Filtering out a little suspected oil residue and very fine particles

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bradleyheathhay

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Oct 19, 2011
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Just setting up this 125 and just now I have it filled with h2o and 3 in. of very thoroughly washed black diamond blasting sand which is actually broken up 'coal slag.' From what I"ve seen the tank appears to have two different contaminants in it that I'd like to try to filter out. First is a film on top of the water that probably indicates some type of oil that could only have come from the blasting sand. No smell at all though so I'd say there's not much of it in there. This exact blasting sand has been ok'd by lots of people on the net for substrate so I'm almost sure it'll be ok, I'd just like to try to get whatever's causing that film out of there. Second is that when adding more of this sand I wound up draining out some of the water. Now where the water was on the side of the tank there's a whitish looking residue that when wiped turns out to be very fine black powder. To filter both of these little things out my plan is to install activated charcoal and lots of floss into my filters and just run until everything is taken care of. I have no real timeline to get this done so I can run filters as long as need be to get these two little issues taken care of. Any thoughts?
 

dougall

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Mar 29, 2005
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remove the film on top by laying paper towels on it and then removing... you probably don't want to circulate it through your tank and filters, just in case, especially if it is oil based
 

rufioman

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Aug 16, 2010
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Dirt, dust, etc. from the sand? Probably nothing to worry about.........but I dunno altogether as I've never used the stuff.
 

vwill279

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+1 to the paper towel route for the oil. I had to do the same thing a few times after using black diamond sand. Then just a lot of water changes in a row before you add fish. Takes a long time for black diamond to be fully rinsed
 

Steven 1

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Feb 27, 2014
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+1 to water changes. A 50% water change will cut whatever's in there in half, another one by a quarter of the original. It works really well.
 

SnakeIce

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Your tank is to new of a set up, but you can also get a biofilm that rides on the surface tension that has that appearance. I have not had a tank that hasn't had stuff build up on the surface. I just skim it off by whatever method and move on. Some fish eat it, and I think my tanks with livebearers have been more clear than some of my other tank setups, but I don't remember enough to pin it on them for the reduction.
 
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