Quick question for you guys. In the process of building this 75 gallon tank for my parents and I’ve got the tank and sump full of saltwater, then put the sand in. My little brother said he wanted to get a very fine sand, so we bought about 100lbs of the CaribSea Pink Fuji Aragonite (I think its Pink Fuji, its REALLY fine). Anyway, my question is… its been about 4 days since we put the sand in the water and the water is still very cloudy. How long should it take for everything to settle to the bottom and is there any easy ways to get the water cleared up?
I have decided that if by the weekend it has not cleared up I am going to take some t-shirt material or cheese cloth (overlapped 4 or 5 times) and create a filter around the bubble trap in the sump and run the return pump to see if that clears up some of that sediment. I am ready to start the cycle process off and don’t want to run the skimmer until I am sure that process is complete. Any help or advice is appreciated.
It wouldn’t hurt to add some extra mechanical filtration for a few days, and if you have powerheads- shut them down. My experience is that when the first algal bloom happens, any sediment suspended will get weighed down and go away. Don’t worry too much, give it a couple more days.
Yeah Bill I talked to my parents, just let it happen naturally, actually the tank is looking a bit better as of last night. I mean it was probably because we did not have as many of those packets of bioclear stuff as we did 20lb bags of sand.
Yea, the bioclear packets came out of the 2 5lb bags of bioactive sand that I put in the sump. So I am sure that it wasn’t enough. I got the pictures last night too on my cell phone showing it finally clearing up. So by the weekend it should be really clear. If not, I am gonna run the system (minus the skimmer) with a filter cloth of some sort to finish clearing it up.
Yeah you’ve really got 2 options - either run mechanical filtration (your cheesecloth idea is a good one) or turn everything off and let the water sit still. The small particulate matter will sink to the bottom.
One of the problems of fine sand (for some reason southdown used to be HUGE in this hobby) is that it suspends very well in the water column and does get blown around relatively easily.
Yea, in hindsight I wish I had used a 50/50 or 60/40 mix instead… but… its just a little late now :)…
Either way, things look to be getting clearer by the day, I think I should be able to start the cylcing process by Saturday or Sunday. Wanted the water to be clear, wasn’t sure if the cloudy water would effect the Salifert Tests or not… figured it was best to just wait.
I have it, and it was terrible with the one clown. He would allways stir it, what a pain he was… The filter system finally got all of the really fine stuff out, and its not as bad now.
Not to worry. its all sterile sand and water going in. the fines will float around. but if you add some liquid bacteria concentrate, the bacteria will grow and colonize all those little floating particles of aragonite. and it will stick them together in bigger lumps that will then settle to the bottom or get stuck in the filter floss. end of problem. it takes a week or so. not unusual . I use Seachem Stability bacteria, or even better still, Microbe lift Special Blend. Good stuff. the bacterial films form our nitrification bio filter.