getting rid of sand "dust"

[mp3z24]

i tried to wash my sand as best i could, but i never really got the water to clear up while rinsing... so, after i put the sand in the tank, put down the base rock, and started filling the tank w/ ro/di i got a lot of fine particles in the water (i was expecting that)

once they all settled out (about 2 days of still water) i have a thin layer (about 1/16") of "dust" covering my rock and sand. personally i think it looks terrible. can i use a cheap filter, like a penguin or an aquaclear, to pull all the fine particles out of the water? i really want to see the sand and not the dust layer.

~mike

 

[BDAWG]

Same thing happened to me. I used a power head to blow the dust off the rocks and hooked up some reef carbon to my filter. The next day my tank was clear except for a thin layer of dust on the suface of the water.

 

[mp3z24]

did all the "dust" collect in the filter? and did you have to empty it out frequently?

~mike

 

[BDAWG]

Yeah most of the dust collected in the filter media the first day. The second day the tank was, for the most part, clear. When I took the filters out to rinse them it unloaded a whole lot of dust back into the tank. So I rinsed the filters and put some reef carbon in some holders that came with my filter system. It cleared up the next day, and I haven't rinsed the filter since then. That was last Satuday and now the water is crystal clear.

 

[copi]

i have a thin layer (about 1/16") of "dust" covering my rock and sand. personally i think it looks terrible.

You can use a powerhead on a low setting to blast the dust off of your rock. The dust layer will get mixed in with the larger particles in your sand bed once some hermits or snails start crawling around. The smaller substrate particles ("dust") are a good thing to have mixed in with the larger sand particles.

 

[Jonathan G.]

it will settle as the fine particles collect in the filter, most of the particles will work their way below the bigger sand particles and soon after u start your setup and get live rock in it or start your cycle it wont blow around and kick up dust as easily. i had 2 maxi jet 900's and a penguin 330 hooked up while i had everything setting up. i took the bio wheel but left the carbon filter in.