Sand Problem

[4fishman]

I thought adding a good quality sand would be the last and easiest step in setting up my 90 gallon reef. After waiting four days to make 90 gallons of RO/DI water I was ready to get my live rock.
However the sand that I added has produced an extremely fine cloud in the water. I've run the filter, turned the filter off. Ihave seen some clearing of the water.
I would like to hear your opinions on how long I should wait (it's been 4 days now) and if I'll recreate the problem when I start making waves. Should I start over?

 

[barbra]

Don't start over. You should have rinsed the sand well and then added the water on top of that to keep it from becoming so stirred up. I think that you have 2 options now: Keep filtering and wait for the water to clear. It may take awhile, but eventually the solids will seperate and the water will clarify. Or you can pour out your water, re-rinse the sand, and add more water if you think that is the only possible cure, but it would be at least a week of hopelessly cloudy water before I would resort to that.

 

[Sepeku]

I agree with Barbra. I actually made the same mistake in my tank as well. It took a couple large water changes to get it to clear up.

 

[papagimp]

Just wait it out, the couple weeks it could possibly take to clear up is certainly not going to hurt the system. And rinse the filters out almost daily until it clears, it'll help some. The last time I did not rinse my sand, it took about 2 weeks to the day for the tank to clear completely (but I also had alot of flow in there , I had time to wait, patience patience patience.)

 

[Jocko]

And, for future reference, there is the "cover the sand bed with a trash bag to prevent the sand from getting all stirred up while filling the tank" trick. But yeah, you need to rinse the sand first. I made the same mistake with my first tank. It took a few days for my tank to clear up that time.

 

[drummereef]

It takes time for the sandstorm to clear. Rinising is not necessary. As the bacteria has a chance to develop it will help weigh down the particulates. Keep running your fitration, skimmer, and powerheads.

 

[cyeater]

Run carbon, that is the only thing I did cleared up in a little less than 48 hours

 

[scuba4ever]

Yeah I think a lot of us have made that mistake before, not rinsing the sand, it took my first tank about a week to a week and a half to clear, just give it time