question about dust cloud from adding sand

salt210

salt210

Active Member
forgive me if I posted this in the wrong section. I just removed some CC from my 210 and added 20lbs of live sand. im going to be doing it in small sections. I added the sand about 4 and when I came home about 30mins ago the dust cloud is still there. not as heavy but there none the less. I added the sand by using a piece of PVC and a funnel. is this a problem for my fish and how long should I expect it to last?
 
sly

sly

Active Member
The dust cloud is normal and will take several days to die down. It won't really hurt your fish as long as it's not extreme. It may cause some wear on your pumps if they suck up some sand...
I would make sure you don't have any pumps blowing sand around. Over time, organic matter will stick to the sand particles and cause them to settle down. Turning off your skimmer for a day or so might help.
 
salt210

salt210

Active Member
skimmer isnt running right now, I got home and it has settled a lot but the tank is still cloudy. I used some pvc to place the sand should I use wider/bigger next time? would that help?
 
nordy

nordy

Active Member
I would suggest doing extra rinsing of your sand before placing it in the tank:
When I changed out all the CC for sand in my 55, the cloudyness went away in a few hours and the was crystal clear by the next morning (8 hours). I did triple rinse my sand before I did the changeout so that made a lot of difference but all I did was just grab handfuls of sand and place it in the tank. I also had a canister filter running to pull debris out of the water during the procedure.
 
nordy

nordy

Active Member
I used fresh water to rinse my sand and it worked just fine. There isn't enough fresh water in a bucket of rinsed and drained sand to cause any problems with the salinity of your tank.
 
nordy

nordy

Active Member
That's the way to go when placing sand! I would suggest rinsing at least 2 times to get as much of the dust out of the mix as possible.
 
salt210

salt210

Active Member
ok thanks for the help. as far as placing it into the tank should I go with a bigger piece of pvc
 
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