Dry Oolitic Sand

[Jivenjune]

I've recently begun the arduous process of converting my crushed coral substrae into a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of oolitic and reef grade aragonite sand. I plan to keep it pretty shallow, approximately an inch and a half to two inches. I thought I washed the sand pretty well, considering that I spent two days washing it, but it ended up clouding my water pretty badly when I added it to my tank

This led me to quarantine my fish in a 30 gallon bucket with all my filters. I keep the water monitored, and so far everything is in check.

It has been about two days since I've made the switch. During the first day, I literally could not see through an inch of the water. I'm on my second day now, and it's still quite cloudy, but I can definitely see through more of my water than on the first day.

My filter is on (mechanical / chemical: Purigen, SeaGel), and my skimmer is off at the moment since it began to foam like crazy during the first day.

I have two very small hermit crabs in the tank at the moment and nothing else. I saw one of the hermits mysteriously crawling around without its shell, and the other one was crawling around with its shell on, seemingly unaffected.

Anyway, I was curious as to whether this white, milky water is harmful to my fish? I'd like to take them out of their quarantine tub soon (makes me feel bad when I have to quarantine them).

Thanks,
JJ-

[Pufferpunk]

Your fish are OK to swim in cloudy water. Best to keep them in their main tank, as long as the LR is still healthy. Keep an eye on the parameters & do WC accordingly. Put your skimmer over a bucket in case it overflows & try to skim as thick as possible (can you move the cup up?). Might want to add a HOB filter with filter floss in there & change when it clogs up. It'll polish the water in a day.

[Jivenjune]

Thanks PP, you're always a big help. I'll start skimming dry. It's already clearing up really fast (day 3).