substrate question (added pics)
 

Okay, I've added 120 lbs of caribsea arag-alive to the new tank. The instructions on the bag say: "no rinsing, just dump it in" so thats what I did. Now three days later, my water is still not only cloudy, it looks DIRTY. I left the powerhead off for 30ish hours in hopes that it would settle faster, and it did....turn the powerhead on, and I'm back to square one in 20 seconds flat. The junk looks like its a coppery-brown color... Anyone have any ideas, or should I just empty it's contents into a ditch and throw the tank in the garage and forget about it because thats about the point I am at...

Are you running a protein skimmer? If not, get one.

No need to have the powerhead any where near the sand at this time.
In a week or so the most of the sand with start to bind as a result of bacteria and other activity.

The sump/protein skimmer are not set up yet. I have always waited until the sand/rock are in to do that. I've started two other tanks that way, and I have never seen anything like this...

Do you think the different colored-stuff on top is sand, or something else precipitated out of the water?

expired live sand??? just kidding it may be just a very fin sand and who knows how long its sat there give it time it should settle my 90 took 3 days to settle then i turned on the power heads and i messed it up again i even washed the sand my fault for getting sugar sand i guess.

It could be just dirty sand. Most reefs wash the sand to remove any impurities and get rid of the fine dusty stuff that takes a while to settle.
Or it could be the beginnings of diatoms which is normal.

Add some nice fresh live rock (not too much) and get a couple of scoops of live sand from a fellow reefer and everything will settle down.

This hobby requires lots of patience, but, the rewards are out of this world.

Update: Whatever it is on the sandbed looks light and flaky...asked caribsea customer support what it might be and they don't seem to know...

Add some live rock it really helps clear things up.

I do have a tiny bit of rock in there (20 lbs)...but I'm still not convinced the mystery substance is organic. I've decided to give it a few days and then I'f things are no better I will either try to bury it with good sand or try to siphon it out...

Other than salt did you add any other additive?
Flaky is not organic.

No, just RO water mixed with IO salt...and the water clarifier

what it looks like
 

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/...b/IMG_2183.jpg

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/...b/IMG_2181.jpg

What water clarifier?

As in some sort of flocculant?

Wouldn't you need a skimmer to make that method work?

a hob filter will work also to help when using a water clarifier.

did you mix saltwater or did you add salt directly to the tank.if you add alot of salt at once some will bond to your sand and will take longer to dissolve than if it were added in smaller amounts and dissolving before it hits the bed.

The packets that come with the sand...I believe it is Caribsea's own brand. I also tried seachem clarity.


I don't believe so...when that stuff works it will make a foam around the waterline...the clarifier seems to have no effect on this stuff. Running a skimmer isn't an option right now because the new setup doesn't have sump or skimmer yet, and the eurobracing doesn't allow for my to put on my HOB.


I dearly wish I could run my old fluval 404, but I can't get the POS to work. The hoses were cut for an old setup, and I can barely get the discharge pipe into the tank...the eurobracing doesnt allow for clamps..I tried for an hour to get it to prime and made a mess and had a minor meltdown in the process...

The best that Caribsea could figure is that there was "an excess of bacteria" in that batch of sand. They were really nice about it and sent me 140 lbs of new sand:biggrin: Except I already got the problem licked with a 100% water change while stirring vigorously...so now I have 120 lbs of sand without a purpose...oh what to do...maybe start another tank:lol: