I Forgot To Rinse My Sand

live sand shouldn't be rinsed.

it doesn't look that bad to be honest. use a felt sock on your overflow with some extra floss in it and change it daily or more. it'll clear up quick.

it wouldn't hurt to siphon the sand like you would in a fresh water tank if it was just dusty dry sand you used. it'll take some time but it isn't too bad.

 

Yea I think what I would do, is just stir the hell out of your sand bed, and siphon that out, as well as running it through a filter sock at the same time you're siphoning. Rinse and repeat with freshwater until you do not have cloudy water.

The sand that gives me the problem isn't the stuff in my display, since that was livesand. It is the aragonite dry sand I put in my fuge, I never rinsed it. Since it's 3-4" deep, even after two or three years, it still gets very very cloudy if I disturb the sand inside my fuge. It's not a big issue for me since I leave my fuge alone except for during water changes I'll suck up any detritus or rogue chaeto that's floating around, trying not to disturb the sand, but if I do it's a milky nightmare for a few hours.

This is just what happens to me, every tank is different!!!

 

I never rinse my sand. The fines will settle like a rock once coated with colonizing bacteria plus the fines have more surface area so support more bacteria.

 

Thanks everyone.
It wasn't live sand.

I had maybe 15% of my original sand still in the tank that I couldn't get up, and just added 30lbs of dry.
It settled better today, and I siphoned some of the top layer of dust up.

I also turned back on my protein skimmer and added a Phosban 150 that I filled with Carbon.
It's clearing up pretty nicely.

Put my LR and a few corals back in
Previously I had 3 islands in the center of front-to-back. I think this way there's more swimming room, and I kind of like the rock-wall look.
I want to get 2 more branchy pieces to make a little arch at the very very top still.