SouthDown Milkshake Question

[Stanfill Reef]

Just added a goby to my 30 gallon tank. Everytime he sifts, we get a dust-storm. I have a filter running, but it stays very cloudy all day. Only gets clear at night when the goby is asleep.

Questions:
1) How long will the milkshake continue?
2) Is there anything else I can do to make it go away faster (other than getting rid of the goby)?

Thanks for the help!!

[wasabi]

how long has the southdown been in the tank? if it is fully established,you might have to consider a larger substrate. if it is brand new, it takes up to a month, or more for any new sand to become colonized and stable

[Daytona955]

Almost makes me not want to use the southdown I have...

[Stanfill Reef]

The tank has been running about 3 months. We had startup issues, but it settled down. The problem we have now is the Goby stirring up the sand. But I need something moving it around, we were getting some cyano growing on the sand. I can't put stars in the tank because it also houses Butterflyfishes. I thought a sand sifting goby would be the way to go. Before the goby, the water was crystal clear, no problems with crabs, snails, and conchs moving it around.

[Saint Taris]

Where did you get Southdown in the Atlanta area?

[Daytona955]

From Stan...

[GeoJoe]

it needs to be rinsed for a couple hours before introducing it to your tank.... oops

[tobbob]

I did sd without a rinse & it worked out ok.lay a plastic bag on the sand before you add h20.
CBA has Sd..I think

[wasabi]

1200lbs never rinsed, most reccomend against rinsing, one of the biggest benefits of southdown are the finer particles to host smaller organisms

[Ray1214]

I never rinsed mine. I added a bit of water to the tank to help smooth it out but never had to rinse it. I have tons of flow. That is how I combat cyano algae. I guess I am trying to figure out how big this goby is as I have never had problems with a jawfish either and sd sand.

Ray

[Daytona955]

At this point I am still waiting before adding any sand to my 180. I would like to get all the rock work in place before adding any sand to avoid any dead spots in te sand. I have over 100 lbs of southdown that I am contemplating at this point, but can this be mixed with other sands? Say some argonite sand?

[Ray1214]

Well Mike, Southdown is argonite sand.

[Daytona955]

I was refering to the more coarse sand like you might get from caribsea livesand and such.

[wildemon]

Southdown is generally the cheapest available. To combat the clouds, you can use the coarser gravel as a topping, saving you the cost of an entire tank's replacement. Most of your interstitial animal life likes the fine grains of Southdown. Animals like gobies sift the fine grains through their gills, they would not like gravel.

[goodfortune]

When you put down the next layer of sand or gravel, you may want to try rinsing it in some of your mixed saltwater. I can't explain it, but it seems to work for me.

When I started my tank, I rinsed my southdown in fresh tap water, and my "Southdown snowstorm" lasted almost a week.

A few weeks after starting up my tank, I added another 2" to build up my DSB, only this time I rinsed the sand in some of my pre-mixed salt water. I rigged up a DIY floss filter to remove sediment. I found that when I added this layer of sand, the snowstorm only lasted a few hours.

I did the same thing when I started my refugium about a month ago, with almost identical results.

HTH,
Michael