sand storm

[Moe36]

Alright so i added my sand (childrens play sand) substrate to the 20g today. Its not very fine; a bit course than 'beach sand'. I know its common to have a storm, but now theres a thin 1/4" layer of MUCH finer dust like film over top the 'normal' sand. Will this eventually find its way to the lower portion of the mix? Any way to remove this?

Also the sand released foam ontop the water layer, and isnt going away. The filter will take care of that; but anyone know what the foam is.

Thanks

 

[krap101]

you could prolly remove it with siphon. hold it high enough to get out the finer and keep the deeper bigger sand in there. u washed it out didnt u?. you probally did but making sure.

yeah the filter/time will get it clear. id say 1-2 weeks. itll settle on the bottom again and if something stirs it then itll be a lil cloudy. remember you need to poke the sand or get some sand sifters so the bacteria in the sand doesnt die. it wnot smell very nice and pretty much yeah.

 

[flipz]

Did you not rinse the sand before you put it in your tank?

And also, having your filter "take care of" the sand floating on top is really bad for the filter. In fact most people will put sponges over their filters when they have a sand substrate to prevent any actual sand from getting into the filter.

-brent

 

[Moe36]

Yes i rinsed it but probably not as good of a job as i could have done. It was pretty hard rinsing 15kg withought having your tub turn into a shore.

The foam is just that; foam. Not sand. I might just do a 90% water change tomorrow, and refill except not let the tank get cloudy. Theres a method of doing it with garbage bags; i should have tried it before.

damn :?

 

[flipz]

FYI here is a good method that will clean the sand a lot easier than trying to do it in the tub, and will get it a lot cleaner. Just for next time.

It comes in a 50 lb bag. I take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it half full of water then I pit half a bag of the filter sand in my bucket. I lean the bucket until the pool sand is about 2 inches from the rim of the bucket and with my water hose I swirl the water around in my bucket and keep my bucket leaned to the right. I don't have to put my hand in the bucket. The swirling of the hose stirs the sand up. It's cleaned in about 5 minutes, but I continue for a total of 25 minutes.

-brent

PS- you should still put a sponge over your filter to protect it.

 

[grimlock3000]

If you fail to rinse play sand right the first time, you are in for a long struggle to get it clear. Play sand is very dirty for fish tanks and needs to be rinsed repeatedly for good results with it. Once of my friends put poorly rinsed play sand in his 55g Cichlid tank about three months ago. He still has trouble with the water clouding up it he moves the sand. If you have fish in the tank, DO NOT do a 90% water change. If there are no fish in the tank, get a buck, and start rinsing that sand...