i wish i diddnt use sand!

finally got my tank cycled and have 2 healthy fish and plenty of liverock, but i NEVER have clear water due to the fact that my sand substrate is constantly blowing around no matter what i do. i have repositioned my powerheads all over i always have sand particles blowing. any advice? i was thinking getting a bag of crushed coral which is heavier and putting a thin layer of that over the sand to keep it down. i wish i used all crushed coral from the beginning but now it is to late.

 

same with me, my next tank will be bare bottom for sure.

 

do you have a mechanical filter? put some thin floss of a filter sock on it to trap the fine particles

 

That might help. What type of sand did you use? My sand was the finest grade sand possible and I had to rinse out the dust before it would settle and stay. You might be able to scoop away some sand and wash it out.

To wash it out all you have to do is put it in a bucket with some water and spin the sand and water around. All the dust will rise and then you can dump out the water with the dust in it. If you do it correctly, the sand left will settle alot easier and you probably won't have the problem.

 

what kind of powerheads, how fine is the sand and what size tank are we talking about? I'm going bare bottom on my next tank to have as much flow as I want where I want and to be able to avoid these kinds of problems.

~Will.

 

did you rinse the sand in a bucket before adding it to the tank?

 

it is natural ocean brand sand i got from petco. it is really fine. i got it because it was cheaper than the crushed coral but now im regretting it. i do run a aqueon 55 filter but its no use for the sand because it is constantly the suspended particles are being constantly added to the water column from the bottom. i think im just going to have to get something a little more dense like crushed coral and spread it around, i wont need more than one bag because my rockwork covers most of the sand bed anyway. anyone thinking about starting a new tank that will require flow dont use sand its a big pain!! o i got a 55 with a 10 gallon fuge. 2x 800 gph powerheads one at each end....and a 400 gallon per hour koralia in the middle. you would think 400 gph would be alot of flow but put your hand infront of a 400 gph head and youll see its not much flow at all the 800's are nice.

 

How about a pic of a full tank shot.

 

with time all the loose crap will get filtered out.

 

Not all sand is the same. You buy by particle size. That stuff at Petco is like powdered sugar. Super fine. The suspended stuff will eventually get removed by the skimmer, the super fine sand will always blow.

Crushed coral is bad news. Yoo don't wan to use that either. Carib Sea make a sea floor grade that is pretty coarse. Regular old sand is fine. Even Carib Sea's live sand is just right. Oolitic sand is fine and is good for fuges.

The only thing to do now is siphon or vacuum it out. I have talked to other that went too fine and that is what they eventually did because it never got better. The cloudiness yess, the blowing around no. Might as well do it now.