Sterile Seascape Stress: Is there such a thing as a reef tank that is too clean?

[Mr. Roboto]

I disagree - siphoning out all of the send (depending on the depth) - should not cause a problem

You do you on that one.... You wont convince me to ever do it to any tank.

 

[MnFish1]

You do you on that one.... You wont convince me to ever do it to any tank.

make sure what im saying - I do not know that (on this site) there is any evidence that siphoning out all of the sand from a tank results in a dangerous condition

 

[Mr. Roboto]

make sure what im saying - I do not know that (on this site) there is any evidence that siphoning out all of the sand from a tank results in a dangerous condition

I never said "dangerous" but again, you do you. I have seen drastically changes in tank biomes and that sounds like a recipe I don't want to go through.

While I never said it can't be done, I am saying I would never recommend it as a fix. A one time pull will throw the system off. Much better if you do it in multiple water changes and gradually vrs all at once.

All the good you take out has to grow back somewhere or you are asking for algae and other issues.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

What's your interpretation of clean?

A healthy thriving tank. Algae and issues come and go, that’s life. “My friend”(lol) does 10-20% weekly water changes and his sandbed is about 1 inch deep in a 130G system. The sand being >4 years old looks dirty, has tremendous spaghetti worm living beneath it. When he does his weekly water changes he does siphon and clean about 40-50% of the sand and it just doesn’t have that clean look, it’s obviously aged, which is a good thing in my book. But, I think this sandbed can help be a catalyst for some of the algae challenges that come and go. Corals and fish are living their best life, but I think they could take it to the next level. I made the mistake of not changing the sand when I moved the tank many many months ago. For some reason I love the look of a bare bottom tank and being able to have flow down low is very appealing. I can’t get the flow low enough without creating sand dunes and burying corals. Anyway, thanks for reading.

 

[MnFish1]

I never said "dangerous" but again, you do you. I have seen drastically changes in tank biomes and that sounds like a recipe I don't want to go through.

While I never said it can't be done, I am saying I would never recommend it as a fix. A one time pull will throw the system off. Much better if you do it in multiple water changes and gradually vrs all at once.

All the good you take out has to grow back somewhere or you are asking for algae and other issues.

You have seen drastic changes? Can you detail the biome changes you've seen with removing sand? Also - I never recommended anything as a 'fix' or anything. I said you can do it with no issue. In fact much of the biofiltration probably occurs in the rock - thus - people with no sand at all do fine.

 

[brandon429]

here is removing the sandbed/sterilizing it instantly in 300 reef tanks with current jobs underway. not destabilizing

clean reefing isn't destabilizing, we show. any reef here can be made clean overnight and won't bleach if you do the light dropping trick and watch the feed/post clean water changes to guide back strong.

the key is cloudless waste removal all at once with no life in the tank...the takedown+ reassemble without a sandbed order of ops. we're never just siphoning out a sandbed from a reef, these are complete takedown jobs. the harshest cleaning action in all of reefing, in one thread. we use it to transfer tanks, de invade them, impart ulimited lifepspan to them etc. it's a fix to most ills in reefing.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Reefer Matt]

A healthy thriving tank. Algae and issues come and go, that’s life. “My friend”(lol) does 10-20% weekly water changes and his sandbed is about 1 inch deep in a 130G system. The sand being >4 years old looks dirty, has tremendous spaghetti worm living beneath it. When he does his weekly water changes he does siphon and clean about 40-50% of the sand and it just doesn’t have that clean look, it’s obviously aged, which is a good thing in my book. But, I think this sandbed can help be a catalyst for some of the algae challenges that come and go. Corals and fish are living their best life, but I think they could take it to the next level. I made the mistake of not changing the sand when I moved the tank many many months ago. For some reason I love the look of a bare bottom tank and being able to have flow down low is very appealing. I can’t get the flow low enough without creating sand dunes and burying corals. Anyway, thanks for reading.

Ok. Up to you, but I think sand is better myself. Can always replace it with new, too. BRS removed the sand on the 160, I think? And it pretty much crashed the tank because they did it all at once. Not to say it will happen to you, but here is a thread. They also did a video on youtube.

Thread 'The BRS 160 Sand Removal - What were the negatives from the destabilizing event?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...egatives-from-the-destabilizing-event.784254/

 

[Mr. Roboto]

You have seen drastic changes? Can you detail the biome changes you've seen with removing sand? Also - I never recommended anything as a 'fix' or anything. I said you can do it with no issue. In fact much of the biofiltration probably occurs in the rock - thus - people with no sand at all do fine.

Yes, where owners have pulled out things they shouldn't have, put in things they didn't need and called us to come look at the tank because they cannot get the cyano, problem to go away after they got rid of this thing or diatom blooms because they add that.... When you have a job of maintenance on these tanks you see crazy stuff.

 

[MnFish1]

Ok. Up to you, but I think sand is better myself. Can always replace it with new, too. BRS removed the sand on the 160, I think? And it pretty much crashed the tank because they did it all at once. Not to say it will happen to you, but here is a thread. They also did a video on youtube.

Thread 'The BRS 160 Sand Removal - What were the negatives from the destabilizing event?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...egatives-from-the-destabilizing-event.784254/

Interesting - had not seen this. However - (consider me stupid) - I believe there was more to it than that

 

[MnFish1]

Yes, where owners have pulled out things they shouldn't have, put in things they didn't need and called us to come look at the tank because they cannot get the cyano, problem to go away after they got rid of this thing or diatom blooms because they add that.... When you have a job of maintenance on these tanks you see crazy stuff.

No offense - the key word in my question was biome

 

[Reefer Matt]

Interesting - had not seen this. However - (consider me stupid) - I believe there was more to it than that

I think it's doable, but of course depends on how much rock is in the tank, etc. I want to replace my black, ferrous, volcanic, Hawaiian sand with regular white sand. The iron gets on my magnet and scratches the glass.

 

[MnFish1]

Yes, where owners have pulled out things they shouldn't have, put in things they didn't need and called us to come look at the tank because they cannot get the cyano, problem to go away after they got rid of this thing or diatom blooms because they add that.... When you have a job of maintenance on these tanks you see crazy stuff.

Except that was not the question - the question was have you seen biome changes (your words) - due to sand removal - I was merely questioning. how one would measure such

 

[brandon429]

that's exactly the kind of job we collect. re ramping the light power slowly over two weeks in the new sandbed setup tank is the hidden safety trick along with the cloudless takedown order of ops. pre rinsing the new sand to perfection in tap water, then saltwater final rinse= you can instantly swap sandbeds on any reef tank and all at once is safest, in partial mode isn't safest because it breaks waste stratifications in the sandbed that sat so long. all at once, reef disassembly and reassembly is safest. when BRS made their sand removal video they didn't do any of the safety steps, so their results weren't good.

being able to swap reef tank sandbeds and not cause dinos outbreaks is next level cycling control.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Except that was not the question - the question was have you seen biome changes (your words) - due to sand removal - I was merely questioning. how one would measure such

As in exactly what I said, diatom blooms, cyano issues where there were none, even issues with different forms of white slime and such. That is how one measures such. And until the system rebuilds these things are a plague but slowly go away.

 

[brandon429]

none of that happened in post #46, you must be pulling from a bad procedural option. if you remove or change the sandbed using the good option, you get sixty pages of happy reefers. probably the distinction lies in tanks that removed their sandbed in sections, or without taking the tank apart (they vacuumed it up with the tank full of water)

we took tanks apart there, everytime, and handled sand material away from all the animal life. we then sterilized the sand totally and put it back. then the animals were added...never around clouding is what saves them.

no tanks get cyano outbreaks afterwards, it's on file.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

none of that happened in post #46, you must be pulling from a bad procedural option. if you remove or change the sandbed using the good option, you get sixty pages of happy reefers.

What you are posting and are saying do it totally different than the average Joe's "drain the tank and scoop out the sand" move bro...

What you are doing is basically setting up a new tank, pulling everything out, cleaning, completely starting from a clean tank using cycled rock. That isn't the same as most others would think as just pulling out sand.

I would like to see the sumps on these systems you talk about as well. I would imagine you clean the sump at the same time almost the same way, take everything out, clean everything and start over fresh as well... You are not really leaving "anything" in there but rather completely restarting the tank post cycle.

I think anyone who has been in this hobby for a long time knows you can skip 99% of the cycle with 100% cycled live rock.

We need to understand not everyone understand things the way some of us do. If you tell your everyday reed tank keeper that likes his softies that he can completely remove his sand without explaining any process, most don't follow something like the post you point to but rather start siphoning it out immediately or just stick the scoop in them....

Again, how you do it means a lot. But just ranting that it can be done without explaining how does not help the hobby.

 

[brandon429]

no that sounds like common reef forum back and forth to me. I'm presenting links that show patterns of what clean reefs do, in relation to the title. if you can show some links in any way that's pertinent to the title that's a step up in content relevancy. we cure problem tanks by taking them from unclean to clean, that's on file.

we use clean procedure to replace sandbeds confidently / this saves money vs crashing. we're doing actual work linked. love to see some alternate work examples, preferably via a dirty method since you're aiming to be contrary.

 

[bushdoc]

20 years ago I spent 17 days on Raja Ampat liveabord, scuba diving.
One part of this area was clear, blue water with endless visibility, other, due to upwelling, was greenish with decreased visibility , but still lots of corals, just different species, perhaps more ahermatypic ones, especially in deeper waters.
It seem to me that quintessential coral reef needs clear water and less nutrients, but some corals thrive in more “dirty “ environment.
Picture of this dwarf seahorse is from ”dirty” part of reef, where they dwell attache to non photosynthetic gorgonians.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

no that sounds like common reef forum back and forth to me. I'm presenting links that show patterns of what clean reefs do, in relation to the title. if you can show some links in any way that's pertinent to the title that's a step up in content relevancy. we cure problem tanks by taking them from unclean to clean, that's on file.

we use clean procedure to replace sandbeds confidently / this saves money vs crashing. we're doing actual work linked. love to see some alternate work examples, preferably via a dirty method since you're aiming to be contrary.

What we were discussing was someone pulling the sand bed out of a tank that has been set up for 4 years and the best way to do it.

Did you step in mid convo and just not understand or???

After reading your edit, you certainly stepped in mid convo and do not understand anything that is being said.

 

[All_talk]

I'm not sure how a thread about "clean" reef tanks go so bogged down with talk of sand removal. I don't think a sand bed defines whether a reef tank is clean or dirty.

I appreciate the aesthetic of a clean tank, it makes a pretty picture, but that its not what my tank is for. I want a biome full of life, all types in a harmonious system working together. For me there is a place for dark corners and the creatures that live there. The diversity and complexity is part of the fascination that keeps reefing interesting.

As for sand, if I take it out, where will all the critters live?