Need help clearing a cloudy tank!

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ktluvsfish

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 21, 2008
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Southern CA
Yesterday I switched the substrate in my African Cichlid tank. I had pea gravel and I changed the substrate to sand. I used Quickrete Playsand and I have had great luck with it before. Well, I filled my tank after I put the sand in and my tank is so unbelievably cloudy! It has been 24 hours and I can only see about 4 inches into the tank.

What is the fastest way for me to clear the water?

I thought about doing a water change, but I am afraid that might kick even more sand up into the water. I put new filter floss in my filters in hope that it will help, but it hasn't. Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
it sounds to me that maybe you had very fine particles in the sand, and when you dumped it in they just dispersed throughout the water. the only thing that i think will clear it up effectively is giving it time to settle or get mechanically filtered out. this could take a few days. i don't trust the chemicals they sell that claim to clear up your tank. they can be extremely unsafe for inverts too
 
did you wash the sand?
 
Thanks for the fast responses :) Swede, that's really what it looks like to me. I am just wondering how long its gonna take. Its been 24 hours and there is almost no difference. LurkMcgurk, I did not wash the sand, but I have never needed to wash this kind of sand before. I have used it many times and have never had this kind of clouding in my tank.
 
i would do a water change and when you poor the water in this time put a piece of card board down to break the water and that should fix it most of the way. I recommend pool filter sand i just switched mine week before last washed it once and didnt have a problem at all.
 
Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a try. I wanted to go with pool filter sand, but for some reason I couldn't find it anywhere. I don't know why that is because it seems like everyone else has no prob getting it.
 
pool store or hardware stores, just depends on where you are. another tip i found helpful when my friend switched his he put water in then used a cup and put the sand in after just make sure you dont fill it up too much cause the sand will raise the water level.
 
I put the sand in when the tank was 50% full of water. I didn't use a cup though. With 100 lbs of sand it would have taken all night to do it that way, lol.
 
it took him bout 30 min but he had a 44 ounce cup. sonic cups ftw.
 
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