[Danakor]

so yeah i bought some live sand online, 30 lbs cost me about $25. well I removed my LR and my little guys, and my previous substrate and such, and me being the idiot/noob that i am i just dumped the sand into the aquarium. So now i have nice cloudy water...any ideas/ comments on how to fix it faster, or should i just wait days until the sand settles?

So far I have turned off my filter allowing the water to become stagnant to stop any more sand from being stirred up. but thats about all i can think of doing.

[dfurbee]

Did you put your rocks in before you put in your sand?

[Danakor]

no I removed all living things from my tank and then put the sand in, they are currently sitting in a 5 gallon bucket with a power head and a mini filter.

[glampka]

You want the rock to go in 1st so it is stable. If you get burrowing fish, there's a good chance the rock will come tumbling down the way you have it now.. The sand dust is extremely fine. You'd need a really fine filter to pull it out & the filter would probably clog in no time. Sit back, have a beer & watch it clear up - about as exciting as watching concrete cure!!! Probably will take some time. :-)

[pogodzib]

Having rock or other items that were previously in your tank and already have bacteria on it will help the small sand particles to clump to get the cloudiness out of the water faster. A hang-on power filter w/ filter fabric or foam usually will get rid of the cloudiness within a day. Skimmers or other means of filtration usually don't really help at all though.

[Danakor]

I am currently running my hang on filter on it running in high flow through just the physical filter part as i think the cvharcoal would be wasted(physicla part being the little add on of black foam that sits infront of the charcoal). not sure I understand about the rocks and such helping with the sand cloudiness but hey i'll give it a try.