new sand substrate; cloudy water won't clear

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mountain_webste

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May 2, 2007
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Setting up a new tank and am using sand substrate for the first time. My water remains cloudy and would like some tips/advice on clearing it up.

I used play sand from the hardware store. I tried rinsing it and putting it in the tank but was having a hard time getting it from the bucket into the tank without it "plopping" out onto the glass bottom - this made me nervous about damaging the glass. The package said the sand was screened and washed so I added it to the tank dry. I certainly expected a good amount of cloudy water from this process (and skipping a pre-rinse) but it just seems a bit much after several days.

Since adding the sand Sat morning, I filled the tank completly and let it settle for about 12 hrs. I then drained 80% of the hazy water and refilled the tank and let it settle for another 12 hrs. As of this morning, there was some minor improvement but it was very clould and I could only see about 6 - 8" into the tank. I did about a 10% water change with no improvement (wasn't expecting anything here). The tank sat about 10 hours - I feel like it got a little better but I may just be optomistic.

About an hour ago, I took an old HOB filter and crammed it full with a bunch of filter floss and turned the filter on as slow as it will go. Too soon to comment on a difference, but I may let it run overnight just to see what happens.

So, any suggestions? Am I just being impatient? Thanks in advance.
 
I never used sand substrate but I have read that it takes a bit of time to settle. I would give it a few more days. Good luck on your tank setup!
 
Thats the best thing you could do, is just add in some polyester fiber fill into the filter and run it. I just changed over from gravel to sand and ran my filters over night and woke up the next morning with a crystal clear tank. Although I am running 2 HOB filters and a monster Jebao 412 4 stag canister at 265 gph.
 
It takes a while. Just keep rinsing out your floss and sponges, it will clear. I think it took 3-4 days of filtering to really clear mine up. Only 1 HoB filter though. Now, later on I had a nice milky algea bloom once the cycle really started, and that was way worse lol. But, as they say, this too will pass.
 
Play sand is extremely messy to add to a tank. I remember seeing someone mention it has clay particles added to aid it in clumping for building sand castles and such. Pretty much all you can do is keep changing the water and filtering it with fine floss it will clear. This is one of the reasons I really like pool filter sand; it is MUCH cleaner.
 
Thanks. Checked my progress when I got up this morning and I did notice some difference. Think I'll crank up the flow on the filter and rinse the filter before I go to work and hope for the best.

Someone needs to invent a giant coffee filter for this sort of thing.
 
Daily big water changes would help alot! I used to have a playsand tank and this is the main thing that I did, it cleared up in a couple of days!
 
rinsing it in a 5 gallon bucket would of eliminated alot if not most of the tiny pieces u are seeing floating in the tank.. rense about a half bucket at a time.. then just dump from pucket slowley into tank.. its not to bad .. i did 100 pounds of pool filter sand in about 1 hour
 
if your able to, i would suggest finding some polishing media for your filter as well. I dont know if its just me, but my tank has been running for about 5 days and its pretty darn clear. except, there is this really fine haze left. i dont have any polishing media to help nor do i have water clarifier so try any of those.
 
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