Will This Sand Madness Ever End?

[joshrm115]

I have had crushed coral in my 80 gal african cichlid tank for about 2 weeks now I got over the first set up and about a week of cloudy water but it seems like the longer I go with out doing a water change the cloudyer my water gets yesterday afternoon I did a 50% water change and when that was done it looked perfect it really did, I wake up this morning and its starting to get cloudy again will it ever just stay clear any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Blubble37]

Tbh i don't really know, it might be the coral that is making the water cloudy. You could perhaps try pea shingle or something like that if you want something with a relatively large surface area...

Anyway, keep us posted

Blubble

 

[Ben M]

The purpose of the coral sand is to raise the pH for the african cichlids. As for why it's cloudy, I don't know. Apparently it is very dusty, did you wash it well before use? I'm setting up my 4ft Mbuna tank soon, and I've been advised to wash the coral sand very well before putting it in.

cheers

 

[MBOU]

How well did you wash the coral sand first? We just filled out 800L tank with several 25kg sacks of coral sand and some certain muppet didnt wash it first, we have had to replace the entire lot of water 3 times and took all the sand out again after a week. Even having been in a tank of water, washing it out with a hose 4 times still chucked out dust!! Trouble was it ended up in the sump so our tank is still cloudy.

Id start again or you will keep filling and emptying over and over to clear it....

 

[joshrm115]

It was pre washed and I washed it as well so I'm just baffled

 

[joshrm115]

So after u took it out rinsed it it still came out cloudy?

 

[MBOU]

Indeed, the dust from the sand had already got into all the pipes, the filter, the filter media and even after washing the sand once or twice wasnt enough, had to turn the powerhose on it 4 or 5 times to properly clear coral sand!

 

[joshrm115]

So how does it look now?

 

[MBOU]

Like it might clear sometime this year much better than it was, for a week it was like a grey wall, you couldnt see someone with their face pressed against the glass on the other side of the tank! Now its clear but slightly off colour, will look better when we get the LEDs up!

Its cleared up eventually but we had to drain the whole tank, take sand out and clean it, fill it up, run it a day, drain it again, fill it up (this is £70 worth of salt to fill up each time!! )

I would do a good water change, clean out the filters and add a lot of polywool of fine filter sponge to take out the dust particals.

Then just leave it be, it will clear in time!