Cottonwood 125 Reef tank build

Ok, I'm having a problem with my tank. I added my sand that I got from Marcorocks. I didn't rinse it as I read some people say if you don't rinse it you just may have to wait an extra couple days for it to clear. However I have some very fine powdery stuff in my tank, and it will settle after 2 days, but as soon as I even start blowing some off my rocks with a power head the whole tank is cloudy for another 2 days. I have been doing this every 2 days and it isn't getting any better. I have now added 2 hob filters with the filter media in to see if that will filter out some of this lighter than sand junk. Any ideas on how I can get rid of the stuff? It leaves a ring of scum stuff along the top of the water as well...I got 120lbs of sand and figured a few extra days of cloudy would be better than taking the time to rinse all of that bucket by bucket....now I am regretting that decision.
 
I just have that white cloth stuff that you put the carbon in...don't know how much its helping, just started it like 30 mins ago. Would it be ok to run carbon right now as well? Or leave the carbon out?
 
Just run the filter pad without any carbon. The carbon would get clogged up fast and would end up being useless. You can rinse out the filter pads as often as you want....even every few hours.
 
I have one that has carbon in it the other doesn't...I'm going to rinse them every few hours and hope this clears up soon. So dumb...
 
Its like a chalky white substance....and the filter media doesn't seem to catch any of it. When I wipe if off the glass its like a pasty scum stuff almost. Any ideas? I guess I can do a bunch of water changes...but if this stuff is all in my sand then it wont clear up unless maybe I can treat it somehow....I don't know. Every time I touch the sand at all it all goes cloudy and I can see along the top of the sand this white layer. It will mostly settle in a couple days, but even a fish kicking up a bit of sand would make it all cloudy again if I had fish. This sucks!
 
I don't think it will stick around. New sand usually leaves a film like that on everything, for some reason. I don't think you need to switch out anything. Just keep running the filters and relax for a few days. ;)
 
OK...Its been like this for a week and is getting me nervous...I thought I'd doomed my tank from the start. I hope it goes away soon so I can at least look at the rock in there. It looks like crap like this.
 
I have been running the HOB filters and when I take them out its like milk is coming off of them with all the fine crap that is in the water...I have the power heads on to keep it stirred up and collecting stuff in the filters, but I'm thinking this might take a couple weeks! It isn't clearing up very much or very fast.

I also have a bunch of aptasia on my live rocks. So a couple questions on that. I cant see into my tank because of the "stuff" in it to use the aptasia x I got. So if my cycle finishes and my water test's ok for a few days, BUT it is still cloudy. Would it be ok to put some CUC in it, with a couple peppermint shrimp to hopefully eat the aptasia? Also I have just been leaving the lights off...will that kill the aptasia as well?

I am so mad that I didn't take an extra hour and rinse all that sand! Would have been worth it to get rid of all this crap!
 
It's okay to add animals when it's cloudy. It won't hurt them.

Cutting the lights will not kill the aiptasia. They seem to survive darkness just fine. :(
 
Ok thanks, I didn't want to add them if it wasn't good, but also thought while its clearing up they could be eating the aptasia for me as well, and maybe when its cleared they will have eaten most of it. That's the hope anyway.
 
Tested my water tonight and everything was spot on. So other than the cloudiness issue everything is good. What would be a good CUC to start with? I need to get a couple peppermint shrimp to eat the aptasia I have so I thought I would order some snails and hermits as well...but I don't know the difference between them. I have some red hair algae that was on my LR when I got it, along with the aptasia. There are a few brittle stars and that's it. What should I order with my pep shrimp?
 
Turbo snails are like mega algae eating machines, went from a backwall completely covered to not a trace in about a week with 2 in a 40g. Plus I think they are pretty neat to see running around.

Also a good pickup would be some Nassarius(sp) snails to keep the sandbed stirred up nicely.
 
I like the Nass, nerite, and cerith snails personally. And you can't go wrong with a few hermits too
 
Turbos will cover alot of area for you. So that's a big + but they can also starve to death if there's not enough algae for them to eat, +1 on the Nassarius snails. they bury themselves in the sand, keep it mixed up pretty good, you'll only see the Nassarius when you feed they'll pop out of the sand.
 
Ok cool...I was looking on line at buying some but I didn't know what snails did what, who ate algae or cleaned sand or what...and whats the difference between red leg and blue leg hermits?
 
Man,i never even noticed this thread before....looking good
red leg crabs are said to be more aggressive and meaner,but i never noticed a big difference
 

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