coolnessa8
New Member
Good morning! New to the hobby and am racking up the mistakes quickly.
So, I set up a new tank and all was going well until I decided that I wanted to switch to a deep sand bed before I moved forward with getting fish. I'm aware that some people strongly advise against dsb. I did some research & ultimately decided that is the route I wanted to go.
So, I went to my lfs to purchase sand. They didn't have bag sand. Instead of being the intelligent, 36yo woman that I am & going somewhere else, I let the guy sell me wet sand he had in tanks that he had shut down. He assured me that it was safe to use & that the worst case scenario was that my tank would cycle. Since I didn't have fish, I figured what the heck.
So, we removed the old, decorative sand & replaced it with the new sand. The sand was from two different tanks. A couple people suggested that I rinse the sand first to remove any dust, but again - taking the easy way out - I opted not to. So, now my tank is full of dust. It was clear this morning, but when we added more water, all the dust that had settled in my sump stirred up & clouded up the whole tank again. We rinsed out the sediment & sponge filters. I'm not sure what else to do. We considered putting a sock over one of the drains, but wasn't sure about detergent on the sock.
My tank is a 40gal tall. I'm running a wet/dry sump with bio ball. I'm waiting on a shipment of dry rock to make rubble to replace the bio balls. We have a few crabs & snails in the tank now, but no fish. So far, ammonia levels are still zero but salt reads high on my refractometer. I figure the dust can affect that.
Any advice for this misguided newbie?
Thanks in advance.
So, I set up a new tank and all was going well until I decided that I wanted to switch to a deep sand bed before I moved forward with getting fish. I'm aware that some people strongly advise against dsb. I did some research & ultimately decided that is the route I wanted to go.
So, I went to my lfs to purchase sand. They didn't have bag sand. Instead of being the intelligent, 36yo woman that I am & going somewhere else, I let the guy sell me wet sand he had in tanks that he had shut down. He assured me that it was safe to use & that the worst case scenario was that my tank would cycle. Since I didn't have fish, I figured what the heck.
So, we removed the old, decorative sand & replaced it with the new sand. The sand was from two different tanks. A couple people suggested that I rinse the sand first to remove any dust, but again - taking the easy way out - I opted not to. So, now my tank is full of dust. It was clear this morning, but when we added more water, all the dust that had settled in my sump stirred up & clouded up the whole tank again. We rinsed out the sediment & sponge filters. I'm not sure what else to do. We considered putting a sock over one of the drains, but wasn't sure about detergent on the sock.
My tank is a 40gal tall. I'm running a wet/dry sump with bio ball. I'm waiting on a shipment of dry rock to make rubble to replace the bio balls. We have a few crabs & snails in the tank now, but no fish. So far, ammonia levels are still zero but salt reads high on my refractometer. I figure the dust can affect that.
Any advice for this misguided newbie?
Thanks in advance.
