Cleaning sand question...

[flower]

I am just checking to be sure... I cleared the 56g, nothing is left but stray baby snails, bristle worms and sand...oh and bits of macroalgae.

My plan:
I am running freshwater over everything and I'm stirring up the sand as I go. I plan to let it soak over night. I have rinsed it, and rinsed it, removing the water and adding more freshwater to be sure the water is freshwater and not salty anymore..

My question: Will that kill off all the living critters, so I can reset the tank and let it cycle using the dead already in the sand?

I don't know how resilient a bristle worm is, but I imagine they are pretty hardy survivors. All the tanks equipment is sitting in vinegar to clean it. I don't want any bristle worms or eggs to survive at all. I want the sand to be very, very dead.

I did have one happy moment today, I had a whole bunch of baby Nerite and Cerith snails I managed to rescue, I noticed them when they were tiny little white things with a shell, the are large enough to see now and know what they are without a magnifying glass. I removed them one by one and put them into the 30g with the seahorse.

 

[bang guy]

After soaking & rinsing in freshwater the only thing left could be bacteria spores. Those are not going to harm a Seahorse tank so nothing to worry about.

If you rinsed correctly there won't be enough dead organic material to cycle. I'll suggest my ghost feeding method as usual.

There will be plenty of dead organic material in the rock you dried out. There are issues with that but that's for another thread.

 

[flower]

After soaking & rinsing in freshwater the only thing left could be bacteria spores. Those are not going to harm a Seahorse tank so nothing to worry about.

If you rinsed correctly there won't be enough dead organic material to cycle. I'll suggest my ghost feeding method as usual.

There will be plenty of dead organic material in the rock you dried out. There are issues with that but that's for another thread.

I was going to soak that rock as well... please tell me it will kill all traces of Bristle worms.... also please explain, bacteria "spores"

 

[bang guy]

Bacteria forms spores (technically "Endospores") when the environment they are in is slowing becoming inhospitable. A live rock for example, will cause the bacteria to form endospores as the rock dries and the salinity of the water in the rock skyrockets.

These endospores are very hardy and able to survive very harsh conditions. From Wiki: "Endospores can survive without nutrients. They are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, desiccation, high temperature, extreme freezing and chemical disinfectants."

Once the environment improves the endospores are able to revive even after years or possibly centuries of being dormant.

 

[flower]

What do they do, and what kind of problem will it cause?

 

[bang guy]

It's a good thing. All I was saying was after you treated your live rock there will be not Bristle Worms. About all that could survive would be the dormant bacteria.

The bad news is that it takes a long time to remove all that dead organic material from the live rock. Could be as long as a year depending on what was in it.

 

[michaelabe123]

The point is that these endospores are very durable and can withstand extreme temperatures. Endospores can even survive without food. Ultraviolet sterilization (the linked article goes into the UV process), high temperatures, intense freezing, and chemical cleaning products are all immune to them.