" MY WHITE SAND METHOD "

[blusop]

thanks again i know what type im getting next lol
Im usually on RC and havent been around R2R much but i think im going to start looking around the site more
Thats right before i forget to ask ive found the petco type of gardener on #bay (dont know if i can use the name on here yet?) anyone tried these?

if it gets the job done use it i say

 

[MrineLfRlz]

I slipped on some gloves to protect my hands today to dig around in the sand and i must say it really brought up some dark crud! . I also am using while im doing this 21 day process and until my sand bed gets less dirty a 5 micron filter sock in the sump it really gets most of the crud traped in the sock my normal 300 micron sock doesnt get near as dirty that fast.

 

[BC-reefer]

this is a great thread and i am going to add this to my maintenance routine. i stir the sand when i do water changes but am going to try daily and see if it improves. it's not dirty by any means but i would love to have the really clean look that i am seeing in the thread. it is a new build so could work well if i can get on top of it early and maintain.

When i first started with reef tanks, it was before the days of online forums and i learned everything from my LFS. They always seemed to emphasize aiming for as 'low touch" as possible in terms of keeping hands out of the tank and disruption. This led to my first tank being successful but dirtier than i would have liked. i also fell into aquascapes that had so much liverock in there that it was impossible to effectively clean the glass and sand. luckily i learned from my experiences and subsequent tanks were cleaner. I also became more comfortable with hands on maintenance and realized that the disruption was worth it for a cleaner tank.

 

[blusop]

this is a great thread and i am going to add this to my maintenance routine. i stir the sand when i do water changes but am going to try daily and see if it improves. it's not dirty by any means but i would love to have the really clean look that i am seeing in the thread. it is a new build so could work well if i can get on top of it early and maintain.

When i first started with reef tanks, it was before the days of online forums and i learned everything from my LFS. They always seemed to emphasize aiming for as 'low touch" as possible in terms of keeping hands out of the tank and disruption. This led to my first tank being successful but dirtier than i would have liked. i also fell into aquascapes that had so much liverock in there that it was impossible to effectively clean the glass and sand. luckily i learned from my experiences and subsequent tanks were cleaner. I also became more comfortable with hands on maintenance and realized that the disruption was worth it for a cleaner tank.

@BC-reefer you said a mouthful man ...start at the beginning of setting a tank up and the routine maintenance will give you years of happy reefing ...good luck man and KEEP me posted on your progress

 

[Ruben Pallares]

What do you use to move the sand bed around?

 

[Ruben Pallares]

What tool do you use to shift the sand around?

 

[Daltrey]

What tool do you use to shift the sand around?

 

[blusop]

@Daltrey Thanx man I was busy and missed that one .. but you helped @Ruben Pallares so it's all good ... that's why we are a reef community

 

[MartinWaite]

@blusop I've just read through this post and I'm going to start following your method I regular use my bed cleaner when I'm doing a water change but then leave the bed alone until the next water change but no more. Many thanks.

 

[blusop]

@MartinWaite .... glad I could help man ... keep me posted on your progress ...and if you can't reach me here hit me up on Facebook. . Lorenzo White

 

[saltyhog]

Looks like your tank is recovering nicely Lorenzo! Thanks again for sharing this method, I'm a believer.

 

[BC-reefer]

i have been keeping up with this technique for a few months now.... it takes 5 mins and i do it before feeding the fish. i bought the tool suggested and it works great

really happy with it and has kept the tank looking very clean.

 

[blusop]

So glad everyone is having success. .. this method has moved around so much that I rarely see dirty sandbeds anymore lol ... which is a good thing ... I'm just happy I could help others and give back to the hobby I love so much

 

[Pocky]

Lorenzo, I just found your thread on keeping white sand. I've tried it for a few days now on one side of my tank and it is working great! I bought the tool you recommended too. I also read about your tank crash last October. Glad your tank is looking good again. Good luck and thank you for this great method!

 

[brandon429]

This thread needs to meet the ‘detritus is it as bad as it’s made out to be’ thread like the keymaster needed to meet the gatekeeper


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/detritus-is-it-as-bad-as-some-make-out.300047/page-11#post-5004379



What drives people in this thread differently than what drives them, I’d like to know why each of you became sand stirrers

 

[blusop]

Lorenzo, I just found your thread on keeping white sand. I've tried it for a few days now on one side of my tank and it is working great! I bought the tool you recommended too. I also read about your tank crash last October. Glad your tank is looking good again. Good luck and thank you for this great method!

@Pocky glad I could help ... and I'm working hard on bringing my tank back... I've had one set back that's driving me crazy ... my 7 year old Wellsophyllia died on me this week ... I still can't pinpoint why ... but everyone else is doing o.k. ... just sucks that it survived 7 years then just up and croaked on me

 

[blusop]

This thread needs to meet the ‘detritus is it as bad as it’s made out to be’ thread like the keymaster needed to meet the gatekeeper


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/detritus-is-it-as-bad-as-some-make-out.300047/page-11#post-5004379



What drives people in this thread differently than what drives them, I’d like to know why each of you became sand stirrers

@brandon429 thanx for the link I'm going check it out now

 

[Jet915]

Just discovered this thread and purchased the tool. I was just turkey basting my sand every few days but that made a big mess, I will try this method.

 

[brandon429]

In the end we know both hands off/detritus storing and clean reefing/nonstoring will grow corals and keep reef animals, so there isn't much finality made in the claims one way or another.

It is just fascinating to me how momentum builds up strongly on a given method and your thread here has participants that dont want to participate in bed storage any longer for one or more reasons.


If I had to pinpoint the number one aspect of reefing I care most about and have dedicated time and money to, it's the study of the science of old tank syndrome. Once I was reminded of your thread and the Paletta article linked there on OTS and it's key terms restated, I didn't feel alone in my claims at that time. Not that alone would ever change my stance but it was nice to be reminded there's a no-eutrophication team out there too, I'm not just poking around in the dark here.


I'd testify in a reef court of law with both hands raised risking immediate confinement for perjury when I say: OTS is beaten. We know what causes it, what remedies it, what degrades or fosters its manifestation and it's not bacterial communities that shift or need our help to be refreshed by a retail purchase... it's simple detritus. Post up a tank in the throes of OTS and from the before picture we will tell you where the clouds of filth are that makes the tank plant/invader dominant

Store detritus and you age, remove it and you are ageless, coral biosystems will regulate themselves forever if you simply remove the filth regularly / creatively. Senescence doesn't occur in a clean reef tank, it occurs in the cloudy one.

We know how to arrange any reef biosystem to be ageless even before it is made. Old tank syndrome is a condition of the nineties where everyone was scared to reef cleanly thinking that waste was the key to long term health.

Some of the tanks in that thread are great, old, and have detritus so it can't be claimed a guaranteed failure. I just claim it's a statistical one, not easy to advice others to replicate without variation and invasions cycling in and out

The clean reefer works more but merges with totally consistent outcome techniques. Stat win

If you want a testifiably better chance at not losing your first reef tank, or your old one, reef clean- only if you want strongest safety hedge for your tank. At other times people are doing experiments of their own with OTS, sandbed biodiversity, specialized animals or reef zones etc so those aren't rinsed or stirred

Clean reefing came about simply for those who want a guaranteed repeatable uninvaded way to reef. Whether in your tea cup or your nine foot tank, clean reefing always produces running reefs and threads for any example are on ready mode. Clean reefers pre empt, they're not reacting.


Old tank syndrome is beaten, dead, it's something a reef keeper causes on purpose but maybe unintentionally. All of us were originally instructed to hands off the sandbed (Berlin never allowed for disturbance, you'd be undoing the claimed nitrate reduction zone by introducing oxygen) and it took rule breaking, a demand for longer tank lifespans and challenging the teachers (with links, always with respect) to get there.
Berlin 3.0


pick any tank invasion thread/help thread on the internet currently running and post it. It won't be a clean ran system, it will be a system that has a classic sandbed with cloud or it will have live rocks with cloud if they're shaken about within the tank, one way or another filth begets invasion.


I must go on record stating that no book or article or history of works or tenure impresses me from any author on earth like I would be impressed if they made a simple thread asking the public to present their myriad tank challenges to the system the author advocated. Accountability for claims never existed till web reefing in public.

Reefing authors reading this, I'm talking the big ten, before you make another presentation I think it'd be great to:

Start a thread and guide some tanks. Let's call it the #sageschallenge

After you earn a cure, deconstruct the invasion etiology for each entrant based on works you just did live time, not in the past. We want to learn which patterns of action/reaction get you out to page ten and beyond... plus with your position in the hobby you'll hit page ten by Monday. Fast fast fast evolution of reefing systems we'd get to see. it would go viral bigtime. if too much volume, select the best challenges.

Before writing another article, or book, or podcast, run some public tanks asking for challenges and morph each entrant into the style of reefing you think will make them run better

you'll have my undivided attention. Pure accountability to 'it's not working' or 'you killed my oldest fish'

I'll be watching how you factor or don't factor the filthy sandbeds in your works.
Now that's evolving science, can't wait. Might have to

 

[Pocky]

Lorenzo, Sorry about your Wellsophyllia, Lorenzo. Hope your other corals are just fine.

@brandon429 I was looking for this method because 2 years ago, I had an issue with hydrogen sulfide buried in my sand bed that was about 1.5 to 2 inches. I was using the turkey baster method, but it didn't seem to be sufficient. Heavier detritus still stayed in the sand. I then tried to clean the sand in sections by siphoning out and rinsing, but it still ended up hurting my corals. My frogspawn and duncan that had grown from 2 heads each to 50+ over 5 years started dropping heads. For some reason, this event also caused the dreaded neomeris macroalgae in my tank to take off and grow like a weed on every piece of live rock I owned. I had a few neomeris stalks prior to this that would come and go and looked kinda neat, but the hydrogen sulfide incident or whatever came with it fueled it like crazy. I tried manual removal, took out rocks and soaked in peroxide, etc. In the end, I lost to neomeris as my tank looked like an ugly neomeris garden (seems that most people do lose to neromeris if it is thriving). I restarted the entire tank, soaked all my live rock in bleach, etc. My new tank has been up for almost a year now and this time, I am very cautious of keeping the sand stirred and clear of hydrogen sulfide. I managed to save one head of my frogspawn since that was my first ever coral that I purchased in December 2010 along with the 2 clownfish that I still have. It is doing well but I wonder if it will ever grow another head and get back to its original glory from before my sand troubles. I've learned my lesson the hard way big time!