How long will it take for live sand to clear?

[M3AN ONE]

How long will it take for live sand to clear? I put 320 lbs in my 300 gallon and it has been about 12 hours and still has not settled.

 

[wontonflip]

Did you rinse it? It took my sand in my 125g a few days to clear up, and that's after I had rinsed the crap out of it.

 

[M3AN ONE]

They said not to rinse it because it was live sand.
Should I run a skimmer or my mp60 power heads?

 

[wontonflip]

Ah, yeah, if it's live don't rinse. You can run a skimmer. It should help clear it up. But like I said, I just left mine alone, and it cleared up on its own.

 

[Northstar24]

It could easily take several days. I used the tiny grain stuff in my 180, and it took almost a week for the water to fully clear. Does this setup have a sump? If it does, running a filter sock will help pull some of it out, but you'll need to rinse it very regularly

 

[d2mini]

Yeah, give it several days. You'll notice it getting clearer and clearer.
You might even end up with a bacteria bloom that leaves the water milky for several more days.

 

[M3AN ONE]

will do

 

[cvcdrk]

To speed the process up you could hook up an old HOB or canister filter with just carbon for a few days. It helps clear my tank up quicker.

 

[M3AN ONE]

The sand is 70% settled and it looks like I got more than I bargained for I only wanted 1 inch but I have more like 2-3. I put my live rock in first but now it looks like I have substantially less rock then before. Is there a draw back to a deep sand bed? I only put 320 lbs and its a 300 gallon tank I can't see how I messed this up. And the material of the rocks looked more course but when I turned the mp 60s all the way up I see very slight dime size or smaller sand tornados.should I pull the rocks out and stack them on top of the sand?

 

[wontonflip]

A true deep sand bed is like 10". But in any case, either keep it stirred to keep the gunk from building up, or try not to stir it up too much once it's cycled. When you're cycled, add a ton of nessarius. And maybe eventually get a sand sifting star once your tank's all settled.

 

[Civicdemon]

+1 on the nassariouse, Also might want to get a couple Conches they work wonders, i have 4 in my 125 gl and i love them. 2 are large and the other 2 are fairly smaller but they do work.