Cloudy water after adding sand?

KPainter

I'm wondering how long it takes for the water to clear after setting up a sand substrate tank?

I washed (and washed and washed) the sand Tuesday, then got the tank (36 gallon bowfront) and set it up Wednesday night with the sand, plants and water. I thought by this morning the water would have cleared but it's still cloudy.

It's a 36 gallon, but I'm running an Aqueon 55/75 filter.

GwenInNM

Assuming you did wash the sand enough, it will clear probably in about 3 days, maybe 4 at the most. Good luck. Be patient. It will get there :)

Gwen

Varkolak

I used pool filter sand and it never clouded so I cant say from personal experience but from what I've read it can take anywhere from 1-3 days depending on the sand, shouldn't take too long though if you rinsed it well, try doing a large water change to speed it up

KPainter

I used playsand and I washed the crap out of it. Literally. ;o) The water was almost clear when I was done, so I thought I'd gotten it pretty clean. I'll try to be patient. That's sooo not my style, though. LOL

Fishguy2727

This is just one of the reasons I only use Estes Marine Sand, no cleaning at all.

CinBos

To be honest. I dont even clean my pool filter sand. Yes when adding it, the water does get a bit cloudy, but aftera day or 2, its back to normal. I typically only add the sand when I syphon some out accidentally from cleaning.

GwenInNM

I'll stick with the 3-4 days if you washed it until it was "pretty clean" The filter will do the rest. I washed mine until it was crystal clean and had no problems at all. Then the next time around, I didn't go that far, figuring maybe I did wash too much the first time. My water was cloudy for 4 days, maybe even 5. If you're that impatient, you can buy Purigen by Seachem. It's apparently amazing at clearing cloudy water instantly. You need to put it in your filter. It's very small, so you need a mesh bag. It would replace carbon, if you use that.

Gwen

Byron

Also recognize that there are other reasons for cloudiness; and frequently with a new substrate it is a bacterial bloom, because the substrate is "clean" and it takes time for organics to accumulate and bacteria to colonize, and while this is going on the bacteria appear in the water to deal with the invisible organics in dechlorinated water from the tap. So it may not be the sand.

Fishguy2727

If you have adequate filtration the removal of the old substrate should have absolutely no impact on your bacteria since they will be in the filter, not the substrate. Not to mention that the bacteria that cause cloudy water are NOT the nitrifying bacteria that consume ammonia and nitrite. The bacteria that cause cloudy water are heterotrophic bacteria that live in the water column (not in filter, on substrate, etc.) and consume food, feces, etc. and produce ammonia. This bacteria would not be impacted by a filter or substrate change.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is not a chicken. If you just added sand and the water is cloudy it is dirty sand.

KPainter

I just did a water test and got zeros across the board (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite) but the tank is planted, too.