New Sand In Tank - Help!

[aquariagirl1976]

Ok, so I think I am doing the right thing to put sand in my corys tank - well, I am in a panic!!!

I took out 90% of my tanks water, got rid of my stones, put sand (play sand I may add, I read on here that it is acceptable), and put half of the tanks water back into the tank. THE WATER IS LIKE A BROWN MUD!!! Did I need to wash this sand before I put it in, or will it eventually settle? All my poor fishies are stuck in a pail, I don't want to leave them in there forever...AND I have wasted over half of my tanks water.

HELP!

 

[djceri_g]

Ok, so I think I am doing the right thing to put sand in my corys tank - well, I am in a panic!!!

I took out 90% of my tanks water, got rid of my stones, put sand (play sand I may add, I read on here that it is acceptable), and put half of the tanks water back into the tank. THE WATER IS LIKE A BROWN MUD!!! Did I need to wash this sand before I put it in, or will it eventually settle? All my poor fishies are stuck in a pail, I don't want to leave them in there forever...AND I have wasted over half of my tanks water.

HELP!

Im afraid you should have washed it first. Infact, rinse it untill the water runs clear. Maybey you could syphon the sand up?

 

[loachman]

Yeah, you'll need to wash the playsand really well. It's supposedly one of the dirtier sands initially.

If you can, siphon all the water back out and rinse the sand in a separate bucket, assuming the fish are still out of the tank. If the water is just a little cloudy it will settle out in a couple days.

 

[Danno]

Ive added play sand to my tank once too. It took almost 3 hours to clean the whoel bag of sand.

 

[Mution]

what sand is best to use?

 

[sparky_555]

You should have rinsed the sand first but it will settle in time, and i cant imagine it would hurt the fish. It should settle within a couple of days, i've recently (today) put play sand into my new 10 gallon, i rinsed half a bucket of sand for around 20 mins and still after 6 hours in the tank, the water is still very murky, but it does settle.
The best sand to use IMO is pond filter sand, its a heavier grain and obviously aquarium safe (as its used in ponds )

Good luck

 

[aquariagirl1976]

Thanks everyone!

I did wash the sand, and the tank is still a little murky. I won't panic now if it will take a couple days to settle. I am dissapointed that my corys aren't playing in it yet...but I am sure they are just still shell-shocked from being in a pail for a hour while I sorted this mess out.