oops i made a mistake
- Thread starter angel1237
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chemisfun11
Active Member
Even if you had a bag of wet live sand it can get very cloudy. Turning off the powerhead will help things settle, but this is very common when adding sand to a new tank full of water.
rworegon
Active Member
It will clear up but it will take some time. You may end up with more algae than you would have if you would have rinsed the sand. If this is a new tank you can use a gravel vac and clean your sand up some that way. If you are running a filter sock in a sump you can simply put a fine sock in the holder and siphon the water directly into the filter sock. It will catch a lot of the fines and all of the larger particulate matter from vacuuming. Not as efficient as rincing first but it will help without wasting the fresh saltwater you just put into the tank.
McAllyn
Well-Known Member
It will settle, for sure, but the dust will be there waiting for the pumps to come on. My friend jumped the gun on her cube and poured unrinsed sand into her tank, and we basically had to do 3 complete water changes to get all the dusty junk out of the system. Left all the pumps and powerheads off for 4 days after pouring it in, it never cleared completely, and the sand looked like it had snowed. Had to stir, drain, and fill three times to get to where we could turn on the pumps and not have beige water.
Mac
Mac
It will settle. At first it will settle but be stirred up easily. In a couple weeks there will be biofilm on the sand and it will stay in place much better, as long as you aren't blasting it with flow obviously.
angel1237
Community Member
do i leave my power head off for a few days...will this hurt the water or live sand...that is all that is in the tank right now sand...the live rock wasn't ready at the store until next week.
I think if you stir it up and have a protein skimmer on board it will pull a lot of it out.
PatW
2500 Club Member
On the scale of 1 to 10 on mistakes with 10 being a catastrophe, you just did a 1 or maybe a 2. As has been said, it will settle. Later if you run a sump with a filter sock, the sock will remove most of that stuff.
EW_Fish
Valuable Member
+1 this happens all the time. I even rinse my dry sand and still gets cloudy. No worries its just the process of starting up a new tank.
Dalmatia
Valuable Member
Keep the Powerhead going so things will settle nicely and in order, meaning your fine grind will fall to the bottom and bigger pieces of sand will settle on top, so when you do turn everything on it won't get all cloudy again
