cloudy water on new tank

[nano reefer]

I started a 10g nano reef tank 24 hours ago, i added the live sand after the tank had saltwater in it and since then its been a greyish white color and you can only see an inch in. I added 3 lbs of live rock a few hours ago, i have my power head turned off and running a HOB filter with a charcoal bag in it. Is there any thing i am supposed to do or not go or just wait it out until it clears? :confused:

[seabayaquatic]

The tank should clear up over night.

[STiTCH87]

The tank should clear up over night.

Don't worry sand always does that. takes 1-2 days to clear up nicely. In something as small as a 10g it clears even faster. I had a 10g with pure white substrate and it did that even worse than yours and cleared in about 2 days total.

IMO i'd shut off any waterflow so that the finer particals of sand have an easier time settling to the bottom. That, and to keep sand out of the powerheads and filters because it could wear out the pumps I would imagine. Just my own personal 2 cents, anyone else can feel free to say i'm 100% wrong, lol. I myself am fairly new to saltwater.

[br3nt]

its just particulate in the water settling. +2 to it will be clear in the next day or so.

[Mountain_Medic]

Just give it time, and get used to it. In the future you can thouraly rinse the sand prior to putting it in the tank.

[nano reefer]

thanks ill just give it a few days and see what happens.

[STiTCH87]

BTW telling by the way your tank looks you may wanna invest in better lighting, Also, did you add salt yet? Own a protein skimmer? Heater? Thermometer?

[lordofthereef]

Hey is that just one of the "cheapie" Walmart fish tanks you have going there? That is exactly what I set up as my get back into the hobby after moving cross country experience. Worked out very well, I just had to upgrade my lighting (kept the stock fixture and bought some coralife screw-in 10000K's)

[nano reefer]

I got it from a local fish store (its not the walmart one my i set one of those up freshwater for my girlfriend) it only has a 19watt fluorescent bulb(i was just hoping to get by with this light for the live rock and fish until i can upgrade it). I have the salinity at 1.024. and i have the temperature at 79 degrees. And until i can get a protein skimmer many people have told me i can get by without it if I do 1 gallon water changes every week.

And with live sand and live rock how long should it take to cycle?

[thegrun]

I keep a 12 gallon nano without a skimmer. I make weekly 1 gallon water changes and have no issues with water quality, although the bio load is small (only one fish).

[nano reefer]

yea i was just thinking about have two clowns and a "clean up crew"

[STiTCH87]

I got it from a local fish store (its not the walmart one my i set one of those up freshwater for my girlfriend) it only has a 19watt fluorescent bulb(i was just hoping to get by with this light for the live rock and fish until i can upgrade it). I have the salinity at 1.024. and i have the temperature at 79 degrees. And until i can get a protein skimmer many people have told me i can get by without it if I do 1 gallon water changes every week.

And with live sand and live rock how long should it take to cycle?

Yeah you'll get by with water changes like that. Raise your salinity to 1.026 if you can, temp is good, and i'd say at least a week for the rock to cure nevermind cycling. Every tank is a bit different with cycling times because of the conditions of everything. Buy a good test kit to determine when it's cycled.

[hugecoltsfan]

Same thing happened to me yesterday so just give it time. I have a 65 gallon and put my old canister filter on it after I gave it a good cleaning and rigged up my own kind of filtration with it. I woke up this morning and it was about 85% clear. I hope when I get home from work it will be close to 100%.

[STiTCH87]

I put live sand in my 29g the day before yesterday and it's still pretty damn cloudy and can't run any currents or else you can see stuff kicking around so i'm gonna let it settle until the weekend then do a water change to remove some of the junk out of the water.

[hugecoltsfan]

My power heads stayed on the whole time I never turned them off

[nano reefer]

And i was wondering im only gonna have a HOB filter with a charcoal bag in it, is that good enough for filtering along with the LR and LS. or should i upgrade?

[STiTCH87]

That's all that I use. But instead of a charcoal bag I use lava rubble rock. Charcoal bag is a good idea though. It will polish the water pretty nicely. I don't think it's a good idea to always leave it in there but then again IDK. I would think you'll be fine.

[nano reefer]

Getting clearer. Added coralife 10,000k bulb. More live rock soon!

[nano reefer]

Also the bulb I got is a coralife 15watt 18" 10000k. I just plugged it into my stock hood. Is this ok?

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=10000k+15+watt+coralife&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=14106826249665556906&ei=n7p0S4SKL8GUnQeohYW1CQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CA4Q8wIwAg#ps-sellers

[los2008]

well i had the same thing but just chill it well clear up no water chages yet wait

[STiTCH87]

Getting clearer. Added coralife 10,000k bulb. More live rock soon!

I wish my tank would clear out that fast -_-

I added sand the day before you I think it was (3 nights ago I believe) and it is STILL cloudy.

(Both 10000k and Actinic are running in this picture btw.)

Take a look:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/SilentAssailant/DSC00436.jpg

Believe it or not, there is a heater and another powerhead in the back right corner. You can just barely make out the heater if you look hard enough.

[nano reefer]

i made the mistake of trying to move my rocks and have another sand storm is there anyway you can move things around without causing this. (i was careful and took my time too)

[STiTCH87]

i made the mistake of trying to move my rocks and have another sand storm is there anyway you can move things around without causing this. (i was careful and took my time too)

Well when you add more rock, or add more waterflow, or move anything in the tank, the lighter sand is going to be kicked around. Sucks but that's just how it works really. Don't worry it'll settle again quickly. I think once the sand contains more living things it also kinda holds together better too.

Or atleast my substrate did so when I had a brackish tank with triops in it...

[nano reefer]

And i was wondering if anyone knows what kind of corals, mushrooms, ect. I could grow in here with my set up?

p.s. and i was thinking about turning my HOB into a fuge. Is that a good idea?

[nano reefer]

I just found out this http://www.atlanticseafarms.net/servlet/StoreFront is 5 minutes from my house so im stoked just wanted to know what would do good in my tank

[STiTCH87]

WOW I am TOTALLY bookmarking them and ordering off of them someday!