Weird particulate in the water, and grey sludge on filters

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CombatWombat

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 23, 2019
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Hi guys. Wondering if any of you can help me figure out what this thing is.. I have a 20 gallon established tank, and like 9 months ago I replaced the gravel in it with white imagitarium sand. I have about an inch and some change of sand in there. Ever since then the water has been.. cloudy. Though not like algal bloom milky cloudy, I've seen that before and this is not it. In this tank if you look closely you can kind of see tiny particles floating around. When I clean the filters, I have a thick layer of grey-beige sludge on all of the surfaces. It looks like mud, or very dilute clay. At first I thought I didn't wash my sand enough, but it's been months now, and tons of water changes.

To give you an idea of the tank, there are some low light plants, a snail, corys, a gourami, and a ctenopoma. Everyone is doing fine.. But I am at my wits end, I'm getting really frustrated. It has to be a live organism at this point, right? Please help me figure out what it is, so I can murder it with extreme prejudice.
 
That type white sand is usually calcite, or aragonite, and under certain water conditions (parameters) can turn water milky.
This type substrate is not inert, but reactive.
If your water is already has a high pH (above 8) and/or mineral rich, or calcium saturated, calcium from the substrate may may precipitate out.
I have add this type material to a fluidized bed reactor as buffering agent, and whenever I'd add new, replacement media, tank water would go milky (pic below)
I never got the sludge you speak of, so I have no basis for comment.
What are your water parameters? Tap and tank?
What fish are you keeping. That additional calcium might be great for rift lake Africans, of Central Americans/Mexican fish.
But if you are keeping soft water Amazonians, West Africans, or Asians it may be detrimental
and may be, that a more inert substrate material would be better in your situation
Below you can see the fluidized bed tube (milky white) left of the milky looking tank.
 
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imagitarium sand is garbage i bought a10 LB bag from Petco stuff is more like cat litter then sand for fish tanks that clay like stuff is from the sand its more clay like then sand
 
The water is like pH 7.6, and pretty soft, KH around 2. The fish are corys, a gourami, and a leopard ctenopoma. This is my non-monster tank lol.

OK, so now it's 3 people telling me it's the stupid substrate, you guys and my LFS. Guess a substrate change is in order. Can you recommend a good brand of white sand?
 
One of the detrimental aspects of white substrate, is that it tends to make fish colors wash out, and not show natural vibrant coloration, because they try to blend into the habitat so as not become easily spotted prey.
If there are enough dark objects in the tank such as brown waterlogged wood, or plenty of dark green plants this can mitigate the common wash out effect.
 
Last edited:
CombatWombat said:
The water is like pH 7.6, and pretty soft, KH around 2. The fish are corys, a gourami, and a leopard ctenopoma. This is my non-monster tank lol.

OK, so now it's 3 people telling me it's the stupid substrate, you guys and my LFS. Guess a substrate change is in order. Can you recommend a good brand of white sand?
Click to expand...

I would just go with tan or light tan like cheap Pool filter sand. Play sand tends to be lighter but it takes a lot of pre-rinsing in a 3 gallon bucket with old tank water to remove the residue found in it. Play sand also compacts easily, so I wouldnt use more than 1-1.5" deep.
 
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