Cleaning water

[sparkee61]

Ok... Got sand and water in 75 gal. tank. I have been filtering water for 24 hours with Magnum 350 and its still cloudy. Any suggestions?

 

[trainfever]

You should have rinsed the sand before putting it in the tank. If you didnt put salt in the water yet, I would stir the sand up really good and syphon the water out while still mixing up the sand. Then refill with fresh water.

 

[fbm]

It will settle, and if it was live sand I didn't rinse mine.

 

[joshradio]

it could stay cloudy for around 72 hours... but it will settle.
next time, lay the bag from the sand on top of the sand bed and then add water hit it on the bag... it causes less turbulence... which means lesstime to settle!

 

[bang guy]

Do you have any live rock, live sand, or any other bacteria source in the tank?

 

[sparkee61]

I placed 60 pounds of dry sand.No live anything in tank. I thought I rinsed it well enough...but I guess I didn't. I filled the tank with saltwater. Should I continue to filter using canister?

 

[gmidd]

Its good to run the filter. You should look into a protien skimmer also if you haven't already. As for cycling since you just have dry sand you should add some raw shrimp to help jump start your cycle... adding the LR also.

 

[bang guy]

I'd remove the filter completely, it's taking out the silt that you want for a healthy sand bed.
Increase the waterflow and add some live rock. Then feed the tank a very small amount of fish food to get the bacteria to colonize the sand grains.

 

[sparkee61]

I thought that live rock was not to be added until the fish are placed in tank? My head hurts.

 

[wwfstyle]

it's the other way around add as much LR before the fish. If you buy the fish 1st then you can add a small amount of LR at a time but it could take a long time to get where you want it. So add as much LR as you can so it will also go through the cycle plus it will help with the cloudyness of sand in your tank. Turn off the filter and use say 2 maybe 3 PH to move the water. No need for the shrimp I think if you add the LR. Sand will settle in about 3 days. And NEVER EVER add salt and mix it in your display tank and stir up the sand bed.

 

[browniebuck]

I had the same problem, I ordered sand from an aution site and when I added it, my water was cloudy for 3 days (I didn't know to rinse the sand first). It had started to clear up for the most part, but when I added the LR, it was crystal clear within 4 to 5 hours. I was amazed!!!