Cloudy water

[Barch]

I think I'm making progress.... slowly.....I still have cloudy water. I'm a little frustrated with it and I don't know if I'm being impatient or if my water issue is not normal. I have been using some blue bonded filter pads in the fuge to help clear up the water. I change it everyday and it fills up with this brown stuff I'm assuming is diatoms. I have been doing this for the last 10 days which is helping but the water is not crystal clear yet. Is this normal? The tank has been up for 25 days it has cycled, Ammonia is at 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0. I've done 2- 20% water changes with RO/DI water, salinity is 1.026. 0 on phosphates as per the LFS. My testing kit is on the way for calcium phosphate PH 8.17. I have a carbon phos. reactor coming from BRS and will install that. Can I start adding a fish or should I wait? Thanks for your replies I appreciate everyone's input.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Are you running powerheads?

 

[Barch]

yes, 4- 750 Koralia pumps, I have pretty good water movement with ripples across the top of the tank for gas exchange

 

[Laz]

Do you have any new pictures? The one's in your showcase thread really don't seem bad. Could be settled silt on the glass? I used a canister filter with floss to clear mine but if yours is as clear as shown in the showcase thread, it may just be too small to filter and normally regular water changes should help clear it up.

 

[little_fish]

I think you are safe to add a fish now.

 

[Barch]

I have a couple more questions. It looks like I have something either growing or collecting in my saltwater mixing tank

If you look close you can see there is some stuff floating on the surface of the water and collecting on the power cords going to the pump. Its pretty slimy and rubs right off. I have kept water in this tank constantly since setting up my saltwater tank. The pump circulates the water 24-7. I'm wondering if I have something growing in there or if it's some of the minerals precipitating out of solution. Any ideas or is this something all of you have experienced?
My protein skimmer is working well I think.

I cleaned it Friday and this is what it looked like Monday morning.
Here is a picture of the filter media that I have been using. One on the left is new, one on the right is after 24hrs in the fuge.

and a picture of how I'm using it in the fuge

A couple of pictures of my cloudy water...

so this is looking from the end of the tank through 4' of water.
Maybe all of this is normal and I'm just being too impatient. I will have the carbon gfo reactor from BRS here by Friday and I will get that installed. Maybe that will help too.
Any thoughts?

 

[Barch]

I did add a couple of small Green Chromis to the tank today and a couple of corals over the weekend. You can see the Leather Coral in the pic. I put in a Blue Green Ricordea too. I think the water clarity is improving each day.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Did you get lr or dead rock?

 

[Barch]

Did you get lr or dead rock?

I started with 100 lbs. of dead rock and added 5 lbs of live rock to the DT and the fuge during the cycle

 

[Bifferwine]

Everything looks normal in those pics. A little bit of white slimy build up is normal when you are making new water. I'm not sure what it is, but I've seen that with every tank I've had. And no harm has come of it.

 

[Barch]

For those of you struggling with the cloudy water issue, this just came from BRS that answered most of my questions. Thanks everyone for your help. Fish have been in fro 48 hrs now and all seem fine. They fed pretty aggressively this morning.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NR4u97Hqm8]Aquarium Filtration EP2 Chemical Filtration Media - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Ted]

I love the BRS videos, they always have good information.