cloudy water cleanup?

K

krakdaddie

another cloudy water question. ive searched around here and read some other posts...and dont like what ive read so far...tehee :).

bought an established 140g setup, brought it home and basically did a 30-40% water change when it got set back up. all the livestock went to a friends tank so i could watch for any possible cycle or other issues. tested everything regularly and no cycle kickoff so i started with some snails and stuff...then brought home a star and clown from their temp home. sand was starting to get some build-up so i wanted to get a goby to help sift and such so i went to the LFS and came home with this guy.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+31+213&pcatid=213
he does his job but makes a huge mess of the tank. when he gets to work, half the stuff falls back to the sandbed, but the other half stays suspended in the tank. it will settle back down overnight, but then goes to cloudy after an hour or so once the lights are on and he goes to work.

when i brought the tank home i simply let the original sandbed be and added the LR and water. there was the normal cloud for a day but it settled just fine. i guess the previous owner never had something that stirred up the sand so much. is it possible to set up some filter system to run for the next few days or weeks that could help capture this sand dust? i like him and would prefer to keep him around, but as cloudy as everything gets i would prefer not to have everything look so bad during the day. other friends ive seen w gobies dont get near as much of a storm as i have.

my thoughts are to run one of my spare pumps suspended in the center of the tank with some sort of filtration that could remove what the goby suspends or maybe i would stir up the top surface to help things along.

thanks in advance
-krak
 
If you have a sump you can try to run a filter sock, maybe like a 100 micron or so. You can also try a canister filter... I owned of those gobies several years ago. I had a small one in a 42 gallon hex. He would take mouths full of sand and toss them ont he rock in the very back!! After he literally emptied the front of the tank i decided to "not lose this one" and i dumped another 30lbs into the tank! That made 60lbs in a 42 hex. He did the same thing... I had a wall about 24" tall in the back of my tank that filled every hole in my tank with sand. I gave up tore the tank down and gave him to my buddy. Great sand sifter, but very messy... thats his nature, the lfs that you bough him from should've warned you about him. keep changing out you filter pads too!!
 
he is doing his job...i totally understand that...its just this sand seems to be very dusty as the previous owners probably never rinsed it. the goby doesn't make crazy piles anywhere...he acts just like i expected him to, just like I've seen them act in friends tanks. makes caves to sleep in at night and during the day goes around and sifts the tank.

where do i get a filter sock? i will try and post a pic of my sump, but the description is there are 2 inlets that drop into a chamber where a tray can be and i currently have a filer pad under each inlet in the tray that i rinse weekly(haven't tossed them yet, should i? they don't appear to be loose or worn, and when i clean them they have a ton of crap in them). then that chambers flows to a fuge that then flows over a wall in to the skimmer and return area.

i tossed some carbon in a bag and it is currently partially blocking the flow to the return/skimmer area and that didn't seem to make a dent in the clearing up the tank. i assume because the sediment never flows out of the tank...or a very small amount maybe (the fuge area is very clear so i think anything getting cycled is being captured by the blue/white filters on the inlet). the overflows have holes in them the entire height of the double walled chamber, so i don't really get any steady flow towards them with the dual overflows and the current provided by the 2 inlets with 2 additional circulation pumps in the tank.

I'm guessing i need to rig up something like serk did in this pic?
PB092207.med.JPG
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i have a spare mag 9 pump but would that be too strong? i also have a smaller pump that i use to mix saltwater, becket 400gph.

thanks again for your help
-krak
 
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