Marco Sand

[welldigger]

Has anyone else used Marco's sand in their tanks? I have his rock and sand in my 90 and am very happy with the rocks. After setting the system up in March, the rock is full of corraline algae and looks great. The sand, on the other hand is giving me fits! It is so fine that it actually becomes suspended in the water column. After thinking it was microbubbles for 8 months, i finally trapped some and after looking closley at it, found it to be sand particles. Is there anything I can do to stop it from floating around the tank? I'm ready to vacuum it all out and start over with larger grain sand because it looks like hell.
Currently there is an inch and a half sand bed that has clearly livened up in the 8 months it's been running.
Any suggestions?

[VitalApparatus]

OMG I was hoping it would get clumpy with life or schmutz or something after awhile...I just set mine up a week ago and I just now have clear water...
no answers for ya but thanks for asking the question!

[VitalApparatus]

let me be more clear,I was assuming the fine sand would not cause such troubles after a month or so in the tank.

[Marco67]

Welldigger,
Did you rinse the sand?

We have tons and tons of this in use without issue and I have personally set up a half dozen tanks with it. When rinsed and seeded properly I've seen no floating particulates like you describe.
If it wasn't rinsed going in I'd probably run a filter sock on the system for a week or so to pull it out the dust/ xx fines.

Thanks
Marc

[VitalApparatus]

I rinsed mine out (maybe not well enough),it seems to be fine unless I disturb it too much but it clears up quick.I can only assume thats normal.And like I said I think algea and other things will eventually solve the problem.
I always thought the bottom of the sea did the same thing.

[welldigger]

Thanks for the reply Marc. I did rinse it. To the point where I lost about ten to fifteen percent of the material out of the overflow of the bucket. I have a picture in the reef discusion forum here. I'm trying a HOT 250 filter to try and clean it up over the weekend. I'll keep you posted on how it works. Like I said, the rocks are awesome! So is the sand I'm just gonna have to find a way to get the water to clear up. I am in no way saying this isn't a great product of Marco's. I just didn't do something right here and I need to find a solution.

[VitalApparatus]

I talked to an LFS guy today who says most all sands behave that way and the best thing to do is not rinse it all all cause it just causes more grains to get small.

Like I said I think its the same way in the ocean...I was gonna put a sock on the return but decided against it.