Limestone question. More Questions?

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pendergrass

I rinsed the limestone for hours befor putting it into the tank.LIKE 5 HOURS. That was sunday morning. This morning it has still not settled. Does it usally take this long to settle?
 
It took about 3 days for mine to clear up completely as I recall. Just have patience and change/rinse your filter or filter sock or pad in your sump every now and then until it's clear. Also make sure you don't have any power heads or nozzles pointing toward the sand.
 
It can take awhile...

Be careful scraping the glass for awhile too, use one of those sponge head scrapers until you get all the grains off the glass to avoid scratching.

Did you drop it into an existing setup or is this a new one? If its a new one, see about getting a cup or so of sand from an existing tank. The bacteria in that will help populate your new sand and that helps it settle faster.
 
I will do that. It is a new tank. I got some of that caribea live sand from pteorama because i let my old sand go to long and dried up due to the move into the new house.
 
That sounds exactly like mine (I added the Caribsea too). When I would move anything in my tank it would cloud up like crazy and I was moving rock a lot in the beginning. Over time it took less and less time to clear up.

The bit from DaveJ about scraping the glass is some fine advice too. I wish someone had mentioned that to me before I got happy with the Mag Float. In hind sight I should have used the foam brush to sweep the dust off the glass before ever using the Mag Float. I have a few little scratches that irritate me now. :-/
 
I too spent about 4 hours and 3,000 gallons of water rinsing 2 bags of limestone. There has got to be a better way! I'm thinking of building a sort of sluice, that ought to export the lighter stuff faster than the bucket method... If this keeps up, I may abandone the 5 bags I ahve left and just buy livesand strait from the source, forget teh cost savings...
 
@Darby wrote:
I too spent about 4 hours and 3 said:
I don't know how you guys did it but this technique works VERY well. Rinse sand once or twice. Dump into DRY Tank..... arrange on bottom how you want it. Toss a salt bucket lid on top of the sand. Fill tank by letting water hit in middle of lid first and float to the top as it fills. Dump a few handfuls of old sand or sand from someone elses tank into tank at the end. Run with Lights on, heater on and no powerheads. Keep temp around 75 degs or so...

filling it that way reduces the mess to a minimum.. no powerheads keeps it from getting back into suspension and the old sand populates the bacteria, while the lights and heat encourage growth. Could even toss a piece or two of shrimp in there to kick start your cycle sooner.
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@Darby wrote:
... so when do you put rock in? said:
I would wait until the sand settles and the bacteria get going personally... I am lazy and don't like to work more than I need to. You can certainly put it in right away, that would have bacteria in it as well... but I HATE having to blow the sand off the rock as it settles.

If you go with a DSB, I would put just enough to get your base in and do the rest after it settles. Shallow bed, the same.... but certainly not all of it. Just the foundation, less to have to blow off.
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@DaveJ wrote:
I don't know how you guys did it but... said:
Again with the info that I needed to know a couple of months ago. :-/

Note to self: Consult DaveJ before adding future items to the tank.
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@Pneumatic wrote:
[I]@DaveJ wrote:[/I][quote="I don't know how you guys did it but... said:
Again with the info that I needed to know a couple of months ago. :-/

Note to self: Consult DaveJ before adding future items to the tank."]

:wink:
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You see, this all makes completely too much sense for me to be able to accomplish without somehow boogering it all up!

Thanks much!
 
@pendergrass wrote:
Why does the sand put off that smokey white film when you disturb the sand. said:
thats just the fines... really fine particles. If you have a dsb you shouldn't really disturb it too much, just the top 1/4 or 1/2 otherwise you introduce oxygen to the lower levels. If this is just a shallow bed, those fines will eventually settle down a bit or will be removed as you vaccume etc over time. My bed is over a year old now and when I rake the top layer occasionally, I still get them. its nothing to be concerned with unless you get clumping.
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