Dusty water

Gordonious · 02-19-2007, 04:49 PM

I've been trying to get the dust to settle for a while now with setting up my new 75g and it just isn't clearing up as quickly as I would like. Is dilution the only solution to this pollution?

What I've done to try to conserve water is to put the sand in a tank with lots of water and then stirred it up to get the lose stuff up in the water column. Let it settle for a minute and then siphoned the water out into a bucket. I put the bucket on some cinder blocks and let it settle for a couple of hours then siphoned the clear water back into the tank and flushed the 1/2" of water or so at the bottom that was super murky. This is time consuming though.

Would setting up a skimmer prove useful? I haven’t been able to fill the tank high enough to set up a sump or any HOB so that hasn't been done yet, but perhaps I will attach one tonight. I know a lot of people get massive amounts of skimage when they first set up there tanks, but know this also could be due to curing LR and funky water parameters.

What are your ideas?

Jon

Ocelot199 · 02-19-2007, 06:01 PM

What do you mean by dust? Like, the murky nastiness that makes it so you can barely see through to the back of the tank? Set up your skimmer, it'll fix it really fast. It took me a week to figure that out... my startup was like yours, where I couldn't fill it all the way at first and couldn't use the skimmer. It sucks :P

Gordonious · 02-19-2007, 06:44 PM

The really fine sand/aragonite I suppose is what it is. The stuff probably mostly created by the grains rubbing against each other during shipping. The stuff almost all of us have to deal with when we first set up our tanks. sigh hopefully I can fill my tank enough tonight to get a skimmer set up.

Jon

gwen_o_lyn · 02-19-2007, 08:26 PM

It can take weeks for the sand to settle. Give it time. Don't do like I did and empty the tank.

Ocelot199 · 02-19-2007, 08:27 PM

Oh, that'll just settle out eventually. If you keep messing with the sand bed and the water it'll prolly take longer. My tank took a long time for everything to settle too.

cmay · 02-20-2007, 02:56 PM

Hi,

I've just started my first marine tank (3 months in), if I remember rightly it took a good week for my tank to settle (LS).

I used a very low powered power head to continue to circulate my salt mix.

I thought i had done something wrong

Gordonious · 02-20-2007, 03:25 PM

Nah it is typical and anoying. I was hoping someone had found a way to make this stuff settle.

I still havn't been able to get any additional water so I havn't filled it enough to add a skimmer.

Jon

**CarmieJo** · 02-25-2007, 07:29 PM

A canister filter might be able to take some of the dust out. However, a filter cartridge fine enough to remove the dust would probably clog up really fast.

Gordonious · 02-25-2007, 10:11 PM

A canaster filter is one little add on that I never thought approriate for a marine system and never bought one. They had them in the lab I worked in one summer and they were such a pain in the @$$. They would probably work pretty well in this case since the water isn't high enough, but not worth buying. Thanks for the idea though.

The water is finally clearing up after many water changes and a great deal of time. I suppose those canster filters as well HOB filters with simular media would work well in most cases when dealing with this stuff. I just had an odd situation.

Jon

**CarmieJo** · 02-25-2007, 10:43 PM

Jon,

I have an old canister that I use on occasion. They are nice for water polishing. Will I buy another if it dies? Probably, but I won't be in a big rush.

***Rob*** · 02-26-2007, 07:07 PM

canisters are ok if they are used for occasional fine filtration and polishing. like running carbon, or a small micron filter.
generally speaking you dont want it as a main filter of a reef tank unless proper precautions are made