Real Cloudy water, What Should I do??

what kind of metrial do you have on the bottom of your tank if you have sand and fill up the water to fast it takes a while to settle down that normal .. if you have sand you shuld fill it up slow untill you get about half way then you can speed it up a bit

i found in my new tank i just have sand on the bottom and when i put on one of my power heads it stered up the sand affter adding some base rock this problem stoped

with a general question like you asked it kinda hard to hit on all points with merkey water.. maybe tell us every thing you did up to that point were your truble is...

big als had tanks that looked like milk,they said they just put in calcium,Didnt look to me like it would ever clear.you could barely tell any fish were in them.

Hey i just got sand as well, it takes AGeS for it to settle so just take out your sand and swish it about in a bucket like ten million times (it took me all afternoon today!) and it should be clear. I mean, you can always just filter it out tho, i just wanted to make sure it stayd clear even if there was disturbance.

Cyaz!!

I put a sand and aragonite substrate in my tank. Both were calcium based. It is very clowdy, and once it settles, if you move anything it clouds easily again. All that is in the tank is water and the substrate, with filters and power heads. Will this eventually settle? I have seen things called calcium reactors.. What are these for?

Ok guys, I'm new to this too, but I can tell you what I have read, and what I have experienced. If you have sand for a bottom it will be cloudy when you add the water, However you need to get your water cycled with the beneficial bacteria to establish your tank before you add things like fish or inverts. You can do this a couple of different ways. You can do the shrimp cycle, you take a deli shrimp (preferably raw) and put it in your tank and let it rot. I've read if you tank is smaller than 55g it will stink to high heaven for a little while (days...) or if you have a friend thats nice enough get some water and substrate from them (thats what I did) It will work well because the bacteria are already in it. Just remember it has to eat too... Or the third way i've read, and it wasn't suggested, but you can buy a bottle called cycle from your lfs and it will speed up the process. I've since bought some because of a phosphate issue and a diatom bloom (you will see this at the end of your cycle, it will go away...) The guy at my lfs said he uses cycle in his tanks at home and says its a good way to start the tank.

The calcium that the lfs added that you saw will clear away pretty fast. They add it to the tank for live rock and corals. I use purple up, and Ive seen a difference with it in very little time...

Don't worry about calcium reactors right now, I think they are for larger tanks that have been established with LR and Corals (not totally sure)

Oh ya, as for the dust particles, It's ok to wash your sand, but I wouldn't, the dust is good for your micro organisms and you don't really want to get rid of it...

Also, don't run your filters for a while when adding the water, it will stir it up more and also can kill your pumps if they get clogged....

This is just some of the things I've read here and other places... best of luck with the new tanks, I know i'm loving mine

:cool2: LoL...

LordsSoldier: I don't understand why you said the thing about the cycle, or calcium reactors but....

You can run your filters, they wont get cloged up if they do then their bad filters. Your suppose to clean new sand that you buy thats bagged. I didn't get any "dusty" looking water when I set up my tank to aviod this (anyone who hasn't set up a tank yet) I put all the sand on the bottom then placed a large plastic lid (from a bowl) on top of the sand and slowly pored water on that, this makes the water spread out rather than creating a hole in the sand. the lid would rise up and Id hold it in place to dump more water on it, it worked great... I just kept it an inch under the water level while pouring.

If your water gets cloudy, not from the sand, you can put carbon in a filter.. it'll pull things out of the water.

Neil.

telecubby said:

big als had tanks that looked like milk,they said they just put in calcium,Didnt look to me like it would ever clear.you could barely tell any fish were in them.

Click to expand...

That's what's commonly termed a 'snowstorm', I believe - calcium precipitation. It's a chemical chain reaction, there's nothing you can do but wait for it to exhaust itself.

Mysis, sounds like you just had a sandstorm, dust in the water column. No biggie, some floss and time will take care of it. As your tank cycles the sand will populate with bacteria and should settle fairly quickly if disturbed.