Cloudy days...

[cameron]

I have a small problem that is more annoying than an actual problem I believe. I decided to use about 1" of oolictic Carib-Sea Aragamax in my tank (I liked the look). I did a quick rinse to get rid of the obivious dust and in the aquarium it went. Three days later it is still murky (about 6" of visibility) and doesn't appear to be getting any better. I am running my protien skimmer and turning the tank over about 3 times per hour through the sump to help cycling and test for problems. Yesterday, I hooked up my canister and loaded it up with fine particle filters as well. The other point I have to consider is that if all is well by Saturday, livestock and such will be going into the tank. This has already been scheduled and I can't really shut it down now. Anyway to the queston. Should I just shut the whole thing down and let it all settle or just let it keep rolling on?

BTW, no other powerheads are running except the skimmer pump, main pump and the canister filter.

Thanks in advance, Cameron.

 

[broreefr]

I dont know tank details I am assuming you have live rock in your tank but off hand I would say that with it turning over only three times per hour, you do not have enough flow in the tank. throw in a power head or two and I believe you will see a difference.

 

[glxtrix]

yeah add some PH's in there, that will help move the water around enough to help remove that mess.

 

[tsciarini]

oooorrr.... turn off all your pumps and let it settle. Then pull out what you can with a waterchange and let the filtration do the rest.

 

[calireefer]

You should see if a local fish store or aquarium maintenance company can rent you a diatom filter. These filters will make muddy water crystal clear.

 

[cameron]

There is nothing in the tank. I think I am going to shut everything down and see what it does in the next 12 hours. Thanks guys.

 

[kevin]

Good luck

 

[family reefer]

There are products out there for this problem. Should be OK since yours is an empty tank. Tey make the suspended particles bind together, get heavy, and sink. I paid $18 for a bottle at Petco a few months back. It is Coralife Marine tank Clarifier

 

[cameron]

More research on the problem. It seems that to clear faster you need more bacteria as that apparently attaches to the floating material and brings it down faster.

That tank clarifier aparantly works "miracles" by ionizing the particles. The only draw back to the stuff I could find is it reduces dissolved oxygen content as well. Currently that isn't a big deal. After reading a ton about it, I can find no mention of it ever harming livestock. If it isn't getting better by morning, I will try some and see what happens.

Just when you think you got some of this figured out... Thanks again.

 

[flyingarmy]

I have a bottle of the Clarifier you can have if you want. Let me know and you can pick it up or I can bring it to the Feb Frag meeting!

 

[cameron]

Turning everything off seems to have been the right thing to do. It is still cloudy, but now you can see about 12" and it seems to be getting better by the hour. I will definitely wash the crap out of that sand if I ever buy it again. Whew what a pain.

 

[stanfill reef]

Put in some live rock, put in a sponge from another cycled tank and let the bacteria grow. Once the bacteria get going, they will weight down your fines and you won't get as much dusting. Just don't buy a sand sifting goby or you will have dust for a long time (happened to me when we started a tank using Southdown).

 

[fishybusiness]

I would do Tony's idea. I had that stuff in a huge tank a while back....about 800 lbs of it and I just let it sit and then siphon cleaned it with a long tube and it cleared up very quickly after that.
See ya tommorow

 

[cameron]

FishyBusiness wrote: I would do Tony's idea. I had that stuff in a huge tank a while back....about 800 lbs of it and I just let it sit and then siphon cleaned it with a long tube and it cleared up very quickly after that.
See ya tommorow

I did and it seems to be working. I am sure we will kick it all back up again tomorrow when we put the livestock in it. Hopefully we will be doing a 50% water swap with the other tank water so that should help some as well.

 

[kappaknight]

The easiest way to clear a tank is actually throwing some live rock in it and keep the power heads going.

When I transferred everything to my 90, I had the sandstorm issue as well. I threw some rocks in, kept the fuge and skimmer going, let it sit overnight. 80% of it was clear in a day, 100% was clear in a day and a half. If you go to my blog (linked below) and check out some pics from June and July 06, you'll see what I'm talking about.