tripleup05
Member
Howdy. I am setting up a 46bow, and i just need a few questions answered and maybe some advice. I have a HOT magnum filter, and two 150 gph powerheads in opposite corners of the tank. They are just circulating, not making bubbles, but I have the Magnum's output posistioned so that it agitates the water and makes some decent aeration at the top. Soon I will have another smaller powerhead to help with aeration. Now that you know what I'm running, I set up my tank and got the salinity correct and let it run for about four days. About two days ago I bought 20 lbs of live rock and put it in my tank. Dont worry...its pre-cured and in good shape. I know the guys at the dealer pretty good. And then I went to put the sand in...well nobody told me any different and I havent heard how, so I just dumped 40 lbs in. The water went totally cloudy. Milky basically. I shut off the powerheads to make sure I didn't hurt them, but left the magnum running to help clear the water. It was looking alot better yesterday morning...but not great...so i decided to put the last bag in that evening. I looked on the internet and read to pour the sand into small ziplock bags and slowly add teh sand from teh small bags close to the bottom of the tank. I did that and realized the problem wasnt really the sand getting stirred up, but a nasty milky film coming off of the sand. I didnt know what to do, and I know its the worst thing I could do, but I said oh well and just put the rest in, and it went back to looking like crap. I just got home from school, and it looks better, but not great. Oh by the way the powerheads are on again. I used one of them to get all the sand off of the live rock. I dont know whether it would hurt it or not, but I dont want to choke it. Oh it wont really come off of the macroalgae...is taht bad? Well basically I just want to know whether I have really screwed up, or just give it a few days. I'll probably clean the filter everyday until it settles cause last night it was really full of sand. I know this is a ton of writting and I dont even know if anybody wants to read ths much, but thanks for the help. If this amount is too much, let me know and i'll condense it next time. please let me know of anything I can do to help my tank get clearer, tips for next time,...etc. Thanks!!
