Added sand and water is milky? Any Ideas?

[CountZero]

I added 350 pounds (enough for a 5-6" sand bed) of southdown sand today to the reef tank I am setting up and the water turned really milky.

How long will this last?

Can I put the Live rock that showed up this afternoon(I think it will be ok till saturday as it was shipped overnight) in while the water is so cloudy or would it be best if I waited till the water cleared up?

Is there any way to expedite this process?

I have two power heads in there to circulate the water around, Will this help or hinder the process?

Thanks so much in advance!
Zero

 

[fishfreek]

So you added the sand to the water or the water to the sand?

Southdown is made up of some very small sand grains so this is common. The above queation as to what was added to what will kind of give me an idea as to the degree of cloudy and suspended particles.

The sand will take upward to 4 days to totally clear. You can run your skimmer thru this period to remove the super fine particles. I would add the rock when you get it. It might be a bit hard to see how your placing it but when the sand setles you can move it around again.

 

[CountZero]

I added the sand to the water.

 

[fishfreek]

Ya that will cloud up any tank. As long as you dont have a PH blowing down toward the sand every thing should start to settle out over the next few days.

 

[Sam]

I would suggest that you shut down the powerheads for now to give the particles a chance to settle down.