Crabs kicking up sand

[clubbby]

I started buying some clean up crew for my salt water tank, among them are some sally lightfoot crabs, which I immediately fell in love with. Very fun to watch. But I digress! The problem I'm having is that they seem to kick up a lot of my sand which is very fine. (I don't recall the measurement but it's like beach sand, probably 00?). I rinsed it several times before putting it in but obviously that wasn't enough to avoid this.

I'm thinking that putting down a layer or coarser sand or crushed sea shells on top might be a good solution to it, but I also wonder if perhaps that will cause some unanticipated problems.

Any suggestions or input would be appreciated! Thanks.

[Reefing Madness]

You could throw a heavier sand on top, I'd stay away from the CC, as this may cause you Nitrate trapping issues later on. Or you could wait it out, the sand will settle itself. You have to have Time in this hobby.

[clubbby]

Thanks. Will give it a couple of days and if they continue to cause a problem we'll pick up some coarser substrate.

[leebca]

The funny (sort of) thing about cleaning substrate is that it can never get totally free of the fine grit. You clean/rinse it a few times and that's about it. When you try to clean the substrate and you move it around, it grinds on itself and creates more fine particles. You just have to wait it out the best you can.

However, with powder sand or sugar size particles, you can expect many months of this. If you don't like it, just remove as much as you can and replace it. Putting another grade of substrate on top of it can trap organics and lead to hydrogen sulfide pockets, which is one of the causes of tank crashes. I would not recommend a mix if the new sized particles are significantly different.

[chrisfont23]

This is why I never rinse sand, rather use a few filter socks and allow an extra few days to a week before planning to start a tank.

[clubbby]

Thanks for all the advice! After about a day the initial sand they kicked up ended up settling just fine and they haven't been kicking up any signifigant amount since, so the problem seems to have resolved itself