Urgent Care :: Added sand - vision is non-existent

[blkbox]

Hi, I today added sand to the aquarium. Removed everything, added sand and added water. The water is all blurry. It's been like 1 day my turtle was in a temporary "aquarium" so I put her back in just now, also she didn't eat yesterday (I'm messing in the aquarium till yesterday). Is it bad if I leave the water as is, blurry, right now for here? Should a turtle not be allowed in this? Looks like she can't see much.

Thanks
PS: I believe usual questions related to urgent care are unnecessary in this case.
Updated, see below.

[blkbox]

Update: Things are way too messy, I just removed her.

I must be doing something wrong, how do you normally put sand in an aquarium? The floating particles (it seems) won't ever fall down. Plus, I realized I should have researched more about possible bottoms for aquariums, but is sand ok for filters? I have the type that goes in the aquarium, with a small pump attached on it, made by ExoTerra.

Re-edit:
Right, I know it sounds like I'm talking to myself. BUT, I just found a link I wished I searched for earlier. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/sand.php Well, now it seems obvious, but I should have cleaned the sand before. Also, I should have waited until all the sand fell down and then use filters.

[jozzep]

Well seems like you figured it out all on your own.
Sand needs to be washed thoroughly before adding it to your tank to get rid of small particles. Also it needs to settle before turning on the filter to prevent it from getting sucked into it and damaging it.

[blkbox]

Thanks for the reply. Yup, I figured out something was wrong the hard way. Now it was kinda complicated to fix this, as I needed to remove the sand, thoroughly wash it and then put it back, and the only way to move the sand was through siphoning. Also I took ages in washing the sand but I hope now it's clean enough.

I succeed in putting the cleaned sand back. It's much clearer, but not crystal clear. Perhaps I didn't wash properly at some point. Nevertheless, it looks like the turtle is appreciating her tank. She is basking and sleeping, right now...

[Jeffers]

sand takes lots of cleaning to finally get it all out. if you are using hob's make sure to take them out and clean up the prop area really good. sand is a killer in those. then maybe also change out your mech filtration to new stuff and that will take care of the rest of the particles.

[blkbox]

My english isn't exactly perfect - "hob"? From the rest of the sentence I assume it's the motor/filter part of the filter?

Plus, I'm using the small filters that goes in tank. I noticed bigger, external, filters can have any combination of filtering medium the user wants, from a wide variety. I hope to get one of those one day (for a bigger tank, probably), but in the mean time, I'll try and find something very fine to catch what's left.

Thanks

[n00bEmpty]

There's a post in the indoor habitat sections explaining sand. You can try using aquarium sand which comes in colors and will sink to the bottom immediately and they're prewashed so when you open the package, there's usually a bit of water still in it.