Look at my cloudy tank?

[Pierce09]

What can i do to help clear this tank up? It's been up for 3 days and has RO/DI water... 55 gallons of it and has a sand bed in the bottom. Nothing else other than that what can i do to clear it up? I have an old whisper filter on it for now in hopes that it would polish the water. but any other ideas would be great. The whisper is on the left the thing on the right is a CPR back pack. Thanks... (remember the whisper is just on there for clearing up the water hopefully i won't use it after the water is crystal)
Thanks in advance

 

[shalegac]

I would just wait. My tank looked like that for a few days when first started. Remember time and gravity will be your friend. The filter should be fine for now. How deep is your sand bed? It looked quite low. I could be wrong though. But personaly I belive it should be about 4 inches. If you need to add more do it now or you'll be waiting alot longer.

 

[AbelaJohnB]

Yeah, just let it sit for awhile. You could always shut off the pumps and let everything just settle, rather than having the pumps continue to stir things up, that is, if your pumps are on. Oh, and don't expect your BAK-BAK to be doing much right now Strange it hasn't settled in 3 days.... try turning the pumps off... (if they are on) Maybe things will settle down to the bottom, than you can always suck the finner stuff up with a drain tube, if you care too.


just my $0.02 cents

 

[fishfarmer]

Give it a week or so to really clear.

 

[Pierce09]

Possbily the addition of carbon to the whisper filter?

 

[stlfishguy]

Did you put in the larger type of aragonite without rinsing it or is this an oolithic sand?

Either way, it will clear up eventually if it isn't stirred up too much. Maybe, you should turn off the filter for a couple of days to let everything settle and then turn the filter back on.

 

[Pierce09]

tlfishguy":2ngdtnx5" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Did you put in the larger type of aragonite without rinsing it or is this an oolithic sand?

Either way, it will clear up eventually if it isn't stirred up too much. Maybe, you should turn off the filter for a couple of days to let everything settle and then turn the filter back on.

It's aragamax sand. I did not rinse it.

 

[monkeyboy]

Possbily the addition of carbon to the whisper filter?

Carbon can't take out calcium carbonate/sand that's floating around the tank. If it did then we'd all be introuble!!!

It takes some time to settle out but even the, but just farting in the room can stir it up again. Your best bet it to go out and grab some really thick (felt-like) filter material (like pure-flo) to put in the whisper. With so much sand dust floating around in the tank, you're likely to have to clean it > hourly to prevent it clogging up. The more you get out, the less you have to deal with coating everything. Good luck!

BTW, aren't you going to add any more dry sand to that or is the rest going to be live? Your sandbed appears shallow, maybe you're waiting on a whole bunch of LS. You want a bare minimum of 3.5" for a good functioning DLSB.

 

[AgentSPS]

Don't try and filter out the fine sediment floating around...THATS THE GOOD STUFF. As people said before...stop all water movement. Put a sheet over it (ignore it) for a week or so. All of the suspended particles will settle to the bottom and start to somewhat solidify (like clay). The longer you leave it alone the better it will bind together. I would avoid adding larger particulate if you can. The finer the better. I do, however, understand that shallower tanks will never work with fine sand. Next week I will be going what you are going through with a 24 inch deep tank so we will see.