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moonp13
06/12/2011, 04:53 PM
so, i rinsed the dry sand for my new 20 gallon mangrove tank. i thought i got rid of a lot of the fine sand but soon as i put it in the tank, it clouded really bad. Its been two days and the tank has finally started to clear up, but there is fine sand covering things. when i added some LR the tank got cloudy again. Is this going to keep happening with disturbance to the tank or will bacteria bind to it, and make it to where it isnt so fine anymore? also, should i be running my powerhead yet, or should i wait on the sand to quit being retarded.

jarrett
06/12/2011, 04:56 PM
i.m.e. eventually the dust will become bound by something and settle. it is rather anoying for the first couple weeks but it will pass. as far as the pwerhead id run it anyway just try not to point it directly at the sand bed for a while

aleonn
06/12/2011, 05:40 PM
It'll take a few weeks for the biofilm to settle down the fine sand. You can run a filter sock to collect the particles causing some of the cloudiness until then, or even run carbon.

BigCity
06/12/2011, 06:01 PM
Yeah, give it some time I set mine up about a month ago with some fine sand and mine was cloudy for over a week before it finally started settling. Now when it gets stirred it settles out pretty quickly. When it was still fresh I added some filter pads in the sump baffle section to try to pull some particles out quicker and that really helped out.