Floating particles

[N2950H]

My tank is about 5 months old. I've always had issues with floating particles (not microbubbles) that I haven't actively tried to get rid of yet, but now that I have a sand sifting goby they're really starting to bother me. I don't dose anything so I'm pretty sure the culprit is the caribsea live sand that I did not rinse before setting up the tank. I'm not super stoked about putting a bunch of effort into clearing up the water column knowing that the sand will continue to be stirred up.

I don't have a ton of rockwork (maybe 50-60lbs of live haitian) so I'm considering pulling it out and sucking out all the sand, rinsing it out really well, and putting it all back. If this were a well established tank I don't think I'd do that, but in my case is there any harm in doing this?

 

[Liron Mishal]

I don't think you should rinse live sand..
I would just leave it be.
If you want, you can run a filter sock for a few days and see how you like it.
It should reduce the floating particles considerably.
I don't run any mechanical filtration media, i think that my corals like it

 

[N2950H]

The advantages to instant live sand (whether or not it's truly live out of the bag is debatable) are not enough for me to deal with the floaters. I don't care if I kill all the bacteria in the sand by rinsing it out, so long as it's not going to cause a tank crash. I will start completely over if I have to, but my hope is that the live rock will be sufficient to keep things relatively stable in the interim.

I have been running filter socks from the beginning, but they're just not enough. Even if all the floaters did go down the drain at some point, more are constantly being churned up. It's a losing battle.

Am I missing an easier solution?

 

[Liron Mishal]

Got it. In this case my advice would be to take it slow.
Take about 1/5 of the sand for rinsing about every week.
Just to be on the safe side

Good luck

 

[N2950H]

Appreciate the input. I should add that I have spent a lot of time vacuuming up the sand to try and get all the silt out, but it just seems to keep coming. I feel like what I need it about a 2" dia acrylic tube that's like 6" long and then mates with a silicon hose, and in this acrylic tube should be a screen of some sort to keep the sand/gravel from being sucked up. I haven't found a suction cleaner like that...maybe I just need to make one.