sand question

[thanew]

ok, just changed my substrate to sand.. how long until the cloudiness is gone? I washed the sand until the water was clear so Im guessing a couple more hours...

thanks,

-thane

 

[lmw80]

If you washed the sand well, it shouldn't take too long. A little longer for the finer grained sands.

 

[Concubine]

what kind of sand are you using? if you washed it out well enough, it should really only take a minute or two for the sand to settle.

 

[Cafe Jeff]

It took me weeks.
But then I slacked off when it came to washing it.
2nd time around, it only took a couple of days. But then it took two days of rinsing. YMMV. Jeff
A few minutes? Hah!

 

[thanew]

i bought some playsand from HD washed it for like two hours.. water was running clear for awhile..

-thane

 

[Cafe Jeff]

I went to Home Hardware. Home Despot was all out.
Therein I made a mistake.
Jeff

 

[jibboo]

I have pool sand in mine and we washed it out for say 5 minutes every half bucket full. We had the sand in the tank in about 30 minutes of washing and because the pool sand is a heavier sand (ie: my gravel vacuum sucks it up in the vac part, it doesn't get sucked down the tube), It cleared up very quickly (under an hour). I think a big part of sand is how fine/coarse is it, and how clear/dirty is it to begin with. So, my experience has been that pool sand was very easy to add and maintain. When I do 25% water changes, my tank is crystal clear within an hour I'd say.

 

[severum mama]

Jibboo, I did exactly the same thing with my pool filter sand and I had no cloudiness at all in my tank. Thane, when you bought your sand from HD did you make sure it is not treated with any chemicals? I have heard of that happening and poisoning people's fish.

 

[thanew]

yeah.. i made sure it wasn't treated with any chemicals before and even asked the people there if they knew of any chemicals it was treated with and luckily they said no.. so

-thane

 

[Fishyfanatic]

It took a couple hours for ours to be clear. Then again, we had sand floating at the top of the tank that took days before it finally all sank.

 

[Cafe Jeff]

I had a Perfect Storm in my aquarium.
You guys did well. Jeff

 

[severum mama]

Yeah, I figured you were probably way ahead of me there but thought I'd ask anyway. If you don't like your sand why not get some pool filter sand? Mine was $9 for 50 lbs at a pool supply store. It seems to have larger grains than play sand and that would help with cloudiness for sure.