Cloudy tank

Hi. I am attempting to start a Deep Sand Bed Salt Water Aquarium. As
recommened on more then one web site I obtained play sand from home
depot and put in my empty aquarium. Then I put in the power heads,
filled the tank with water, added salt, and turned the power heads on.
This has been about 2 week ago and I can not get the the sand to
settle. The tanks IS VERY CLOUDY..more like muddy. I have found if I
turn the powerheads off the tank starts to clear a bit but as soon as I
turm them back on the tank gets cloudy again. The power heads are not
pointing towards the sand. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, or
how I can clear this up?

Thanks in advance

"Hammer" wrote in message oups.com...
Hi. I am attempting to start a Deep Sand Bed Salt Water Aquarium. As
recommened on more then one web site I obtained play sand from home
depot and put in my empty aquarium. Then I put in the power heads,
filled the tank with water, added salt, and turned the power heads on.
This has been about 2 week ago and I can not get the the sand to
settle. The tanks IS VERY CLOUDY..more like muddy. I have found if I
turn the powerheads off the tank starts to clear a bit but as soon as I
turm them back on the tank gets cloudy again. The power heads are not
pointing towards the sand. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, or
how I can clear this up?

You need bacteria activity to glue sand particles into bigger chunks.
Time to add live biological material. Start cycling the tank with live rock.

gave up on the play sand. It just looked like mud in the tank after
two weeks. I went to the my LFS and got some fine sand for a base with

live sand on top. By the way the man at the fish store told me play
sand would work IF you had the right sand. He told me that their is
only one brand you can use - Southland - which is only available on the

East coast. Well living in Washington state that isn't much help to me.

Thanks for everyones help. Will try to keep you all posted on how
everything worked out

"Hammer" wrote in message oups.com...
By the way the man at the fish store told me play sand would
work IF you had the right sand. He told me that their is
only one brand you can use - Southland - which is only available
on the East coast. Well living in Washington state that isn't much help to me.

I live in the Chicago area and got the play sand in Home Depot.
It was labeled as tropical coral sand. It was purified/sanitized, dried
and packed into the bag. This is the sand removed from the ocean.
There is nothing special in the "southland" sand making it more
suitable for a reef tank than any other fine grade sand on the market.
Read dr Shimek articles about Deep Sand Beds on www.reefcentral.com

It will look like mud and this is good thing. Until you will add heavy
live biological load to the tank in the form of live rock, fish, corals
you will not have proper bacteria activity and the sand particles
will stay loose. This is bacteria which makes sand particles stick
together and sand in mature reef tank will not be so muddy...

BTW - some people pay very big bucks for actual mud to be put
into their reef tanks... It is called "Miracle Mud" and it is great
for bentic life inhabiting bottom of your reef tank... Look it up on
www.google.com if you do not believe me :-)

You made the right choice, Hammer. Southdown sand is cheap, but even
people that use that aren't always happy. The stuff at the LFS costs
more, but you never hear complaints about it later.

Marc


Hammer wrote:
gave up on the play sand. It just looked like mud in the tank after
two weeks. I went to the my LFS and got some fine sand for a base with

live sand on top. By the way the man at the fish store told me play
sand would work IF you had the right sand. He told me that their is
only one brand you can use - Southland - which is only available on the

East coast. Well living in Washington state that isn't much help to me.

Thanks for everyones help. Will try to keep you all posted on how
everything worked out


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FYI: I used silica play sand. Works great...
Been up for 1 year.

"TheRock" wrote in message news:7qRif.567$gi3.546@trndny09...
FYI: I used silica play sand. Works great...
Been up for 1 year.

And you do not have problems with too high silicates ?
No brown algae ? I know people using Hi-Si filters
to get rid of silica from the tap water and your usage
of silica sand must elevate silicates in the water... :-)