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hi! i am in the process of setting up my first marine tank... and i was just wondering if it's normal for the tank to be quite cloudy after having just set it up.

for substrate, i used aragonite (i think) that's about .5-1mm diameter which i rinsed briefly before adding it to the tank (i rinsed it enough to remove any bits of foreign material, but the water never did run clear)...

i suspect this is what's causing the cloudiness. should i have rinsed it more, or do i just have to wait until the particulate matter has settled?

i also added some cycle, which i know can sometimes cause some cloudiness in a new tank, but as i said, i'm pretty sure that it's from the sand. is this normal? if not, what should i do?

thanks

Yes, the sand will definatly cloud the water, give it a few days to clear up, the water wasnt fully free of all floating partivles for a while after i put my sand in.

It helps to circulate the water, so make sure that you are running all of your pumps and or filtration, that normally helps to clear it up faster.

Nick

Nick
"Impossumable- unable to play dead"

Someone else from this site advised me that you dont even have to wash out aragonite sand, because the little hitchhiking particles and stuff are great for helping to establish bacteria and whatnot.

It's likely that you either put the sand in first, and then poured the water in causing cloudiness...or you put the water in, then the sand, which will also cause cloudiness.

It'll clear up in a couple of days. Keep filters on and stuff. It'll settle out even more once you get some rock or something in there.

I should dig up the pictures of what happend when I filled my tank with sand/water for the first time...

I put the sand in first, then I was doing the water, slowly, and it was all fine...till I decided, halfway through filling a 4' tank, that my sand bed wasn't deep enough. In went another 50lb bag of sand...and then came what feels like weeks of cloudiness. My water seriously looked like milk. I have to find the pics.

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

yeah your tank got really cloudy Liana, i was suprised. ( i just relized that i relate alot of things to you because your the one who taught me alot of things i needed to know!)

I put my sand in after my water, but i put it in slowly, cup by cup, and i barley had any clouding, but then again, it took me two hours just to put sand into the tank.



Last edited by swiftshark88 at 05-Jan-2006 15:07

Nick
"Impossumable- unable to play dead"

thanks guys! the tank has cleared up a bunch already... still a little hazy, but i can see through to the back now at least!

i rinsed the sand a bit (hopefully not enough to get rid of all the good little bits) then put the sand into the empty tank. i then poured the water slowly into a bowl placed in the bottom of the tank so as not to disturb the sand too much.

so, i guess so far so good!

Nate helped me learn that it's not actually necessary to rinse the sand.

I've been taught two great ways to fill a tank without clouding.

(1)
You fill the tank with the sand first. Then you lay a big garbage bag on top of the sand bed. Then on top of that, you put like a dinner sized plate. Then you put the hose shooting towards that, to break the impact. When the tank is filled you can take the garbage bag and plate out.

(2)
You fill the tank with water first. Then using a long PVC pipe and a funnel, you pour the sand directly to the bottom, causing much less disturbance than if you just pour the bags in. Too bad somebody taught me this method AFTER I needed it...!

Check these out---



Looks like milk right? [/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish