really cloudy water

Just changed out my substrate and my water is really cloudy like i cant even see the back of the tank. I have my live stock being held in my 5 gal but it doesn't have a filter I just checked my perams in my display tank and everything is ok but its way cloudy. Is it safe to put my fish back in even though its so cloudy? How long will it be before the water settles should i have my filter on? And what should i do with my live stock if unable to put them in the tank.

 

You most likely didnt adequately clean the substrate before putting it in. The substrate will settle in time.

 

Damn i fell like i did but ok is it save to put my fish back in?

 

Im am not sure. If you have removed the substrate you have removed all the beneficial bacteria. It will most likely cycle again and if you put the fish back in they will probably be killed by the ammonia/nitrate spike.

Unless you still have established live rock etc in it. And are able to continuously dose it with beneficial bacteria and an ammonia remover.

 

I actually do have lr in there i also re used my tank water and the new substarte is also live sand

 

Did you rinse the live sand? Its gonna always be cloudy when you add sand but if you rinsed the live sand you killed alk the bacteria.

 

Best way to change sand IMO is rinse it clean in a bucket then use a few scoops of your old sand to seed it after you put it in the tank. I've used fine grain in the past and love the look of it but hate the maintenance to keep it clean looking. I use Aragonite now and it is a good balance of the look I want/minimal maintenance to keep it "clean".

 

If you had a decent amount of live rock, you should be fine as far as a cycle goes. The sand does help out with that, but you didn't remove "all" of the biological filtration you had set up. Be sure to do some tests and watch out for oddities over the next couple weeks.

With new substrate, especially if it wasn't thoroughly rinsed, you'll get fine particles in the water column that can take awhile to settle out. If you disturbed a fair bit of your old substrate removing it, you may have released a bunch of nutrients that were stored in it and are now experiencing a bacterial bloom as well. Both will settle out with time.

 

Do a water change if youre concerned. It should clear up in a day or 2 on its own.

 

Just wondering why you changed the substrate out?