Southdown help

[Jovreefer]

I'm doing an upgrade from a 10 to a 20H and I decided to go with southdown on the new tank for the small grain size and crisp white look. I put 2-3 inches in the tank and I'm having terrible problems with continous clouding water. It took a week to get the tank to settle when I first put it in.. Silly me dumped the sand in around some extra rock I had in there..when I moved the rocks to start aquascaping it caused a dust storm AGAIN just as bad as the first one.

3 days later that settled down..I tried to scrape the dust off the glass and caused a small storm AGAIN! that settled the next day.

I was looking in the tank and watching a large zebra hermit that had been banished to that tank...as he walked he was kicking up little smoke signals! So I decided to try and syphon some of the dust off the top of the sand...MISTAKE! Caused another storm!

Is southdown usually this sensitive to movement? will it ever settle down??? I'm beginning to think it was a big mistake to use SD. Is there anything I can do to help it settle?

I'm running carbon, a protien skimmer and I now have a filter sponge going too.

[max power]

Did you wash the sand out good first? I always read about the problems people had with tanks taking a while to clear up after adding sand, but I had no problem. I just used play sand, but cleaned it all real good in a 5 gallon bucket. Then just dumped the bucket in the water. An episode of King of the Hill and Simpsons later, and it was clear. Turned on the power heads, and still clear.

just a possibility

-chris

[BuckeyeDad2002]

Some people say not to wash it because you lose the really fine particles.

But yes, it will settle down. I've had it in my tank for ~4 weeks now and damsel loves to dig holes in it. The sand flies everywhere, but in less than a minute it is all settled again.

Live rock helps. The bacteria will cling to the sand and make it "heavy".

[Paintbug]

Originally posted by BuckeyeDad2002

Live rock helps. The bacteria will cling to the sand and make it "heavy".

exactly! give it a few weeks.

[Jovreefer]

Well today will make 2 weeks :/

Maybe I should throw a piece of my live rock from the 10 into it..The other live rock I got to fill in the 20 was second hand and I dont think its very "live"