Tropical Sand Cloudiness

[RevClyburn]

Hello everyone

I need to know just about how long it will take for the cloudiness to leave my tank. The sand I used was Southdown Tropical from HD, and because I did it in a rush, had to go to work, I didn't take a lot of precautions and the tank has been cloudy now for 3 days. How much longer? I can see it clearing up a lillte each day, but is there a way to speed us the process? Also, I am going to get some uncured Live Rock, about 20 lbs for now, another 20 in a week or so to speed the cycling pocess. I am buy it that way because I am being selective in the pieces I want. The LFS near me has some nice pieces, a few I really like, hence my being selective.

Anyway, can anyone share any jewels of advice as to how to clear the cloudiness up? I would really appreciate it, and my wife would too.

Thanks in advance,

God Bless,............... RevClyburn

[Ninong]

It can take as long as 7 or 8 days to clear up in some cases, especially if there is no live rock in the tank yet. I wouldn't worry about it. It will clear up eventually. If you want to you could place one or two supermarket shrimp in the tank (or a small piece of fish) to speed up the development of beneficial bacteria. You can place them in an old stocking or a small mesh bag if you want to be able to remove the remains easily once you think they've done enough or if the smell gets too obvious. That will speed up the bio-organic film coating on the sand particles and cause things to settle down.

I believe it took my 120-gal tank (with 6" deep sandbed) eight days to clear up.

[RevClyburn]

Hi Ninong,

did you have you protein skimmer running while your tank was cloudy? And I will think about the shrimp, but I best not tell the wife, lol. She'll smell it in there and out I'll go, with the shrimp, lol.

thanks for the advice

Rev. Clyburn

It can take as long as 7 or 8 days to clear up in some cases, especially if there is no live rock in the tank yet. I wouldn't worry about it. It will clear up eventually. If you want to you could place one or two supermarket shrimp in the tank (or a small piece of fish) to speed up the development of beneficial bacteria. You can place them in an old stocking or a small mesh bag if you want to be able to remove the remains easily once you think they've done enough or if the smell gets too obvious. That will speed up the bio-organic film coating on the sand particles and cause things to settle down.

I believe it took my 120-gal tank (with 6" deep sandbed) eight days to clear up.

[Reefland]

Running a protein skimmer will help remove some of the fine silt, but you don't want to remove it when you are utilizing a DSB for filtration benefits. The best course of action is to get some bacteria developing in the tank and to practice that number one skill, patience.

[Ninong]

Hi Ninong,

did you have you protein skimmer running while your tank was cloudy?

Yes.

There were reasons why my tank remained cloudy for a full week:

• I started with just sand, no live rock -- the live rock was added about 10 days after the tank was started up.
  
  
• I tried to run too much water flow. I was running about 1000 gph through the sump plus another 1600 gph via a Tunze Stream.

Once I decided to remove the Tunze Stream, things settled down and cleared up within a day or two.

[Poseidon]

Didn't you also put some sort of poly filter in the sump after a few days? I used "quick filters" that attached to powerheads to help clear up my tank after the initial fill up....

[Ninong]

Didn't you also put some sort of poly filter in the sump after a few days? I used "quick filters" that attached to powerheads to help clear up my tank after the initial fill up....

It's a Lifereef sump. It comes with a foam block that filters water leaving the first chamber and a polyester batting filter that filters water just before it enters the pumps. I ran it with both during that period. My biggest problem was that the Tunze Stream's output (1600 gph) was too much in my little 120-gal tank with a 6" deep Southdown sand bed and no live rock. The sand bed was being constantly rearranged by the Stream. It cleared up shortly after I gave up on the Stream and removed it.

[ClintoninCali]

I rinsed out my mechanical filtration daily to allow for max cloud catching potential and to keep my filter running at full speed. Seemed to work for me...