Water Question

[owlshead19]

Hi everyone -

I have a BioCube 29 that I've had set up for about 8 days. I have 25lbs of live sand (plus about 2 cups donated from a friend's tank) 24 lbs of live rock, my pH is 7.8, temp is running about 82, I have no detectable ammonia or nitrite and about 7ppm of nitrate. My salinity is at 1.026.

I haven't done much to the cube, just took out the bioballs, removed the tab between chambers 1 & 2 and replaced the regular filter cartridge with filter floss. I added a koralia 425.

The last couple days the water has looked cloudy and my question is - I changed out the filter floss and it made no noticeable improvement. Is this just part of the cycling process or do I need to do a water change?

[hollister]

In a new setup dont run the light full time , reduce a bring up a little evey day untill full time reached.

Also these bio cubes have lids and you need open air space at the surface for proper gas exchange .

Also a full cycle can be from 2 to 4 weeks.

[briankmarsh1980]

Bacterial bloom?

[owlshead19]

I'm sure you are right based on some other questions I've seen here - so I guess this is just part of the process and I need to cut back the hours of light a bit. I lucked into a nice mushroom that's growing on one of my rocks from the LFS - it was hardly noticeable and has doubled in size - so I don't want to cut the lights out totally.

Thanks for the replies

[daplatapus]

Here's a newb question based on parameters of OP. Is that temp and S.G. a bit high? Might this contribute to any bloom you might be seeing?

[owlshead19]

I've been trying to work on the temp issue - I know it's running high - I live in Florida and am still running my ac. I've cranked it down a few degrees - I'm not 100% sure the temp is accurate because I'm still using a cheap thermometer and am going to order a digital one. I've moved the salinity down to 1.025