nor not. I have had no prefiltration on any of my tanks for I don't know how many years. I do stir the sand now and again and do employ an Oxydator. I have posted often what I do and have done for years. I have fielded many questions in that time. I have no need nor inclination in posting another thread about it. That's it, nothing more to say and it works for me.

 

[Paul B]

What works works masses or nor not.

Good Morning My Buddy Atoll. How's the weather in the UK. I always said you Brits have a funny way of talking. I can't decipher this sentence so I am sorry there is no more to say. I am going to study my English language now because I can see I can't read.

That's it, nothing more to say and it works for me.