Sand mixes in water from simple swip of hand

Question
I just put in 50 pound of sand in my new 55 gallon salt water fish tank yesterday. I knew it will cloud up so i let it sit over night and now it is perfectly clear. the sand i used was 20 pounds of Carib Sea live sand and 30 pounds of Aragonite sand. They said that would be a great mixture to get helpfull bacteria started. Both instuctions said you could just put the sand in with no washing so that just what i did. The tank looks good but if you run your hand across the bottom or in the middle of the tank you will spirt up tons of sand (what looks like dust) and it will cloud the water to where you can not see anything in the tank. I want to fix this so i can get those tiny particals out but i just dont know how too!! any advice? My 29 gallon salt has 30 pounds of Aragonite sand it can be mixed up in the tank but it will never cloud the water.

Answer
Hi Jonathan,

With time the sand and aragonite will completely settle to the point where this clouding will completely disappear.

To help with the milky residue-like substances that the sand will continue to give off for a couple of weeks, the best advice I can give is to run a polyester type filter floss media, along with carbon. Again, eventually it will completely settle and will no longer give off this milky substance.

Regards,
Dave

All Experts - Editor

Orange County Reef Aquatics http://www.ocreef.com/aquarium_filter_media - Director