I've Got Sunshine - In a Cloudy Tank

The Tapajos are still doing great, and showing more hints of color. They are very, very active, almost manic, and spend a lot of time doing what geophagus do - digging through the sand.


When I set up this tank with the frontosa, I rinsed this sand as well as I could, but eventually tired of the rinsing and gave up on it. It is extremely fine sand and contains a great deal of dust.  Every time I would stir the sand to keep it aerated it would produce a mild cloud that would soon dissipate with the heavy filtration. For years the sand was no problem, without any fish disturbing it, so hours of rinsing was not required for the setup


Now, with the sand being constantly disturbed by this eartheater species the tank carries a constant haze. I was alarmed about it at first - thinking my water quality was suffering somehow, but diligent testing of all parameters showed normal and desirable results, confirming that there is no ammonia or nitrite, and 5 ppm nitrate. Hardness, buffering capacity and pH are all as expected - a little higher than a typical SA cichlid might prefer, but not too far off. I don't even suspect a bacterial bloom, since this tank is past that stage, which I went through with the goldfish..


So, the sand is the culprit, and I'm not sure what to do, if anything. I'm tempted to aggressively dig through it myself, attempting to release all of the dust at once, do a big PWC and see if that helps, or I can simply let the fish do it slowly over time, which might be the more sensible approach. My tanks are, for me, an artistic display as much as a habitat, so a cloudy tank is hard for me to ignore, but I don't want to cause problems for these wee fish, either. Massive disturbance of the substrate followed by a large PWC could upset the bacterial colonies enough to cause a mini cycle.


I'm sure over time the dust will be filtered out, but it could take a while. Right now the sifting of the sand by the fish is superficial, since the fish are so very small, and as they grow they'll dig down deeper and take bigger mouthfuls as they sift, searching for morsels.


In spite of all that, my little orange heads (the sunshine!) are content and give me a lot of pleasure, and this minor issue is one that will resolve itself before too long.