Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

[Dan7575]

Ok i am getting ready to rip clean this Sunday, have a couple of questions i'm not sure about if you can help,

1. I am going to throw the old sand and use new aragonite coral sand, dry in a bag. Will i need to use any bacteria or will the rock bacteria be enough?
2. Can I scrub the rock in a hydrogen peroxide mix to remove some of the algae on them or will this kill off the good stuff on the rocks?
3. I read earlier on about not having the lights on full to start, is there an intensity and time period to follow?
4. Re: lights above will this be bad for the SPS?

 

[Dan7575]

Ok i am getting ready to rip clean this Sunday, have a couple of questions i'm not sure about if you can help,

1. I am going to throw the old sand and use new aragonite coral sand, dry in a bag. Will i need to use any bacteria or will the rock bacteria be enough?
2. Can I scrub the rock in a hydrogen peroxide mix to remove some of the algae on them or will this kill off the good stuff on the rocks?
3. I read earlier on about not having the lights on full to start, is there an intensity and time period to follow?
4. Re: lights above will this be bad for the SPS?

@brandon429 Just wanted to check what you think about this before I attempt it?

 

[brandon429]

Hey we better check a full tank shot of the setup first, there was another rip clean job coming that we decided not to implement the cleaning after we reviewed his pics

if you want to still proceed we can though

regarding the rinse bag that’s only done once here in all the pages

I recommend copying the other jobs, no rinse bag, sand is rinsed in sections until clear using tap water, then a glass test is ran on the rinsed sand like shown in post #1 so that you are sure sand is rinsed clean before setting up the tank


don’t dunk rocks in peroxide water or any bath
you can use peroxide and scraping on the rocks it won’t harm rock bacteria. Set rocks on counter, use a kitchen knife not a brush, roughly score off the algae on rocks with knife tip and rinse off the scraped material with saltwater, make the whole rock algae free this way first. When all algae is rinsed and gone, rock clean, go back and dab some peroxide on the spots algae used to be to burn off any invisible cells

then rinse off the peroxide burn after a few minutes with saltwater and set rocks back into clean holdings, to be added back on top of rinsed sand for the final setup

no bottle bac is used in our rip cleans the rocks retain all needed bacteria even after knife scrapes and peroxide


the lighting is simple, reduce overall power down by 40% and slowly ramp back up to your current power over ten days or so

*most people run too much light chasing PAR goals from others tanks, this grows algae, there’s a huge chance your algae issues would lessen if you ran less intense lighting overall but our main focus here is bleach prevention and a cut of 40% power ramped back up over ten days is safe bleaching prevention

 

[Dan7575]

Hey we better check a full tank shot of the setup first, there was another rip clean job coming that we decided not to implement the cleaning after we reviewed his pics

if you want to still proceed we can though

regarding the rinse bag that’s only done once here in all the pages

I recommend copying the other jobs, no rinse bag, sand is rinsed in sections until clear using tap water, then a glass test is ran on the rinsed sand like shown in post #1 so that you are sure sand is rinsed clean before setting up the tank


don’t dunk rocks in peroxide water or any bath
you can use peroxide and scraping on the rocks it won’t harm rock bacteria. Set rocks on counter, use a kitchen knife not a brush, roughly score off the algae on rocks with knife tip and rinse off the scraped material with saltwater, make the whole rock algae free this way first. When all algae is rinsed and gone, rock clean, go back and dab some peroxide on the spots algae used to be to burn off any invisible cells

then rinse off the peroxide burn after a few minutes with saltwater and set rocks back into clean holdings, to be added back on top of rinsed sand for the final setup

no bottle bac is used in our rip cleans the rocks retain all needed bacteria even after knife scrapes and peroxide


the lighting is simple, reduce overall power down by 40% and slowly ramp back up to your current power over ten days or so

*most people run too much light chasing PAR goals from others tanks, this grows algae, there’s a huge chance your algae issues would lessen if you ran less intense lighting overall but our main focus here is bleach prevention and a cut of 40% power ramped back up over ten days is safe bleaching prevention

All good, went ahead and did it, wow can't believe how long it took, around 10 hours in the end but everything was well cleaned. Looks so much better now, only thing i am angry about is that I didn't think to put an air stone in with the fish and I lost a stripey and maybe a blue tang but other than that went pretty smooth

 

[brandon429]

Hey what a huge job my gosh, hearing that ten hours / now that’s dedication! pics when lights come on today

 

[doubleshot00]

All good, went ahead and did it, wow can't believe how long it took, around 10 hours in the end but everything was well cleaned. Looks so much better now, only thing i am angry about is that I didn't think to put an air stone in with the fish and I lost a stripey and maybe a blue tang but other than that went pretty smooth

Yeah mine took 12 hours from start to finish. I started at 7 am and didn't finish till 7 at night. I went from canister filter tank to a sump tank. Then had to move all parts over to. Then redo all the rock work which is the hardest part imo.

 

[brandon429]

I think at that stage we become truly invested in how we design reefs


These very high surface area/catchment designs we like to model in reefs (dense rock stacks on top of deep sand, our fav look) concentrate marine surfaces into small boxes, they're going to catch waste and this work occasionally is the price of export that's how I see it



Or, we can go bare bottom which I think looks barren and catch less waste in sand/ commute that floating waste into filters and rip cleans will probably never be needed, even the rocks stay relatively well flushed- out in those high flow setups. Increased floss exchange or increased filter cleaning will be the tradeoff work vs a takedown cleaning

The look we want has a price it seems, for about 95% of keepers if they want a sandbed system to go truly long term.


Within the 5 % are the magic factors who simply run hands off sandbeds for 15 years straight and nothing ever crashes or gets invaded. They shouldn't start rip cleans, do what you do. Unless they're moving homes and under no invasion challenge I tell large tankers with old beds just to wait until prompted for action

we leave acknowledgement room for folks who by luck or skill don't need to rip clean because we want their ways to eventually win, all this work we require is a big pain the neck. we need more of them to post the methods they use so we can find ways to transmit that consistently to others


rip cleaning has a far better transmissible outcome % in other's tanks vs hands off sandbedding but it's work heavy, surgery has risks/holding fish oxygen details etc stated above/and gallons+ of tap water are literally wasted in the rinse prep. it would be nice if rip cleans were needed 5%, and 95% had their systems work just fine as a hands off 90s mode.

The 90s told us all users of sandbeds get this ideal outcome... we see it's about 5% actually.


A dentist still has to scrape, pick gouge, polish and flush out our mouths occasionally to keep teeth alive and well... no reason to see a reef tank much differently in my opinion.

I chose a deep sandbed setup for my vase because it looks the most reef like. The price in that choice is rip clean every 20 months or so, and I can live with that effort to keep the look

Big tank owners who do rip cleans amaze me with their will to maintain control over these $$ investments, they simply do the work needed to keep the big systems alive and well, no luck factors required at least for the biological side of the game.

 

[Floyd-]

Id like to clean my sand but its too big of a task. I just vacuum it the best I can. Removing my rocks (about 200-250lbs) is not going to happen with all the corals and weight and volume. Would it be ok to just take a small cup and scoop out portions of sand until its all out then add back into the tank once rinsed? Im sure stirring up the sand will mess up the water quality.

 

[doubleshot00]

Id like to clean my sand but its too big of a task. I just vacuum it the best I can. Removing my rocks (about 200-250lbs) is not going to happen with all the corals and weight and volume. Would it be ok to just take a small cup and scoop out portions of sand until its all out then add back into the tank once rinsed? Im sure stirring up the sand will mess up the water quality.

I've seen a few people do this. I would do a little at a time like over a month.

 

[brandon429]

There have been full fish kill events doing partial work unfortunately. We would never do that here since we're looking to test a select set of actions that require full takedown cleaning. For some reason, delayed fish kill events happen when some folks mess with sand inside the tank it's in the disease forum and most of the time nothing happens but there's lots of dead reefs that did partial sand work and we don't know the cause yet

 

[brandon429]

I used the think the cause was pent up ammonia being released but it's not, per any seneye owner there's no storage sink for ammonia that gets released/ their devices track it out daily and it doesn't go above thousandths ppm in any reef, even a couple here did sand exchanges while hooked up to seneye/no shift in ammonia.

My best guess now is rotting bacterial compounds in various states of decay/ irritant kills when these do occur. I've smelled some pretty bad sandbeds before... perhaps h sulfide is a player but there's no documented events in reefing for that: no chemist ever wrote about it happening during a clear measure event I've ever seen

 

[Floyd-]

So basically just vacuum and leave it alone... Got it. Dont want to kill any fish or corals.

 

[doubleshot00]

I used the think the cause was pent up ammonia being released but it's not, per any seneye owner there's no storage sink for ammonia that gets released/ their devices track it out daily and it doesn't go above thousandths ppm in any reef, even a couple here did sand exchanges while hooked up to seneye/no shift in ammonia.

My best guess now is rotting bacterial compounds in various states of decay/ irritant kills when these do occur. I've smelled some pretty bad sandbeds before... perhaps h sulfide is a player but there's no documented events in reefing for that: no chemist ever wrote about it happening during a clear measure event I've ever seen

So basically just vacuum and leave it alone... Got it. Dont want to kill any fish or corals.

Whats weird is you hear guys like reef builders say just replace your sand a little at a time if your going to do it.

@brandon429 do you have a link to that thread?

 

[brandon429]

no because I dont want to call anyone out for wrecking their tank. At times I've edited the link into page one read here, but it seems like I'm flagging someone who already lost all their stuff. I wasn't studying them for anything other than the patterning of disturb sand/lose fish possibility but in the end its very emotional to lose all one's fish. Gotta trust the relay, or you can search out key term searches/disturbed sand and killed my tank/ a couple places on reefcentral it was covered too. not the majority, a minority of events have this outcome but we are aiming for 100% no tanks crashed here and we found the key is 100% sandbed work where possible.

there can be things in sandbed clouding that brings on delayed onset fish disease that had not prior expressed, or it can kill tanks in a small percentage of events, those are the patterns that have emerged over watching what hobbyists do with sand in the reef tank over the years.

*I agree someone with a new tank, as in 2 mos old hasn't really built up the waste to matter. Clearly the sand rinse risk comes with tank age somehow. I still advise everyone rinse if they can muster the effort even in new tanks because it stops all clouding, 100%. everyone loves a sharp looking, cloudless reef.

 

[Floyd-]

With my tank being almost 2 years old I bet there is a ton of crap in the sand. My starfish and goby stir it around fairly well but im still apprehensive in messing with it too much.

 

[Dan7575]

Before and after photos

 

[brandon429]

Dan thank you so much! That last picture is the classic after pic: when are you going to put water in the tank lol it looks like frags are sitting in air/ total clarity

 

[Dan7575]

Dan thank you so much! That last picture is the classic after pic: when are you going to put water in the tank lol it looks like frags are sitting in air/ total clarity

I forgot to ask, should the skimmer be left off as there will be low nutrients in the water?

 

[brandon429]

it's ok to put back on, this is primarily why we ramp lights back up from a lower setting over several days, it accounts for that and alk changes if someone uses new salt mix etc. we never put any constraints on folks changing salt brands during these 100% surgeries. I have done it in my 16 yr old mixed system more times than I can count, and with a simply weeklong ramp up no corals bleach given the common variations of higher/lower nutrients and higher/lower ion measures

 

[brandon429]

Dan if it helps any, to head off any challenges even though that tank looks sharp as possible, if any matting or regrowths occur on the top layers/insert hose/2 gallon water change/matting is gone vs sits there waiting for someone to ID it and formulate a waterborne strategy to fix it.

you will find that the 5 min effort it takes to do a directed 2 gallon siphon cleanup will work better than any method to guide stabilization after a rip clean, and the chance that will happen is about 5%.

95% you get full return on effort and your glass doesn't need cleaning for months and the reef simply looks like a ruby, then you'll have to get physical with it again in increments depending on home and care variables. You literally have no sink waste, no chem soup water from dosing 3x dosers to try and clean the tank via sludge digestion or indirect kill of targets, this put laser clean water in your tank. once you begin replacing suspended clean protein feed in this very low organics tank, the whole thing will run like a new engine and your corals are going to pop happy more than ever. soon


your reef is as oxygenated and as low on internal waste acid production as it will ever be. it's like a new reef but with all aged materials. if we could find a way to preserve this condition without the rip clean, that would be ideal...

I never was much for putting bacteria into reefs for charge...you can see in this thread bacteria aren't limiting.

but in the threads where they experiment, Sunny is getting lots of clean systems by overdosing cycling bacteria/I have no idea how that works or how to make it consistent. one thing is for sure, this water is dang pristine above.

until someone develops a nuanced way of getting those after pics above, I say we stick with brute force compliance requirements for the reef tank lol.