Water Is Clearer With Gravel?

[Squirrelbuddies]

I have 5 tanks currently running. Two of them have regular gravel (55 gallon and 10 gallon), one has very, very fine gravel (5 gallon) and two have sand (20 gallon and 38 gallon). The three tanks with gravel always have crystal clear water. Even after I clean the tanks and get everything stirred up, they are clear looking again within hours.

However, the two tanks with sand always seem to have a little haze in the water. I added more filtration to the 38 - It now has an Eheim 2213 canister filter and a Penguin biowheel. (It had two Penguins before adding the Eheim). It's still quite hazy.

The 20 gallon is only slightly hazy-- but that tank has black Tahitian Moon sand which is not as fine as play sand.

Is this normal? Do tanks with play sand general have slightly hazy water? Also, this tank grows soft green algae at an amazing rate. I'll clean the back wall and by the next day it is covered in soft green algae again. Nitrate is 10-20 ppm. Phosphate is 1.0 ppm which is what our tapwater reads. It has a really nice piece of bogwood. Could that be causing the haziness?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated! It's driving me nuts!

 

[Dubby]

This should clear over the weeks. It maybe that when you first washed the sand, this wasnt enough to get rid of the fine particles. It is a bit difficult to clean, and you are not alone

Try adding filter wool to your filter and clean the wool twice a week. This should clear up any remaining floating particles.

 

[freddyk]

Graval can prove to end up having clearer water because it's really good at trapping waste. The problem is that it's trapping the waste, so while the water looks cleaner, the tank is actually dirtier. A sponge filter driven by a decent sized air pump can really help clear up a cloudy sand based tank.