Water Is Cloudy From Newly Added Sand

[MegTheFish]

I just set up my brand new 55 gallon, and I have playsand as the substrate. Well, I usually use the playsand from one particular store, but got a bag from another store, and mixed them together. Both sand was washed very well, took me over an hour, but this "new" sand is much more cloudier (as I have the other sand in other tanks, and it never made the tanks this cloudy). I have a whisper 60 running on there, is there anything that I can add in the filter to help the cloudiness go away? It is so cloudy that I can not see anything in the tank at all, only the sand lining the very front pane of glass. I've had it set up for about 4 hours, and it has not improved. Any suggestions are much appreciated!

 

[carrera]

i would turn your filter off as sand can damage it while its floating about.

it will settle by itself, and it may take a few days

 

[MegTheFish]

Its not actually the sand that is floating around, the sand has all sunk to the bottom. If I were to dip a cup in the tank, it wouldn't contain any sand, just cloudy water. Its just the....stuff?.....that comes with the sand I guess. I don't really know what you'd call it! Its not pieces of debris floating around though. Would carbon help?

 

[MasterP]

you could scoop some of the water out and replace it making sure that you don't disturb the sand. this will help get some of 'stuff' out of the water. The first water change in your knew tank.

 

[Sheridanp]

Okay, this is what I did when this happenned to me.

I took all the water out, and washed the sand through again. Although I do not think it is necessary to wash it through again. Anyway, once your sand is in the tank and ready to go, get a plate or bowl and pour the water onto/into the plate or bowl and let it just smoothly go flow into the tank overflowing over the plate or bowl.

It may take a long time for 55 gallon. It took about 40 minutes for my 29 gallon. But, it's worth it.

 

[MegTheFish]

Well, its finally starting to clear up, but its really hard to even notice. Tommorow I'll do a big water change and take it from there. And if it still has not cleared up within a week or so, I will follow your advice Sheridanp. Thanks for the advice everybody!

 

[Torrean]

It won't harm your fish and it should settle on it's own. I'm a compulsive sand washer so I never had to deal with this. If it bothers you follow sheridans advise...it should help.

 

[SamUK]

the STUFF.

is silt.


i found that out the hard way too and only now after about 3 weeks is my tank crystal clear.


water changes help and it doesnt really matter so much about the plate because all the sand will settle in less than 10 seconds but the silt will still be floating anyway.


you can get a filter media but the name of it isnt coming to me... to early.

polyfilter or something.

its like cotton wool and it catches all the silt better than the normal media. its thin too so you can jus cut a piece to put in your filter.

make sure you figure out where the water goes in and put it behind the original media tho. that way all the big stuff that gets filtered stops before the poly stuff.

 

[MegTheFish]

Ugg, woke up this morning and is hasn't cleared up at all. I'm going to be doing a lot of water changes I guess...

 

[BigIan]

its just very fine sand or silt as sam said,

try a large water change and pour the water in very carefully last tank i added sand to settled withing 5 mins,


but i`m a compusive sand washer too

 

[MegTheFish]

I THOUGHT I had washed the sand enough, but apparently not. The original sand I bought always settled within a few minutes, but I wanted this new sand as the grains were bigger and there was peices of rocks and stuff in it, looked more natural. I have a question, if I were to scatter natural colored gravel over the sand, just for something different, would the gravel sink below the sand?

 

[MasterP]

Eventually the gravel would become mixed with the sand and get to the bottum of the tank. You could put a patch of gravel on your sand but don't count on being the same after water changes and using your gravel vac to get the poop off of your sand.

 

[The-Wolf]

Meg
the quickest way I know is to add interpet No4 (filter aid)
this will make all the fine particles clump together thus allowing your filter media to collect them.
I used this on my 120G a couple of weeks ago and the tank was clearer after 2 hrs and crystal clear 12hrs later.
you will need to totally replace the floss once it is clear as it will become extreamly manky.

 

[MegTheFish]

Woot! Did a 50% water change, didn't help at first put checked on the tank 2 hours later and you can actually see the back of the tank now! And the filter tube! LoL. What I did was add another layer of polyfibre floss and too panty-hoses full or activated carbon to the filter.

Meg
the quickest way I know is to add interpet No4 (filter aid)
this will make all the fine particles clump together thus allowing your filter media to collect them.
I used this on my 120G a couple of weeks ago and the tank was clearer after 2 hrs and crystal clear 12hrs later.
you will need to totally replace the floss once it is clear as it will become extreamly manky.

Can you get that in Canada though? I'll try and find it.

Eventually the gravel would become mixed with the sand and get to the bottum of the tank. You could put a patch of gravel on your sand but don't count on being the same after water changes and using your gravel vac to get the poop off of your sand.

I think I'll just decorate the bottom with large river stones then.