Another sand question.

[thanew]

Ok its been about a week since I've added some ~60lbs or so of aragonite sand in my 55gal tank. I have a pleco in there that loves to kick up sand but has since stopped once hes created a nice natural terrain in there (apparently he didn't like my design).. well anyways to make a long story short the tank is still a tad cloudy.. I was wondering if this is normal, because when I added the sand to my 10gal (granted its only a 10 gal -- with a penguin 170) it was clear within 15 hours or so.

ok so here are the specs on my tank.. I've already said its a 55gal.. it has a Aqua-Tech 30-60 (I have an emperor 400 on the way from bigals) and I moved my 170 over from my 10gal to help since the aqua-tech 30-60 doesn't really seem to be doing a great job. It has cleared up but then today it just seemed to get a bit cloudier

I was wondering if maybe if the aqua-tech was sucking up some sand and just respitting it back out so I was going to make a foam sock to put over the intake in hopes of maybe combatting this problem (if that is the problem)?

Any suggestions?

TIA
-thane

 

[Fishyfanatic]

You will definitely need to put something over the intake tube to prevent the sand from entering your filtration unit. Have you changed filter pads since the sand was put in the tank? Ours took about a week to be perfectly crystal clear. I try not to use chemicals in my tanks unless it is absolutely necessary, but we used Clarity and it cleared up the next morning.

 

[BASSNMAN]

You might want to shorten the pick up tube so it's not so close to the bottom.

 

[thanew]

oo I have shortened the tube.. it is probably at the shortest length it could be.. and I have changed the filter pads so far ..

I mean its not cloudy cloudy but its just a lingering cloudiness, maybe its just bacteria blooming...

oh yeah and about putting something over the intake.. would any old foam work? like say the foam for aqua clear or would I need something else?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Anything that goes over the intake tube is going to be hand made. I wish they would sell something at the lfs that was made specifically for intake tubes. We used a MarineLand Sponge: Reverse Flow Pre-Filter. It is a replacement part for canister filters. The lfs said that it's pretty much hit or miss to find one of these but they can be specially ordered. We cut the sponge in half and pushed the intake tube through the hole in the middle. Then to make sure the fish didn't try to pull it off or mess with it, we put a media filter bag around it. They are the disposable bags. This has worked great and the sand isn't going to be getting through the filter.

Just shortening the intake tube is not going to make it impossible for sand to get into the filter. I'm not sure how expensive your filtration system is because we have always used a Cascade Canister, but by spending $5 you can be almost certain that the filtration unit won't burn up. It never hurts to be careful.

 

[thanew]

well this one came with the tank... i'm not really too worried about it because I have the 400 on the waybut I think i will go pick up the foam later today or maybe tomorrow... I was looking at it today but wasn't really too sure..

thanks a lot

-thane

 

[czcz]

The collection of shapes in your tank is very interesting!

 

[thanew]

i think that filter was a piece of crap honestly... i just took it out of the tank i'm going to put it up on ebay or aquabid.. i put foam over it.. still the same thing... put a pantyhose over it... still the same thing.. yes i know you are supposed to have patience but with this filter i just lost it.


are there just filters that do not work well with sand ?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I don't know of any that don't work with sand, then again we have a Penn Plex Cascade 1000 Canister in ours.

 

[thanew]

well thats next on my list... a canister filter that is.. im a bit of an impulse buyer.. so we'll see what happens!

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I highly reccommend the canister filtration systems. They cost more, but they can be set up so it is completly unnoticed.