How to...

[James From Cali]

How do you add sand to a tank that has fish in it(of course by taking them out *laughingc ) and keeping it from being to murky for them??

 

[mattistat]

MURKY? uhhh it will be MURKEYnomatter how mutch you wash it but it will clear up and not harm the fish.

 

[James From Cali]

Okay. After adding th sand should I wait like 10 minutes before adding the cons?

 

[Mahamotorworks]

It will be cloudy no matter what. I would rinse it first anyway. I would get a Power head with a sponge quick filter to get it clear faster.

MAHA

 

[mattistat]

well if you *ehhh forgot what the word is but clean it i think ... brain fart (he got it rince^)) but they should be fine even without wating if the sand is fine...

 

[James From Cali]

Ooh. My mom will buy me the sand but wont buy me a powerhead.(Read the What Would You Do? thread to know why). I seriously envy most of you!!! lol

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Rinse the crap out of it, and if it still really clouds up your tank when you add it do a 100% water change, and it'll fill back up clear

 

[angelmom]

Rinse the crap out of it, and if it still really clouds up your tank when you add it do a 100% water change, and it'll fill back up clear

I have 2 tanks with sand in them. The first one was a little cloudy but not a lot because we rinsed the heck out of it. I tired the pillow case method once but it didn't work as well as taking it out side in a 20g storage tub and running the hose through it for about 20 minutes or so. You have to stick the hose down into the sand and stir it all up while your rinsing it. That seems to work best.

Then as Caps said if your water is cloudy as your filling it drain the water not the sand and refill it. That worked awesome and my tank doesn't get cloudy when I do water changes.

 

[usacutie81]

Yeah, that's what I was going to recommend. After adding the sand just do a largish water change and then you'll be putting clean water back in. It'll still be a little bit cloudy, but not so bad that the filter won't be able to handle it in a few hours.

 

[James From Cali]

Okay well I just encountered the problem with sand. No where sells it anymore around me. Im going to do graveel(black) but what would you suggest on a cave for the convicts? Im thinking terra cotta pot but not sure!

 

[mattistat]

that ould work but geting cool rocks and stacking them looks cool too it depends on what you like.

 

[James From Cali]

Im kinda nervous about the stacking the rocks. I dont want to have an accident in the tank!

 

[usacutie81]

Just stack the rocks OUTSIDE the tank first, see where you want to place them, then glue them together. I don't know what glue you use, I'm sure someone on MFT can tell you, especially the SW guys. That way the rocks won't slide off each other and the cichlids won't knock them down.

 

[James From Cali]

I would say I use Hot Glue but I dont think thats safe! Silicone around here have cheap tubes. You squeeze it out and it breaks all over you lol. I had bad experience!

 

[usacutie81]

A lot of the SW guys and gals glue their LR together all the time, somehow. So I'm sure they'd know.

 

[James From Cali]

Salties chime in pls lol.

 

[mattistat]

well i got thesecool rocks frome hawii and the like lock in place and the havent oved unless i did so

 

[James From Cali]

I cant find any kind of rock around for my price! Those around here are expensive!

 

[mattistat]

whats the price 2 dollars a pound here.

 

[James From Cali]

Well here they have a package of it for a 10g and its $30! Way out of my price range!