extremely cloudy water, please help.

[enforcer8621]

o.k., here's my story. I finally got back into saltwater aquariums after watching my daughter's delight of "finding nemo" (yeah I know, me and how many other million people). I decided to go with a 55 gal this time around since I am now older and can afford it now. I first purchased the tank, made the stand, and bought the crushed coral and salt. The bag of crushed coral said "minimum rinsing required" (whatever). I rinsed the coral about as well as I ever did stone (first time with coral). I now have the cloudiest water i've ever seen. my question is this, I know I messed up by not rinsing it well enough, but will I be ok? I thought i could fix the problem by cutting a new sponge in half and sticking it on the end of my powerhead and filter assy. please don't tell me I need to drain my tank. it's been about 24 hours now and i have a visability of about 3 feet. I've been considering buying a magnum 350 filter assy (I'll be having more fish than reef) and I think this kinda help made up my mind. any help in buget filter recommendations would be great. thanks much

 

[jdieck]

The water will settle in a couple of days. What kind of filtration you are running? If it is going to be a Fish Only tank crushed coral will be OK. but you will need a wet dry filter unless you are planning to use Live Rock as your biological filtration.
If you are planning to have corals as you mention I would recommend the use of a good skimmer for filtration instead of the Wet Dry and use sand instead of crushed coral to reduce the amount of nitrate generation which will end up promoting algae. The crushed coral traps too much detritus.

 

[hammerhead]

Don't worry about it u still need to go through your cycle. You could put in 20lbs of live rock to start the cycle the more u put in the better this will be your bio filter. It will take 4 weeks to finish and don't put in any critters until all your tests are good also dont use tap water go get some RO or RO/DI. The magnum will only help with macanicial(sp) filtration. Are u going to have a sump if not then u will have more stuff hanging in the tank(makes it look ugly)

 

[enforcer8621]

thanks for the reply. I'm strongly considering LR and a cannister system. I have a I'll also probably get a skimmer just to help. any other helpful ideas greatly appreciated.

 

[enforcer8621]

thanks mrrobertson. I'm thinking about a magnum 350 (which is not a hang on system) and a few more TH's.

 

[hammerhead]

I forgot to say

 

[Reefmedic79]

If you have enough LR and a decent skimmer a canister filter shouldn't be neccesary, unless you use it for machanic filtration in which you should remove the Bio-media because it will start to store nitrate.

 

[n240sxle91]

Do get a skimmer, but don't cheap out on this. The protein skimmer is one of the more important things for your tank. I recommend an AquaC Remora (with maxi-jet, not rio). The best advice you can get is this... research everything over and over again so you can buy the right thing the first time... otherwise you'll end up buying it twice.

 

[jdieck]

By the way if at the end you decide to go Fish Only and Live Rock with mechanical filter do not go for the Magnum. It is dificult to purge and always traps air and is noisy. My recomendation for canister filters will be eheim, more $$ but there is nothing more expensive than the things that do not work properly.

 

[n240sxle91]

I guess I would say that if you're going with a FOWLR and you're going to use LR as you main filter that a Emperor 400 would be your best bet. Just take the bio-wheels out.

 

[enforcer8621]

Ahh, my first post. Just remembering the old days.