New sand, clouding tank

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knobhill

knobhill

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
May 2, 2007
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IN A PLACE
i have been working on a project tank with my minions at school. I got 69lbs of white African reef sand from the lfs. I rinsed it a lot in the tank (when nothing was in there). Rinsed and drained repeatedly...like 10 times. Still not satisfied, I pulled the sand and put it in 5g buckets and rinsed again. Put the sand back in and water is still cloudy! I have done several 50% wc but still no improvement. There is a fine powder film on the surface and the tank glass as well. Filter is an fx5 and uv sterilizer, water is cycled -and I have 2 unhappy fish in there. Not sure what to do. Suggestions?
 
Some fine reef sand (if a type of aragonite, I don't have experience with the brand you used) will sometimes leach and supersaturate the water with a milky calcium tint. This is not the same kind of cloudy produced by not rinsing, but a more chemical type turbidity, which means its not really filterable. It dissipates as acids in the water react with and reduce the overabundance of carbonate ions.
I used aragonite in fluidized bed alkalinity buffer reactors, and whenever it was first added, my tanks would look milky for a while. Below is the only photo I have as an example. It may be what is causing your turbidity.
 
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Water changes will eventually clear up the cloudiness caused by the fine suspended particles. One of the reasons why I hate fine sand.
 
get a bottle of Tetra Crystal Water. stick that in there leave a light pump that moves the water about switch everthing else off but heater and light and watch within 5 hours you will see it start clearning. i some take chunks of my silicon sand out and clean it and just tip it back in and use that stuff to settle it :$
 
JK47 said:
Sponge filters.. It sounds dumb but those things will polish a tank overnight. If done this for sand related mess a bunch of times.
Click to expand...

I have some extra sponge filters so I will try that first. One of my 7th grade students suggested that as well!

duanes said:
Some fine reef sand (if a type of aragonite, I don't have experience with the brand you used) will sometimes leach and supersaturate the water with a milky calcium tint. This is not the same kind of cloudy produced by not rinsing, but a more chemical type turbidity, which means its not really filterable. It dissipates as acids in the water react with and reduce the overabundance of carbonate ions.
I used aragonite in fluidized bed alkalinity buffer reactors, and whenever it was first added, my tanks would look milky for a while. Below is the only photo I have as an example. It may be what is causing your turbidity.
Click to expand...

That would make sense too. The sand is meant for African Cichlids (at least that was stated on the bag), and would buffer the water. Just curious, how long did it take to settle down? If I added driftwood, could that counteract the alkaline calcium tint?
 
driftwood wpuld.slowly lower the ph... and make your water look like tea for a couple.months until all the tannins leach out.

you can combat the oh drop by adding Epsom salts and some baking soda. this will increase the hardness of the water (which cichlids like) and also stabilize ph.
 
are you setting up a cichlid tank? I love my cichlids :). I have a 100g all male hap and peacock tank
 
Nope, I just wanted the look of white sand on the bottom. My red florida gar, tiger moray eel, tigrinus cat, and bocourti cichlid are going in there. The alkalinity doesnt matter much. We have high pH out of the tap-7.8-anyhow....Just want this tank to clear up!!!
 
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