2024 Ohio Reef Frag Swap

2024 flyer

Author Topic: 75g clean up advice  (Read 2430 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline SweetReefOH

  • Moderator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,654
75g clean up advice
« on: January 03, 2019, 14:24:10 »
I’ve got the 75 emptied out of rock and livestock. I’ve taken out 3/4 of the sand and I’m going to dry it out for rinsing and re-use later. I’m still running the water thru the sump/DT. I would like to poor a gallon of vinager in to start dissolving calcerous algae and kill any microbial life. Will the vinager dissolve the remaining sand? Will I have complications? Thoughts appreciated.

Offline Reef Tank 2.0

  • Adult
  • ****
  • Posts: 322
  • Shawn
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2019, 20:53:17 »
I can't answer about the sand question.  But when I moved my tank to it's new home, I cleaned the whole tank with hydrogen peroxide to kill any and all live bacteria.  Also killed any sign of bryopsis I had.
Just gotta make sure you rinse the tank thoroughly when done.

Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2019, 23:55:09 »
Depends on what you want to accomplish I guess. Vinegar won’t kill bacteria unfortunately— it will grow it. It will break down the calcium. I don’t think it will break down the sand, but it may diminish the impact of the vinegar on your targeted deposits/coralline. 

To totally clean a tank I remove sand, run vinegar solution/music acid solution 24+ hours.  I use fresh water. Employ baking soda to neutralize. Drain. Add fresh water plus bleach for 24+ hours. Drain/rinse 2 times. Air dry. Final fill w/ fresh water and seachem prime. Check with chlorine strips.

Bleach is what you use to kill the bacteria.  I don’t think I would use any sand after bleaching it, but I’ve bleached rock a number of times with no negative impact. BRS has a video on it.  If you took out the sand I don’t think you’d really have to too much to worry about on the bacterial front from just the inert surfaces but bleach would make it certain.

Bleaching the rock will puts you back to a 1+ year wait for maturity, but it’s clean of anything biologically harmful, algae, etc...  the usual hobby trade offs!

Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2019, 23:58:48 »
Also just an FYI. I use tap water to compliment the vinegar and bleach rather than RODI. I will wipe down the sides with a little RODI at the end, but I don’t go to the trouble of making all that good water for the flushes.

Offline SweetReefOH

  • Moderator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,654
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2019, 11:22:57 »
Depends on what you want to accomplish I guess. Vinegar won’t kill bacteria unfortunately— it will grow it. It will break down the calcium. I don’t think it will break down the sand, but it may diminish the impact of the vinegar on your targeted deposits/coralline. 

To totally clean a tank I remove sand, run vinegar solution/music acid solution 24+ hours.  I use fresh water. Employ baking soda to neutralize. Drain. Add fresh water plus bleach for 24+ hours. Drain/rinse 2 times. Air dry. Final fill w/ fresh water and seachem prime. Check with chlorine strips.

Bleach is what you use to kill the bacteria.  I don’t think I would use any sand after bleaching it, but I’ve bleached rock a number of times with no negative impact. BRS has a video on it.  If you took out the sand I don’t think you’d really have to too much to worry about on the bacterial front from just the inert surfaces but bleach would make it certain.

Bleaching the rock will puts you back to a 1+ year wait for maturity, but it’s clean of anything biologically harmful, algae, etc...  the usual hobby trade offs!
Thanks Crank!

Humphrey, great advice! I didn’t even think about the carbon source fueling the bacteria. Wow!

This is the system I’ve been having trouble with for over a year. I never did figure it out. It may have been nutrients, may have been lighting or it may have been a bad bacteria bloom. At any rate, I’m prepared to completely start over. I want everything completely nuked. I’ve got all my rock soaking in muriatic acid right now. Will bleach it afterward and then re-cure it in salt water.

As for the tank, sump and pumps/heaters. Should I just remove all sand and throw it away or can I dry it out to kill any bad life in it?

I think I’ll do the vinager first and then freshwater with bleach, as you’ve suggested. I want to make sure EVERYTHING from the old system is dead. How much bleach should I use on 80g water volume?

Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2019, 17:43:03 »
Gallon of bleach would be 2 cup per 5 gallon which should be good I think.  You want plain bleach only not the low splash or scented.

Hard to get sand completely dry.  Bacteria will survive I’m afraid even if you rinse. Hoping someone else will chime in here, but if you are going to the trouble to nuke everything you might want to chuck it.


Offline SweetReefOH

  • Moderator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,654
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2019, 17:51:30 »
Gallon of bleach would be 2 cup per 5 gallon which should be good I think.  You want plain bleach only not the low splash or scented.

Hard to get sand completely dry.  Bacteria will survive I’m afraid even if you rinse. Hoping someone else will chime in here, but if you are going to the trouble to nuke everything you might want to chuck it.
Thanks again Humphrey. I think you’re right. Since I’m going thru all the trouble I am, I may as well start with new sand as well. That leaves nothing to chance...

Just for devils advocate sake, would it be feasible to soak the sand in bleach?

Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2019, 18:31:16 »
Maybe you could bleach the sand. Would probably be ok but for some reason I’m afraid.  Anyone else?

Offline ohioreef

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,673
  • Founding Member
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2019, 22:29:48 »
Gallon of bleach would be 2 cup per 5 gallon which should be good I think.  You want plain bleach only not the low splash or scented.

That’s probably overkill. I know I only use 1/4 cup per 15g when santizing my RV water system and most water/bleach disinfecting solutions are only 10% bleach.

Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2019, 23:42:12 »
10% bleach would be ~9 gallons of bleach.  1 gallon in 80 is ~1.1% bleach.

I’ve seen a lot of different ratios.  It’s definitely potent stuff.  I use about a cup in 15 gallons and it’ll clean about anything really quickly.  Use only in a ventilated area and never in conjunction with ammonia.


Offline Humphrey

  • Lifetime Premium Member
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 400
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2019, 00:01:04 »
When curing live rock BRS used 10:1.  The video is best way to cure liverock.  In a tank only environment you’re going to have a lot less organics to worry about on glass and equipment, so I think you’d be fine with much less bleach.  Out of curiousity I checked out some threads on bleaching sand and there are some with recommended methods. I’ve reused sand with no ill effects, but I understand the desire to start fresh.  There’s going to be a lot of rinsing, but theoretically it should work.

Offline SweetReefOH

  • Moderator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,654
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2019, 09:15:25 »
I think, with everyone’s help and suggestions, that I’ve got a good plan for this reboot. Thanks for all the advice!

I’m going to empty the display out to make it easier to get the sand out. Then fill it back up with fresh tap and vinegar. Run that until the coralline is easy to scrub off. Empty the display again and fill with tap and bleach. I’ll then empty that, run some more tap thru it and then let it air dry.

In the meantime, I rinsed all the rock yesterday after the MA 4 day bath and then filled the tub with fresh water and about a 1/3 gallon of bleach. I’ll give that a couple more days and then rinse that out and let it air dry.

If you see any mistakes in this process, please let me know.

Thanks everyone!

RIP- my little 6-line, Marge, that I’ve had since the beginning didn’t handle the death of a cucumber in the holding tank well and passed. She had such a great personality and will be missed : (

Offline lazylivin

  • Administrator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 11,471
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2019, 18:29:25 »
Consider muratic acid; much cheaper. 1 Gallon of muratic acid is equivalent to a little over 50 gallons of vinegar. Fill the 75g with tap water, add 1/4 gallon of acid. It will dissolve all the coraline.

Offline SweetReefOH

  • Moderator
  • Adult
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,654
Re: 75g clean up advice
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2019, 18:57:56 »
Consider muratic acid; much cheaper. 1 Gallon of muratic acid is equivalent to a little over 50 gallons of vinegar. Fill the 75g with tap water, add 1/4 gallon of acid. It will dissolve all the coraline.
Can I mix it with the vinegar? I’ve already put 1.5 gallons of vinegar in it.

 

Powered by EzPortal