Tropical Eden Sand - Cloudy Water

[Cranky_Wonderer]

I recently upgraded my tank (Red Sea E260 to Red Sea Reefer 450) and during the upgrade, decided on all new sand (Tropical Eden Reef Flakes). Tank has been up and running for about two months now with all live rock and live stock (fish and corals in the new tank). The tank never went through a cycle so I was happy about that.

That said, any time I stir up the sand bed, it produces a large cloudy mess (much like when adding new sand to a tank) and takes an hour or so to clear followed by the live rock being covered in a white dust like material. I'm kicking myself for not washing the sand prior to adding it but figured the "live" stuff would have helped me not cycle during the move.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this when turning my sand bed? I don't have a sand sifting goby plus always liked turkey basting my sand every couple days or so to get detritus into the water column to filter it out but the cloudy mess it creates is becoming a real PITA.

Any suggestions or ideas would be most appreciative!

 

[Jason_J]

Two real options that I see. One, put a diatom filter or some other type of very fine filter that can capture the particles and stir the sand as many times as it takes to get all the stuff out. Two, remove the sand and rinse it. The latter should be fine as it sand bed isn't old so you won't have the normal concerns of removing an old sand bed and your life rock will likely be able to support your nutrient load. I might keep some sort of ammonia remover handy if you go this route in case ammonia starts to rise without the bacteria in the sand filtering the water as everything adjusts or you could dump one of the bacteria cycling supplements in there.

I would personally go the sand removal route as it will be much more efficient to get it cleaned this way. Just make sure if you rinse it with tap water to run some declorinator in it at the end so that you don't inadvertently add any chlorine back to the tank.

 

[Cranky_Wonderer]

I would personally go the sand removal route as it will be much more efficient to get it cleaned this way. Just make sure if you rinse it with tap water to run some declorinator in it at the end so that you don't inadvertently add any chlorine back to the tank.

Wow....Talk about a quick response! I really appreciate it!

I've stirred it up and turkey basted it a number of times including siphoning during water changes. The siphoning gets a little of it but I'm not seeing any real improvement unfortunately.

How big of an ordeal is it to remove the sand bed? I'm also having a diatom outbreak at the moment so perhaps this would be a good time to remove the sand anyways and get it nice and clean?

 

[lapin]

Diatoms mean your tank is new. Just remove part of the sand rinse in a bucket, then remove more and rinse until you have it all rinsed. You will not wash off much of the bacteria. Toss some floss in the sump to catch the suspended fines as well as running your skimmer

 

[glweek]

get a gravel vac and when you do your weekly water changes just have at the sand bed until it clears...well...it will never clear but it'l get better with each vacuum.

 

[glweek]

Double post for some reason.

 

[Cranky_Wonderer]

get a gravel vac and when you do your weekly water changes just have at the sand bed until it clears...well...it will never clear but it'l get better with each vacuum.

Thanks! I've been mostly doing this with each water change but it doesn't appear to be getting any better.