Last night I bought my newly set up SW tank a nice Crushed Flordia Coral substrate by CaribSea after about 4 hours of churning in a bucket with water running through it I took it back... It was ridculous I mean seriously on the bag it said minimal rinsing required... So I got some CaribSea Carribean Arganite Live Sand on the bag it said no rinsing required so of course believing everythign on the bag I put it my tank and it turned my water into a thick light brown garbage.... So I removed my fish and took the sand out... I'm gonna try about a 45% water change and run my filter to get the rest of this crap out... As for rinsing this stuff what's the best way to do it? I've been churning it for about an hour now and it's like I'm not doing anything at all? Someone please help!
HELP! ASAP!
- Thread starter ViperCLKGTR
- Start date
this is common for any sand. Live sand IMO is a bit over rated. Aside from a so called faster cycle, it does nothing that dry argonite wouldnt do. And besides, dry sand will be live over time. Now buying live rock is a different story because of the major benefits of it. yes it helps cycle the tank quicker, but is acting more of the structual base of the tank, due to the stability it provides.
Heres what i would do add it to the tank and let the water sit. no pumps or anything. All the suppended material will settle and then you suck it out with a syphon. this remove most of the crud within about a day vs running your tanks filter for 3 days to remove it. less strain and time spend completing the task at hand. Most fish will be fine during this period, although its less then ideal to be placing sand in a tank occupied by fish and other creatures. you will want to stir the sand once a day after surface cleaning. Live sand has a ton of crud in it, that settles and makes your tank look bad. after about 3 days of cleaning you should be fine
Heres what i would do add it to the tank and let the water sit. no pumps or anything. All the suppended material will settle and then you suck it out with a syphon. this remove most of the crud within about a day vs running your tanks filter for 3 days to remove it. less strain and time spend completing the task at hand. Most fish will be fine during this period, although its less then ideal to be placing sand in a tank occupied by fish and other creatures. you will want to stir the sand once a day after surface cleaning. Live sand has a ton of crud in it, that settles and makes your tank look bad. after about 3 days of cleaning you should be fine
Thanks, I didn't buy it for the fact that it's "Live" I bought it because after spending 4 hours rinsing Crushed Corral the night before and it still turning into mud I wanted something with the least amount of rinsing possible.
ViperCLKGTR;2960077; said:
lol, no worries. Sand can become a pain. I think its more important to have patience with it though. I have setup and helped setup over 36 tanks and not once rinsed the sand. My method as mentioned in my previous post was the fastest route to a clean looking tank.
one thing i have noticed is that live sand will become saturated faster then dry argonite with phosphates and nitrates. I have no science as to why this seems to happen. The tanks that i have worked on with live sand, had cyano problems, and the ones with dry argonite, have yet to see cyano. This could be due to the reduced amount of denitrification occuring beneath the sand bed thus equaling less nitrogen gas, usually shows signs as black spots in poorly maintained sand beds.