Why not transfer sand from an old tank to a new tank?

[Azedenkae]

So for those who transfer their sand from an old to a new tank, this question is not for you.

This question is for those who would not transfer sand over to a new tank, instead adding new sand. My question are:
1. Why do you do it,
2. What are the benefits you see in using new sand instead of old sand,
3. And/or disadvantages/dangers of transferring old sand?

P.S. Just to clarify: I am not planning to transfer tanks at the moment, or anything like that. I am just straight up curious and all I want to do is know more about what people do and think in this hobby.

 

[brandon429]

great question.


the key is for anyone to answer, they have to have a work thread in place of no less than 100 reefs moving old sand in order to make a remark about how it goes down in pattern.


prediction: all folks who move old sand have 1 example set to draw from. their own tank.

additionally, in huge work threads the patterns reveal that a cost is still associated with about 80% of transfers that did involve moving over whole old sand, no rinse.

and that pattern is cyano so vicious some still wanted to do the rip clean after having skipped it initially out of spite.

the prediction pattern is this, based on work threads:

total tap rinsing, 100% safety logged. can go any number of pages total consistency. price: obliteration of all heterogeneity in the sandbed because we need the waste jetted out...benefit: any reef 1 to 1000+ gallons can be relocated or upgraded without a single cycle, not one outlier in fifty pages. add a bag o pods at the end if concerned.


skip rinsing: no work threads exists, someone make one.


moving dead sand: it will work the majority of the time, with another majority having algae or cyano issues sustained a good while after. there will always be some losses associated with this method, a non rinsed tank transfer thread will have $$ on the line and at page 20 I feel there will be stark contrast in some outcomes. benefit to this method: conservation of bed diversity provided you didn't kill the entire upper reef at the expense of sixteen tiny worms all destined to die one day anyway.

says bare bottom owners to their sandbed diversity: not missing ya. the nineties oversold u

 

[F i s h y]

So for those who transfer their sand from an old to a new tank, this question is not for you.

This question is for those who would not transfer sand over to a new tank, instead adding new sand. My question are:
1. Why do you do it,
2. What are the benefits you see in using new sand instead of old sand,
3. And/or disadvantages/dangers of transferring old sand?

P.S. Just to clarify: I am not planning to transfer tanks at the moment, or anything like that. I am just straight up curious and all I want to do is know more about what people do and think in this hobby.

Depending on the depth of the sand it can accumulate detritus and other obnoxious chemicals that when disturbed can poison your tank. I have no issues with transferring sand. But it should be well rinsed with tap water, then RODI water before placing in the new tank. One thing to remember when rinsing is that the residual RO water in the sand can affect the salinity of the system its going into if it's a large volume of sand.

 

[Rmckoy]

This sounds like a Brandon post .

 

[F i s h y]

great question.


the key is for anyone to answer, they have to have a work thread in place of no less than 100 reefs moving old sand in order to make a remark about how it goes down in pattern.


prediction: all folks who move old sand have 1 example set to draw from. their own tank.

Truth in this. Unless they have done their research and read all about your methods love reading your stuff @brandon429

Happy reefing.

 

[zukihara]

My first big tank I transferred a lot from an existing tank, including the sand, and it never recovered. Simply killed everything slowly but surely. That was years ago and I had no idea. To me it would be like buying a new home and transferring your septic tank contents.

 

[homer1475]

Done it many times over the years. The main problem comes from not rinsing it before adding it back in.

Ever see the amount of "brown water" that comes even from a 1 year old tank when rinsing the sand? FYI most people never vacuum their sandbed.

I have always left a couple cups of "old" sand to add back in for the biodiversity.

 

[Garf]

I don’t need to do research, or have work threads to understand that sand is sand is sand. It’s all old, just rinsed clean at intervals.

 

[homer1475]

I don’t need to do research, or have work threads to understand that sand is sand is sand. It’s all old, just rinsed clean at intervals.

How dare you challenge the great brandon and his work threads! lol I've honestly blocked him cause I just get sick of reading the same thing in every thread he posts in.

None of our experiences mean nothing because we don't have work threads. is basically all he preaches.

 

[TCoach]

None of our experiences mean nothing because we don't have work threads. is basically all he preaches.

No, he preaches repeatability in process and uses his work threads to prove his repeatability. He definitely has his passions in reefing and is very passionate about them!

 

[Azedenkae]

No, he preaches repeatability in process and uses his work threads to prove his repeatability. He definitely has his passions in reefing and is very passionate about them!

Yes and no. He tries for repeatability/reproducibility, but do not exactly deal with exceptions very well. Like the whole instant cycling thing with live rock, which turns out has a lot of 'exceptions' lately. I think his work could be improved by better considering variables, like not all live rock is the same - dry rock just wetted and barely seeded with nitrifiers is different from 'established' live rock and is different again from live rock taken directly and immediately from the ocean for example.

I do agree though that he is very passionate about reefing though, and not to say there are not at least some valuable lessons that can be taken away from his 'preachings'. I think part of why people also block him is because I think he may not be a native English speaker?, and people seem to have trouble understanding what he writes and it just becomes too hard to converse with him. That and sometimes he goes on a tangent with things that is not quite relevant to topics at hand.

But anyways, he is trying to be helpful, so can't fault him for that I guess.

 

[WVNed]

How dare you challenge the great brandon and his work threads! lol I've honestly blocked him cause I just get sick of reading the same thing in every thread he posts in.

None of our experiences mean nothing because we don't have work threads. is basically all he preaches.

Me too.

A sandbed is a city under the sea. It has different layers of life in it from aerobic at the top to anaerobic at the bottom.
You suck all that up and rinse it out and put it back down somewhere else.
You didn't move the city. You made a graveyard.

 

[Azedenkae]

Depending on the depth of the sand it can accumulate detritus and other obnoxious chemicals that when disturbed can poison your tank.

Thanks for addressing the question. Do you happen to have a value of how deep a sand bed would be and/or how long it is left unperturbed for disturbances to poison a tank?

My first big tank I transferred a lot from an existing tank, including the sand, and it never recovered. Simply killed everything slowly but surely.

Thanks for your answer. Can I ask how you determined that it was the sand and not something else that killed everything slowly but surely?

 

[F i s h y]

Thanks for addressing the question. Do you happen to have a value of how deep a sand bed would be and/or how long it is left unperturbed for disturbances to poison a tank?

Thanks for your answer. Can I ask how you determined that it was the sand and not something else that killed everything slowly but surely?

I recently did a rip clean of a 75 that was up for 11 months. Very high nitrates very high phosphates. Medium to high bioload. The water rinsed from the sand was like mud there was so much detritus. It would be hard to give exact values as every system is unique in flow, filtration, bio load, feeding habits, etc. This is one of those were the repeated examples of loss from a rinsed versus unrinsed sand when transferring tanks speaks volumes. As @brandon429 talks about, repeatable results...

 

[brandon429]

my opinion is not as important as having fifty pages of data. That part is always missing from these analyses

and its the #1 thing my detractors hate to be asked for.
Im not battling opinions at all, am battling what can be arranged in work threads and what has yet to be.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

 

[brandon429]

Folks think its purely mean to ask for a link trail for their discoveries.


its not. work threads have overcame so many limitations set by reef rule makers. It is simply not hard for Homer to begin a rinseless tank transfer thread, but he isn't going to for a reason though he implies to be against the idea.

anyway we slice it, the topic stalls without a link to the process and that link needs to involve aquariums not lab experiments. it doesn't take a lab nor formal peer review to have someone tell you that moving their five thousand dollar reef across town worked, or it did not. why is getting threads for that set of actions like pulling teeth

how are critics forming their resolve? that's the heart of the matter. may I please see the data that sold you

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

After successfully moving 3 tanks in 2 days I can't say I would ever skip rinsing my sandbed. If you see what came out of those (especially my freshwater cichlid tank) you would too. Actually planning to continue doing rinses yearly regardless of tank upgrades or it staying put.

 

[WVNed]

I think I will call my new goby Ripclean.

 

[brandon429]

also

you know for a fact all three of em have unclicked me just this once and possibly tomorrow to read that which is inevitably insulting to read as a request.



in the end reefers want a method that preserves sandbed life and still earns high transfer retention percentages. if we keep using tap forever nothing will evolve in practice. but occasional tap clearing blasting will stay on my reef lol ya'll feel free to experiment away. I will watch the patterns you post intently.


it can be said with total resolve that any reef aquarium posting on this board, or will be posting, can run our method to move that tank or upgrade/downgrade it successfully. that doesn't mean another better method doesn't exist or won't be found, just that we can do the job right now someone post a challenge, a big messy challenge let's run one live time here.