Foggy tank : / Need LOTS of help

[Gdbyrd]

I have been a long time enthusiast, but a recent enterer into the hobby. I started setting up my tank this week, it's a 47g tank, about 2ft wide by about 3 ft tall. Not an ideal tank I've been told but I purchased it before knowing that.

My issue is with my tank walls. I had the water cycling a good 24 hours with a solid specific gravity. It was cloudy as hell, I got a little ancy and picked up 7 lbs of live rock...added it in. As of today it's clearing up a lot, but the rock and all my tank walls are completely covered in a dull haze. I'm sure it's from the gravel. I'm using a combo of crushed coral and live sand(plus 4lbs of cycled sand from my lfs).

Do I just leave it alone or scrub it off now? Will it eventually work itself off?

Also, in the bottoms of the filters there was a layer of sediment...I emptied both out and cleaned them as best I could.

Another thing, I had a lot of trouble disolving the salt as I added it to the tank(I did 2g at a time with 1 cup salt)~is this normal? I'm worried now that with all this sediment floating around in my tank my specific gravity isn't going to be accurate.

Please help me out. I'm stressing with this even though I've just started.

 

[messiah023]

Gdbyrd,

Sediment is normal.
That being said....you need to back-up a bit and do some research on SW tanks.
Many of the things you may know about FW don't apply.

First off, crushed coral is not an ideal substrate for SW tanks. Since you don't have anything in your tank yet, it may be good to start off on the right foot and get rid of it now rather than later.

Next, those "filters" you have on your tank are also not ideal for saltwater.
Saltwater filtration is achieved with live rock, live sand and a hefty protein skimmer to remove "crap" from the water.

Also, with a tank your height, you will need some adequately placed powerheads at various levels to give you some good water movement.

Tank water should be made up in a tub OUTSIDE your tank. Mix RO/DI (reverse osmosis deionized) water with your salt. DO NOT USE TAP WATER & CONDITIONERS. The less chemicals in your tank, the better.
Mix the SW in the tub with a heater & powerhead for at least a few hours to mix it up real good. Then, you can add to the tank.

Give yourself a good few weeks to cycle your tank before adding anything other than your live rock. Keep checking your parameters for the cycle to finish, then do a partial water change and begin to SLOWLY add your livestock (about 1 fish every month). Also, now would be a good time to add your clean-up crew.

Take it slow, ask questions, welcome to the reef.

 

[dcantucson]

Messiah's gotta ya covered! Welcome and good luck.

 

[Gdbyrd]

Gdbyrd,

Sediment is normal.
That being said....you need to back-up a bit and do some research on SW tanks.
Many of the things you may know about FW don't apply.

First off, crushed coral is not an ideal substrate for SW tanks. Since you don't have anything in your tank yet, it may be good to start off on the right foot and get rid of it now rather than later.

Next, those "filters" you have on your tank are also not ideal for saltwater.
Saltwater filtration is achieved with live rock, live sand and a hefty protein skimmer to remove "crap" from the water.

Also, with a tank your height, you will need some adequately placed powerheads at various levels to give you some good water movement.

Tank water should be made up in a tub OUTSIDE your tank. Mix RO/DI (reverse osmosis deionized) water with your salt. DO NOT USE TAP WATER & CONDITIONERS. The less chemicals in your tank, the better.
Mix the SW in the tub with a heater & powerhead for at least a few hours to mix it up real good. Then, you can add to the tank.

Give yourself a good few weeks to cycle your tank before adding anything other than your live rock. Keep checking your parameters for the cycle to finish, then do a partial water change and begin to SLOWLY add your livestock (about 1 fish every month). Also, now would be a good time to add your clean-up crew.

Take it slow, ask questions, welcome to the reef.

Thank you very much for responding! What substrate would you recommend? I've been to three lfs and I get a different answer at all three. I only have about an inch and a half of substrate, so could I fill in the rest of it with whatever is right? 10lbs was crushed coral, +20lbs was live sand. I'm working on the live rock, but that stuff is pricy and I'm hoping to spread this little project out, not in any real hurry.

I'm buying powerheads tomorrow. Protein skimmer I'm also getting at the end of this week.

I mixed the salt outside of the tank, but it still would not completely disolve. I even mixed up a gallon and let it sit for two hours stirring it every 15 minutes but it would never fully disolve.

What do you think? And again, thank you for responding.

 

[RyanG]

Get yourself a slotted spoon and start scooping that crushed coral out if you can, it would be a good thing. Aragonite or calcium carbonate based sand is the best substrate for a reef tank.

As for mixing your salt water get yourself a cheap powerhead live a MaxiJet 1200 and keep it in your mixing bucket. Remember to always let it mix for at least 24 hours before adding it to your tank.

 

[Gdbyrd]

Get yourself a slotted spoon and start scooping that crushed coral out if you can, it would be a good thing. Aragonite or calcium carbonate based sand is the best substrate for a reef tank.

As for mixing your salt water get yourself a cheap powerhead live a MaxiJet 1200 and keep it in your mixing bucket. Remember to always let it mix for at least 24 hours before adding it to your tank.

The stuff I am using is called "Geo-marine Aragonite Formula." Undreneath that it says "Florida Crushed Coral." So is this the bad stuff or akin to what you're suggesting?

Thank you for the tip with the mixing. I never would have figured I would need to stir that stuff for that long.

For my tank, what size/brand of powerhead would you recommend?

 

[wontonflip]

Welcome to the Reef!

The thing about lfs's..........even if you find one that has a great knowledgeable staff, you still have to go in with an idea of what you want. That way even if you get conflicting information, you'll know what questions to ask or at least you'll have done research on the best route to go. Plus in the end, they're still a store and need to make money...so if they can squeeze a little out of you unnecessarily, they will.

Switching from fw to sw is definitely a change...I even tried to start a fw tank in conjunction with my sw and couldn't do it--and I did fw for 10 years! So definitely do some research here and you'll find lots of useful posts that list what minimum equipment you will need.

We stray away from crushed coral because they can be nitrate traps that could one day cause a spike and kill off everything. I use just around 1" of plain old sand.

I have a 45g, and I use a koralia 3 powerhead, in addition to a penguin powerhead that I already had.

Definitely be patient and you'll be rewarded with a well balanced tank.

 

[tankedchemist]

Another thing about dissolving salt-- in addition to the power head, I like to put a cheap heater in there, or in the summer, put it on my balcony so the sun heats it up... it heats it up to tank temperatures, which is useful for when you have livestock in your tank. But, besides that, heating the solution makes the salt dissolve much faster & more thoroughly.

 

[BigH55]

Cheap way to live rock is to buy dry base rock and cure it. You can usually get it for around 1-2 bucks a pound. Also, start thinking about a protien skimmer if you haven't already.

 

[yote]

Welcome aboard.
Using dry base rock,will save you a lot of money.And it'll eventually become live rock.Just takes a bit longer to color up.I personally like to use a 50/50 mix of base and live rock.
Go ahead and invest in a 30gal plastic trash can too.That way you can keep saltwater mixing and ready use anytime.

 

[Bifferwine]

Sand is definitely better than crushed coral.

Don't be concerned about the cloudy water right now. It's totally normal. Since you just set the tank up, it's likely a combination of suspended sand particles in the water and the salt you just added. It usually takes a few days after first setting up a tank for the cloudiness to go away.

 

[Gdbyrd]

Thank you guys very much for the advice. I spent a good several hours trying to remove as much crushed coral as was possible. After that I went ahead and added 30lbs of aragonate sand on top of that. It's probably going to smother the living sand I had in there, but oh well.

I went looking at powerheads today. What gph should I look into? I was thinking of putting one on top next to my filter and then one about halfway down the tank.

The tank again is a 47g(about 2ft across and about 3ft tall). Also, should I just point them straight ahead or slightly up and at an angle?

One last question...is it necessary to have an airstone? It's splatting and making a huge mess, plus my filter is picking it up and it's making a lot of noise. I figure when I get a skimmer and my powerheads setup I should be OK on oxygenation right?

 

[yote]

In a 47,I'd go with 2 of the Koralia #3a and 2 of the #2s.
Place the 3s about midway down and angled so you get a chaotic flow pattern.Place the 2s up close to the top,one on each end and angled slightly up but blowing straight across at each other so they give the water surface a good ripple.
And airstones aint no good in a saltwater tank.They cause saltcreep and can ne harmfull to the livestock.