Tank still cloudy from sand!

beatlesfan

beatlesfan

Member
Yesterday i put in about 140lbs of my total 270lbs of sand (50lbs is going to be live). When it went in goopy (for lack of a better term) stuff crowded the edges but it soon went throguh my wet/dry. When i put it in i turned off the powerheads andpoured it in. The water almost instantly turned brown. I left the powerheads off and now in the morning i come back and it a light grayish color but still just as fogged up. Is there somthing i am doing wrong?
P.S. I used 100lbs fillterpro and 40lbs CaribSea Argonite.
 
C

cmaxwell39

Guest
If you poured the sand in and let it fall through the water column it is going to take a while to completely clear up. Give it some more time for everything to settle out. You will probably have better luck in the future trying to more or less place the sand on the bottom rather than just pouring it in.
 
beatlesfan

beatlesfan

Member
No i didn't clean it.
2nd Poster.
So what your saying is i should almost place the bag on the bottom and slowly pour it? Also how long should i be waiting?
 
dogstar

dogstar

Active Member
Originally Posted by Beatlesfan
No i didn't clean it.
Is this a new tank with just water and sand at the moment ?
All '' dry, baged '' sand should be rinsed very well befor placeing in the system...( not wet live sand ) just processing and shipping, ect. by the manufacturers causes dust and fine silt grains from friction that will always be in the system now and could result in the tank often being cloudy later on from currents and livestock stirring it back up even if it does sometimes settle back down.....
I am not familiar with '' filterpro '' brand....
 
beatlesfan

beatlesfan

Member
Now it's a greenish color. I'll try to get pics........ but im not great with computers.
Dogstar.
So your saying my tank will ALWAYS be cloudy? also i will have a burrowing fish so it will be stirred up often. Also it is a new tank but it has base rock in it. I set up a DIY PVC pipe grid so the rock won't be completely covered by the sand. also how do i get the stuff making it cloudy out of there? Powerheads are off. Also do you suggest a way to wash it?
 
beatlesfan

beatlesfan

Member
Now it's a greenish color. I'll try to get pics........ but im not great with computers.
Dogstar.
So your saying my tank will ALWAYS be cloudy? Also i will have a burrowing fish so it will be stirred up often. Also it is a new tank but it has base rock in it. I set up a DIY PVC pipe grid so the rock won't be completely covered by the sand. also how do i get the stuff making it cloudy out of there? Powerheads are off. Also do you suggest a way to wash it?
 
dadszx7

dadszx7

Member
Mine was cloudy for about 4 days. IMO keep the powerheads off and just let the filter run. This will give you some circulation, but will also let the dust settle. Making sure that the filter is cleaned often, as all this cloudiness is going into the filter and settling. And you will collect sort of this white grey sludge in your filteration. Also, once everything settles, thoroughly clean all equipment in the tank.
As for the borrowing fish. The answer is yes, it will make a very small cloud. But will disapate rapidly. Maybe about 1-3 minutes, depending circulation/turnover rate in the tank itself.
When adding more sand in the future. Some people have use a long funnel or tube. This will allow you to place directly on the sand line itself and not just dumping it in the water.
My tank is a 125 gallon with about 9x turnover rate.
I hope this helps you out.
 
craig7220

craig7220

Member
It took my tank about 1 week to clear and that was after I washed the sand.... It will clear, just give it some time....
 
dadszx7

dadszx7

Member
I use a food strainer, and wash in the sink with RO water. you can also use a bucket and swirl it around and then dump the murky water out that way. I use only RO water
 
C

cmaxwell39

Guest
I used a very small rubbermaid wash tub to wash mine. Put a few pounds of sand in and ran water over it while stirring up the sand and letting the water tumble out of tub with silt, ect with it. As the silt and debris wash out of the sand, the water overflowing the tub will become clearer. It will not get completely clear, but will clear up significantly. Then I basically set the tub on the bottom of the tank before dumping sand out. This was with filters and powerheads off.
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
Dont worry about it nothing could be worse than mine. Mine was playsand and I didn't wash it that thoroughly (I started to then realized the task at hand trying to clean 100lbs of sand in a few 5 gallon buckets). Turned by overflow box pre filter all kind of clay brown but after several days (hell may have been a week. definately more than a few days to clear up) it cleared up fine. it was so bad you couldn't see the powerheads or three inches deep before it cleared.

 
thud

thud

Member
Wait it out and/or get a particle skimmer and/or a diatom filter to help clear the water.
You may also want to get water clarifier from seachem which will make all the tiny particles in the water fuse together into clumps, then your filter will remove it. It is safe for reef and fish.
 
mikeyfishy

mikeyfishy

Member
I made the same mistake when setting up my 46g with live sand: just dumped it into the water. It took about 3 days to clear up and I had to rinse the filter about a half dozen times because it got clogged and restricted flow. It will clear up if you give it time but you may have to clean your filter more than once to keep the filtering going. I learned from my experience and I now put all my substrate in a large ziploc storage back, get it to the bottom, and then let it out on the bottom. Doing that there's little to no cloudiness in the water. I used that method when I added one additional bag of the LS and no cloudiness at all!
Mike
 
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