South down sand is dusty??

spicey

spicey

Member
after i went out to home depot and got the tropical paly sand stuff, i put some in my fuge and a cloud of dust came out. i put it all in a bucket and im washing it out. i cant beleive all the white stuff comin outa' there!:confused: well i suppose ill just keep washin unless its supposed to be like that?
thanks, matt
 
jblabs

jblabs

Member
Never heard of the southdown milkshake?? Yah it will cloud the water. Rinse it best you can and then deal with it. I just put 200 pounds in my tank and it cleared up overnight.:D
 
craprap

craprap

Member
I was told you are not suppose to rinse the Southdown sand. I put 200 lbs in my tank on Saturday and it is still a milkshake 3 days later. Supposely when you put the live rock, or a shrimp in the tank it will start creating bateria that will make the fine particals "stick" to the sand bed, thus elimating the cloud. I will find out tonight since my rock is being delivered today.
 
nm reef

nm reef

Active Member
The fine particles are one of the positives of using southdown sand...in time they will settle. Such a shame to rinse away a very beneficial part of the sand....
 
jblabs

jblabs

Member
Thats great if you have a new tank, I wouldn't want 200 pounds of southdown clouding my tank, I'd have no corals left by the time it settled.:rolleyes:
 
spicey

spicey

Member
well i rinsed out alot of this stuff before i read that you guys said not to. i washed in a bucket and kept dumping the dirty stuff in the street. it was like white paint. even now that i put in the fuge it got all over the tank which has been running for some time and has a little coral plus all my fish. I just added the fuge to help rid the tank of all the algae. is my tank going to be ok? should i just let it run? also when i let it all settle in the fuge, the slightest disturbance stirred up the storm again so i dont know how im going to get that to settle witho out just running the tank for a while. :thinking:
well thanks every one, matt
 
jblabs

jblabs

Member
You will be OK. Search around other forums, as with every thing else in SW you can find varying opinions on every subject. The "curing" Kip4130 suggests is basically nothing but a short rinse like I suggested (put sand in container, fill with water, let set (cure), pour water out) I'm sure no one here really thinks that the floating "plant-like" matter that floats to the top should be added.
I am not Flaming Kip or Bang, lord knows they know more than I do. I'm just saying that for every knowledgeable person that says don't rinse there are as many that say do rinse and some that say rinse it real good.
Its like the DSB in general. Search and you will see that:
DSB=Good
DSB=Bad
DSB=Nitrate sink waiting to explode
DSB=Best thing for SW since SW
:)
 
craprap

craprap

Member
The live rock does the trick. I placed the live rock in the tank yesterday afternoon, this morning when I woke up, the "milkshake" was gone all I have to do is blow the residue off the rock today :)
 
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