Disney's Saltwater tank

DisneyCoralReef

Time for an update. Nothing crazy going on yet, but definitely learning as I go here. Been a loooong time and a lot of work from reading websites, to getting the parks to finally seeing water for the first time. Finally bought a new house, moved, set up the tank, got help with the plumbing, drilled a hole in my granite counter top for nothing might I add, because the guy was an idiot, installing the RO unit and adding water!




Moving into the new place with the parts:
















Seeing water for the first time!












Adding salt, waited for it to clear, and added very sand-and this is where I have been stuck. It has been like this for a week. It has cleared up a little bit(i feel like a lot-but realistically not that much), and can't seem to get the tank cleared up. Advice muchly appreciated.


After 1 week, it is still looking the same. The power heads are running, and the sump and skimmer are running. Not sure how to get this cleared.

reefsahoy

did the water clear up after you mixed the salt with water? if not, then you got salt precipitation and you'll have to start over. if it cleared up and then got cloudy after adding sand then time is what you'll need for the silt to clear up. you can speed it up some by running with the filter sock. you may need to wipe the glass also because the water may be clear but some of the silt settled on the glass ( what i expect because you said a week went by). GL on your tank!

reefsahoy

btw, looking at your skimmer returning water like you've got it will cause microbubbles to return to your tank. turn the skimmer off for now to eliminate micro bubbles and until you clear up the tank. i'd turn off the powerheads too. you'll have to figure out a way for your skimmer to return the water to the sump without water dropping into the sump otherwise microbubbles.

i would only run the return pump from the sump and have the sock filter out the silt. everything else off to eliminate anything else introducing or causing silt to kick up. then once it clears, turn on the other equipment one at at time until everything is running and no silt.

DisneyCoralReef

Hey! been a long time!

The salt did clear up within the first 24 hours, and only got super cloudy after I set up the sand. One problem I did have however, is I put the tank bags(while closed) in the tank while it was getting filled, so I had a better idea of how much water I would need. By the time the tank was full, water had gotten INSIDE the bags, so i had 2 big bags of mud which I still dumped into the tank.

I have been running the sump with filter socks, and some dry rock as well. The rock I think made a huge difference, because the tank almost instantly cleaned up(not enough clearly tho). I have been keeping the glass cleaned with the magnet, not much build up as its done daily-thank goodness.

DisneyCoralReef

oh really? I thought because of the salt in the tank, keep water movement was really imperative. I'll turn the skimmer and powerheads off when I get home.

Reefing Madness

Your going to need all Rock in the DT. You saw it clear up with some in the sump. Need it in the DT as well. Also check and make sure one of the powerheads is not shooting directly into the sand itself, and blowing it around.

DisneyCoralReef

The tank got suddenly much clearer again. Now we can actually see the sand. I ended up not turning off the powerheads like I thought I was going to. We've also added PVC to the sump and brought down the noise to nearly nothing! much better. Now it's just more waiting. Will test the water tonight.

From this



...to this in 12 hours(after over a week of not improving much)

reefsahoy

i think you just need time. it will settle. as far as rocks in the DT, i don't think it's necessary to have alot like most members here believe. more is not necessarily better, as a matter a fact i'm going to redesign my tank and start over, getting tired of looking at the same scape. i'm going to put alot less rock in my DT. what ever rock i need will be in the sump.
btw i saw your other thread update. let's let that one die off and keep this one from here out. it's hard keeping up with you! lol all you have to do is check your thread subscription and select this thread when posting.

here's a picture of a graph basically explaining approximately how long it will take your tank to cycle after you add some type of bacteria be it live fish, or bottle version. remember to go slow, otherwise you'll end up killing livestock, wasting $, and getting fustrated. don't add corals until your tank has cycled. corals are more sensative to toxic water. i think you said you did not add live sand or rock right? if so then go slowly! buy a piece of live rock from a store and put it in the tank to speed up the process.



keep in mind milage may vary! make sure you check your water before adding the live stock. you must get an ammonia spike followed by nitrite, then nitrate. you can add livestock slowly only after nitrite spikes and then reads 0. if you can run a phosphate reactor to keep phosphates in check. i don't know where you got the rocks but to be safe run phosphate remover. you can buy a test kit to check for phosphates. if you keep that to a minimum you'll have most of the ideal conditions met for an awesome tank which is good lighting, water movement, filtration, great water quality from your ro and undetectable to no phosphates.

reefsahoy

Well, did it clear up?

DisneyCoralReef

It did clear, unfortunately tho, I left the RO unit running before leaving for work-on and forgot to turn it off. I was nearly an 8 hour shift at work, when I got a call that there was a "water leak" coming from my unit, and came to over $4,000 worth of damage in 2 different units-mine and the neighbor below.

Spent my entire weekend emptying the condo to rip out the carpet and the underlay. We've had fans in there for 2 days now-buying new underlay today. The tank tho at the time really upset and wanted to let it go-has been moved to storage in our underground storage unit. Gah! we were getting so close! everything has to be on hold while we wait for insurance to call us back.