Just Added Sand And.....

So I just changed my tank, i emptied all the water and took at all the rocks. I went to PetsMart and got some sand, so i poured the sand in first then added the water. Now everything is extremely cloudy and I can't even see in the tank. I want to put my fish, Green Puffer, back into it tonight because right now i have him in a tiny holding tank without a filter and i dont want him to be in there for very long. Is there anything that i can do to make the sand settle down as fast as possible. The bag says it will take 24-48hrs but i need it done faster. If theres anything i can do please let me know.

I have a 20 gal brackish tank.

 

ok thank you, i just checked and it's starting to clear up a little bit, this is my first time ever using sand so i had no idea what to expect. The next time that i do a water change on my tank how do you suggest i clean the sand would it be the same way with the rocks?

 

Im not sure about cleaning the sand during a water change, but I do know that if you get a big rock, even a big bowl will work, place it in the tank priot to refilling. When you start pouring the water back into the tank pour it onto the rock or bowl and this will help keep the sand from stirring up as bad by ditherng the waters force.

 

ok thanks, i'll try that next week when i change the water

 

ok thanks, ill try the bowl thing next week when i do another water change, right now its taking hours for the sand to settle down and i'm really hoping that my puffer won't have to stay in the tiny container that i have him in right now overnight

 

He will probably be alright if its not ridiculously cloudy, I had to put my fish into a very cloudy tank when I moved recently and they were fine.

I would keep a close eye on the parameters of the tank, usually switching over gravel and decor completely can set off a mini cycle. When I changed over my brackish tank's gravel I put the old gravel into little mesh bags and left them there for a week on top of the new gravel so the beneficial bacteria that lived in the gravel could seed the new stuff.

And I'd love to see some pictures and hear more about your tank, I love green spotted puffers, I have one named Milton in a 30 gallon tank at 1.012 sg

 

ok i've put him in and he seems fine, he has some stuff on his belly but i'm sure it's the sand, he seems really happy for once he's not swimming up and down the tank, and sure i'll post some pictures, they might be a little blurry since the glass on the inside of the tank is kind of gross from the sand and i can't seem to get it off. And before i had switched to sand i also had 1.012 but i ran outa instant ocean today so it's only at 1.004 but ill get some more in the next day or so.

 

Switching the SG suddenly that low will definitely cause the cycle to crash, I would get the salt asap and test your water like crazy and get ready for major water changes if it does crash.

Liam is cute, how big is he?

 

thanks, i will deffientley do multiple water checks a day, after work tomorrow ill go buy some more instant ocean, i'd say he's about 2inches, and im trying to upload some pics of his tank

 

And here's another

 

Hey I just read your post about feeding,

What I do for the teeth is I have a 10 gallon fw tank that I breed snails in. Its planted and has a betta and panda cories but its main purpose is snails for my milton I have ramshorns and pond snails and they breed like crazy so he can have a couple snails every day if I want to feed him that many. His teeth have stayed very short the entire time I've had him because I make sure I feed him snails every few days.

As far as other feeding goes I actually made up my own special food, I went to the grocery store and bought shrimp and clams and cut it all up into small pieces and froze it with some special fish vitamins so when its time for him to eat I defrost a small amount of food in a cup of his tank water and some more vitamins. Bloodworms is also good but shrimp, clams, squid are all better for every day.


here is a great article on GSPs, I highly recommend reading it:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/an-introduction-to-green-spotted-puffers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... d-puffers/</a>

 

ok, i've got some ghost shrimp that i have in a 5 g hex fw for him, and i've tried baby shrimp from the seafood department at the grocery store and he didnt' even touch it and ive also tried peas for him but he didn't touch that either, tomorrow im thinking about going back to the store to see if they have clams. And when i went to the pet store today all they had were the large snails which were probably half the size of Liam, so i didn't get them. I'll try what you do since the hardest thing that he's had in 2 weeks are the ghost shrimp

 

Try soaking the food in garlic, that is an appetite stimulator for fish. Also you could try tying the shrimp to a string and kind of moving it around in the tank to trick him into thinking its alive.

With the ghost shrimp make sure they are gut loaded with food because them by themselves have little nutritional value.

When you go to the pet store look in the tanks for small pond snails, petco and petsmart almost always have them crawling around in their tanks and they consider them pests, they give them away for free. I got my pond snails from petco orginally and now I have a million from the 10 or so that they gave me. The snails you probably saw where apple snails which are harder to breed.

 

ok i'll try that also. Yea all Petsmart said they had are the big ones and nothing smaller, and the petco doesnt have plants in their tanks, and i really dont want to have to travel a half an hour away to a place in huntington beach where i got him to see if they have snails so i'm not sure where else to try, and i feed these ghost shrimp. Their quite intersting to watch them feed. And i'll probably go to the grocery store tomorrow to try some clams but their dead so i dont know if he'll eat them

 

Petco and Petsmart don't have to have live plants to have snails, they just end up getting them anyways. I would closely check every tank, they almost always have pond snails in there, they are just very small. You could ask them also if they have pest snails. They are only going to be like 1/2cm or even smaller.

Try to take a people piece of shrimp and tie it to a string, feeding ghost shrimp is not going to keep your puffer healthy and you need to get him to eat dead food. Tricking them into thinking it is alive is very easy.

If you really can't find snails I'm sure we could arrange something and I could send you some, its not like I don't have a million in my tank already!

 

hahah ok i'll look again tomorrow, i did try dead plankton and he loved them. I'll also look more closley in their tankss when i buy more instant ocean tomorrow.

And ill do what you said to the shrimp tomorrow when i feed him hopefully then he'll eat it. As i don't want all that shrimp going to waste