Help I may have just killed my fish..

[payne66801]

I went to my local fish store and bought some sand to replace my crushed coral. I asked the guy what the best way was and he said to get the cc out and to put the bag into the water and cut it to reduce the amount of cloudiness. So I did and now my TANK IS so cloudy I can't see 2 inches into the tank..
DO I turn filters on to help clear it up or leave them off???? Which will work the fastest??
I feel so dum for listening to that guy WOW
hippo tang 5"
clowns 3 of them
sailfin tang
and a few other little guys....
Man I am going to feel so bad if my ignorance just killed all my fish.
The hippo which is a pretty lazy fish most of the time is swimming around the tank as if he is blind running into everything...
HELP

 

[fishmamma]

I would say to leave the filtration off, it will settle with time, turning on the filters may be more abrasive to the fish and freak them out even more.

 

[divetroop]

Turn your filters on. I would run some carbon. Give it a couple of more hours and it should be find. The sand will settle down eventually. I don't think the fish will suffer any ill-effects. Just a really bad sand storm. :happyfish
Go read a book or do something time consuming and before you know it everything will be okay. Remember we all learn from our mistakes.

Good Luck!

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by divetroop
Turn your filters on. I would run some carbon. Give it a couple of more hours and it should be find. The sand will settle down eventually. I don't think the fish will suffer any ill-effects. Just a really bad sand storm. :happyfish
Go read a book or do something time consuming and before you know it everything will be okay. Remember we all learn from our mistakes.

Good Luck!
I would disagree with ill-effects. They WILL suffer the ill-effects cause you just disturbed the whole substrate and added new sand. You'll be having another cycle going on. I would let it settle a few hours before turning on the filter system, run it with carbon!!! One should NEVER remove sooo much substrate at a time with fish living within the tank unless you have a QT tank on the side to put them in. You'll probably encounter ich. Not saying you will but it is a big possibility especially for your tang! Best to leave the lights off for now until everything settles down. Good Luck! :happyfish

 

[jafrench]

I hope you had some LR or something with bacteria still on it so your tank doesn't recycle.I would turn filters on. Just my two cents.

 

[mikeyjer]

Another thing, did you buy live sand or dead sand? IF you bought dead sand, better get some live sand from your LFS in their tank and place it on top over your own sandbed, that will help too! :happyfish

 

[aredmon]

I would turn filters on. I tried letting the sand settle on its own in one tank and it took a long time to settle. The next tank I set up I turned the filters on and it cleared much much faster.