cleaning up milky water? (didnt rinse sand) help

[patsfan1130]

My brother setup a new tank yesterday and he did not rinse his sand (Arogonite bought from his LFS). Anyway....he did not rinse the sand and now he has a tank full of milk. He says he has been running 2 aquaclear 500 but it has not cleared up the water at all. I dont think the foam blocks in those filters will help much. Can anyone suggest a better method? I am thinking he may have to drain the tank & start over. do you think a diatom would work?

Thanks

Mark

[SteveP]

My brother setup a new tank yesterday and he did not rinse his sand (Arogonite bought from his LFS). Anyway....he did not rinse the sand and now he has a tank full of milk. He says he has been running 2 aquaclear 500 but it has not cleared up the water at all. I dont think the foam blocks in those filters will help much. Can anyone suggest a better method? I am thinking he may have to drain the tank & start over. do you think a diatom would work?

Thanks

Mark

Patience is probably all that is required. When I filled my 75, it took 3 days for it to completely clear. You could run a mechanical filter if you wanted - a powerhead with an attached floss or carbon cartridge or something would probably work - but I would bet if you just waited a couple days it will clear all on it's own ;)

Steve

[Ninong]

That's perfectly normal. I wouldn't worry about it. I used Southdown and I deliberately didn't rinse it and it took a full seven days to clear but I didn't have any live rock in the tank yet.

It takes time for the sand particles to acquire a biofilm in a brand new setup, especially if there is no live rock. If there is live rock it will help clear things up faster. One thing that he could do to speed up the process would be to throw in a couple of raw shrimp or a piece of raw fish. If he wants to make it easy to remove the detritus from the decayed shrimp/fish, he could put them in a mesh bag or an old nylon stocking and then pull them out after a few days. That will speed up the process of bacterial development in the sand bed.

[stang69]

Yup I agree with what they said


Patients will work



Jeff

[Ninong]

Patients will work
Jeff

Damn, did they cut Medicare again?

[Leddy]

that was good Ninong.


Leddy

[SteveP]

that was good Ninong.


Leddy

Well, they say "a little of what you like does you good". Everyone likes chocolate. I therefore propose that if I am elected President, we would sack all the hospital administrators, and give all the sick people free chocolate instead....

You know it makes sense

Steve

[robvia]

I agree it will settle eventually. Here's my story. I washed the crushed coral before I put it in, but it was still a mess when I mixed it in. I was running a Fluval 303 canister filter. It cleared up in a little over a day. 90 gallon tank with 80 lbs of crushed coral. When I cleaned the canister after that I was amazed at how much "dust" was in the filter. The large foam filter really held the debris from going back into the tank. My plans for the future are to extend the pipe of the intake so that I can move it around the tank. Then I can stir things up and suck it directly to the canister. This will make a self contained vacuum system. Then I can clean out the canister filter when I'm done. Based on what I saw when I started the tank, I think this will work pretty well. Most people clean with a water change, but I think seperating the cleaning from the water change would be better. We'll see how it goes.