advice from southdown substrate users

[slathrum]

Just wondering if anyone using this stuff actually likes it. I just started my first tank - a 58 gallon oceanic setup I got for a very good deal. The southdown sounded like a pretty good deal until I attempted to wash it and it is so fine and silty that washing it does pretty much no good at all and you just end up washing away a bunch of the sand. I eventually just put it in hoping the cloudiness wouldn't be too bad. It ended up being pretty bad and the water looked like milk for about 3-4 days and just this morning was the first time I could see the back of the tank! Thinking the worst was over I went ahead and plugged the maxijet 1200 back in and now we're back to milky water again but it's almost cleared back again. The water is still cloudy but you can see through it at least. I'm slowly adding live rock - 6 lbs this morning with some more on the way tomorrow, but every time anything touches the sand it clouds the water in that area and just stays there.

Will this ever stop or get better? I'm thinking about a layer of aragamax on top that isn't quite so fine, but I plan on having critters that will dig in the sand eventually, so this may not work so well. Any thoughts or encouragement with this southdown?

 

[Fast Fred]

You need some good mechanical filtration. Let it run for a few days with the filter and you'll be fine. I used 100 micron filter felt and it worked well.

 

[RicksReefs]

add the live rock. once you get some bacteria going, the weight of the bacteria will sink the sediment back into the bottom. turkey baste or PH your rocks as needed, until cleared up. usually less than a week.