Serious silt fog.

J

Jim96SC2

New member
Added some new sand after giving quick rinses to it, just a few pours of water in a bucket, swished around, drained the water. I thought I was OK because on the second and third water fills I got significantly less froth at the top. Put it in the water and HOLY COW! It looks like milk.

Read and Reread topics and I saw that many people just let it settle but after 24 hours it was still in suspension. Throw a filter sock on and pulled it out after a few hours of water running through and the silt looked like it was coming right out of the sock!!!

Any help dealing appreciated.
 
Well, I can't help you deal with it but I can tell you it's nothing to worry about :) When I set up my first tank I did a DSB in a 55 gallon. It took almost a full week for the water to clear up completely. Of course, this was a considerable amount of sand, probably more than your using.

When that's over, your still not done. You'll still get clouds from stuff moving around and such for a little bit. All that I can say is that I know how you feel. The last thing you want to do when your setting up a new tank is be patient, but that's what you'll have to do unfortunately. :)

Matt
 
Let sit and settle, change sock repeatedly or change water and rinse sand better. No easy way out. Been there and changed water.

Tom
 
ah, the old arag milk. Did you fill it w/ FW or SW? FW first and trying to add salt later can cause the low ph water to melt a bit of sand.


Most of the smaller particles will eventually get bacteria on them and drop out of suspension. Running a filter sock or micron filter can help... or you can do a big waterchange, but that seems a little wasteful since it is brand new SW. I have had it take days and days... nearly a week when using FW on arag sand.
 
I had that problem also. It will settle. Now I have a pair of clowns that makes sandstorms every night when I turn the lights off.

How much flow do you have? I had to turn off one of the powerheads to help it settle.
 
jenglish said:
ah, the old arag milk. Did you fill it w/ FW or SW? FW first and trying to add salt later can cause the low ph water to melt a bit of sand.


Most of the smaller particles will eventually get bacteria on them and drop out of suspension. Running a filter sock or micron filter can help... or you can do a big waterchange, but that seems a little wasteful since it is brand new SW. I have had it take days and days... nearly a week when using FW on arag sand.
Click to expand...

Put the sand into SW. If this is after 3 washes, I'd hate to see whithout them. Trying the filter sock/HOB now. Its actually ghetto rigged to float in the water, tied to the spot where the HOB pours in.

TRichardson79 said:
I had that problem also. It will settle. Now I have a pair of clowns that makes sandstorms every night when I turn the lights off.

How much flow do you have? I had to turn off one of the powerheads to help it settle.
Click to expand...

About 600gph IIRC. I left 1 PH on just to keep it stirred up in the hopes the bag will catch more of it.
 
Just got home from work, ghetto filter worked. I get about 30% of whats stuck to it, so another day or two of running it doing a cleaning every 12 hours should do the trick.
 
Yeahjust let it settle. You shoul have sunk the sank to the bottom of your tank in a ziplock bag or funnel and tube. That would have eliminated the storm.
 
That's good. Be wary of turning on more flow though, I made that mistake shortly after mine settled and it kicked the sand right back up. It will take some time for the bacteria to coat the sand.
 
you can also try turning your skimmer up a bit and seeing if it'll pull more out. Mostly just keep rinsing through that filter sock. It will settle just takes time.
 
HOB with floss flowing into a filter sock within a UTZ pretzel plastic container worked for me.

HOB took out a bit, then the sock caugh the rest. Needed the container because every time you touch the sock the silt would fly all over. This way the silt just came out into the container and I only lost 2 gallons of water in the process. Took <24 hours to settle out once everything was in place.
 
I am working through the same issue right now with my 180 (300lbs of moved live sand) and am little by little figuring out how to deal with the cloudy water. As long as nothing else is in the tank, shut off the power heads and filters, give the tank a day or two to settle then slowly and carefully siphon the dust off the bottom into a bucket. Let the bucket sit for a day or two so it can settle then pour the good water off the top to save it while trying not disturb the mud on the bottom. Filter floss, filter socks or pleated filters don't work very well. Pleated filters clog very quickly while the others let the small stuff through or it comes through when trying to remove it. A protein skimmer will take some of it out of the water but it does it slowly.

Having water movement in the tank keeps the dust suspended in the water.

The only thing more pitiful looking than a cloudy tank is a crashed tank.
 
insane said:
I am working through the same issue right now with my 180 (300lbs of moved live sand) and am little by little figuring out how to deal with the cloudy water. As long as nothing else is in the tank, shut off the power heads and filters, give the tank a day or two to settle then slowly and carefully siphon the dust off the bottom into a bucket. Let the bucket sit for a day or two so it can settle then pour the good water off the top to save it while trying not disturb the mud on the bottom. Filter floss, filter socks or pleated filters don't work very well. Pleated filters clog very quickly while the others let the small stuff through or it comes through when trying to remove it. A protein skimmer will take some of it out of the water but it does it slowly.

Having water movement in the tank keeps the dust suspended in the water.

The only thing more pitiful looking than a cloudy tank is a crashed tank.
Click to expand...


Try my route. The filter socks don't hold well, but put so it pours into the sok then overflows out the backup container made things easy. The HOB ran for less then a day and caught a lot of the silt. I was thinking of just letting it settle, but then every time a fish would dart you'd end up with 2 days of cloudy tank.
 
Jim96SC2 said:
Try my route. The filter socks don't hold well, but put so it pours into the sok then overflows out the backup container made things easy. The HOB ran for less then a day and caught a lot of the silt. I was thinking of just letting it settle, but then every time a fish would dart you'd end up with 2 days of cloudy tank.
Click to expand...

I am lucky in that aspect as I don't have anything in the tank other than sand at the moment. All of the rock and corals are in a couple of 100g rubbermades with lights, skimmer, etc. so just letting it sit won't be hurting anything and there is nothing in it to stir things up. It is still depressing to look at though. :sad2:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

rrrrob
Thoughts on Purigen?
Replies
11
Views
717
alejandrodia
A
E
What's Old is New Again
Replies
2
Views
488
Uncle99
Uncle99
B
Left Tank for a long time, now want to reboot
Replies
8
Views
375
SantaMonica
S
W
Storing RO/DI water
Replies
16
Views
3K
griss
griss
D
Help with new tank cycling
Replies
12
Views
1K
wvned
wvned
Back
Top