Just started my first saltwater. couple of questions.

[king_nothing_]

Hi everyone, I just started my first saltwater aquarium a couple of days ago and I've been reading these forums for a while now researching to make sure I did it right, but I think I might still have some kinks. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I should start by saying that I got the aquarium friday, mixed the salt the same day, and the water was at perfect specific gravity and crystal clear within an hour. When my roomate set up his tank, it was cloudy from the salt for like 5 days and STILL reading under the desired SG amount. So I was fishy about this(no pun intedended lol), but my tank is far bigger than his (mines 40G, his was 20) so I figured that must be why my salt dissolved better. Saterday morning I got my sand and added that, and the water got a little cloudy. Then I added some SOME live rock and some hermit crabs and snails to get my cycle going. Now I have my problems/questions.
First, once I added the snails/crabs the water got really cloudy. I mean, kind of like milk. It was pristine before I added these. I also added the rock about the same time, so it might have been that too. I dunno. But anywayz, if cloudy water is normal (and I hear it is fairly common in a new setup) how long does it normally take to settle in and the water start looking almost invisible like it does in all of you guys's beautiful tanks? BTW, I have a flufall filter setup in it running right now, for those of you that don't know what they are, theyre a submersible filter that blows a jet of water out after filtering, so I'm getting pretty decent circulation and filtering at the same time from it right now. I added a carbon fiber pad to the regular foam pads too, since it said it traps small particles. Should I turn this off, since I'm jsut stirring up the particles that are suspended in the water, or am I doing the right thign by letting the filter try to eliminate the particles and clear my water?
Net, I have about.... *thinks for a sec* ....15 pounds of live rock in there right now, along with (and heres where I'm starting to think I made a possible mistake) 2 pretty nice sized rocks I found out on the seafloor when I was getting my sand. The "wild" live rocks I got are pretty big and really heavy, I think they might have been peices of broken off concrete or something at one point, but they have lots of old oyster shells on them and stuff so I can't really tell. So question 1 is can a wild rock mess up my levels/contaminate my other "good" live rock with some sort of crazy bacteria that destroys hepful bacteria? I thouroughly checked the rocks for any worms/parasites/other hitchikers before putting them in my tank, and I cleaned them off really well. There are no cracks/holes in them for any surprised to hide in, so I'm not worried about larger things, just bacteria here. My second question about my rock is: I purchased my figi live rocks from a coupel different LFS's that had them in tanks already. I figured that since they already had these rocks goign in their aquariums, and the water in theirs were crystal clear with the rocks in it, that the rocks were completely cured and everything was good to just put them straight in. They even had blennys and shrimp in there with the rock tank. I know everyone says always cure the rock when you get it just to make sure, but I assumed that meant like if you're buying it online and gettign it "dry", not hand picking good looking peices out of exhisting tanks.
Next, and most annoying, problem I have it the smell. I have my aquarium on the bar area thing that seperates the kitchen from the living room, it looks really good there, but...WOW!!!!.....the smell is UNBELIEVABLY BAD!!! I've had the doors and windows open for the past 10 hours, and its not as bad anymore, but man....it was horrible when I woke up this morning. Is that normal? Like, at first, you could only smell it if you put your nose right over the tank, but not its filling up the entire downstairs area, and I can't eat anything cause the smell made my food even taste bad lol.
Oh and I bought a water test kit (after having the LFS test my water for me for free) and I'm confused. The fish store said my water was cycling nicely and that my amonia "was there", but couldnt figure out why my alkilinity was so high. I bought a test kit identical to the one the guy used, but I don't see a reading for amonia on the strips lol. So I'm wondering how he knew....It tests nitrites and nitrates though (both are reading basically 0 last I checked, my cycle hasnt gotten to them yet, I must still be sitting on amonia only). So with no way to test my amonia, I guess I still technically have to wait until the others rise and fall anyway right? I'm assuming my amonia wasnt bad or else the guy that tested the water woulda mentioned it. He just said the amonia "was there" when I mentioned to him I think I had my amonia spike.
Thanks for any help in advance

 

[king_nothing_]

noone out there has any answers for any of those questions? = ( oh well....I'll check again tomorrow mornign before class. night

 

[perfectdark]

WOW.. well the first bit of information I would give is to let your tank run exactly like it is.. your cycle is going to take more than a couple of days to complete. As for the rock you took out of the ocean.. its a tuff call..if you cleaned it and made sure there was nothing on it then you should be ok. Someone else with more experience in taking things from the ocean might be able to give you more info.
The smell you are experiencing IMO is your LR and it sounds as if you purchased uncured LR which smells really really bad. Your tank will clear up in time clouding up is normal and you should continue to run your filter. In a week or so I would check the filter sponge or what ever is in there that traps small particles and rinse it out. In the beginning they fill up fast and can get messy.
IMO your next purchase should be an amonia test kit, you said you had nitrate already, and a PH test kit. Your amonia spike may be over but you can get intermitten spikes here and there for a couple of weeks until your cycle is complete. Once your levels are at 0 your water should clear up and you can think about adding live stock to your tank.. Hope this helps.. good luck.

 

[scotts]

found out on the seafloor when I was getting my sand.
From this I assume that you got your sand from the ocean near you?

 

[spanko]

Phew, a lot of information there to discuss.
The tank probably got really cloudy from the additon of the rockwork. This along with the smell will clear up in the following days as the dead gunk gets filtered. You took a big chance adding your snails and crabs in the first couple of days, the smell you have is an indication that things are dying and even the amount of bacteria existing on the Fiji and the ocean rock were not enough to avoid an ammonia spike. Get some kits, not the strips, to test at the very least ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and Ph. If it were me I would clean the filter every three days at the most to get rid of the gunk. You are going to want 40-50 lbs. total rockwork and the sooner you can get to that quantity the better off. Be aware that each time you add rock you may experience an ammonia spike and the subsequent cycle that goes along with it. You want to minimize this so adding rock all at once is the best way to do that.
In conclusion, get more rock soon, get the appropriate test kits, keep your filter clean and most importantly let the system sit and do it's thing. Just for your information taking sand and rock from the ocean may be (and is in most cases) illegal without the appropriate permits. Along with this you may be introducing unwanted bacteria, pollution,(especially in the sand) and other nasty's to you tank by doing this. Best to avoid this in the future. Also do not put any of this material back into the ocean if you find you don't want it anymore. You risk contamination of the area you are in if you do it so dispose of it without going back to the ocean.
JMO FWIW

 

[kanicky]

Eesh... unfortunately, putting sand and rocks from your local beach into your tank was not the best idea. You'd think it wouldn't make a difference, but unfortunately, most of the time when people do that, they introduce harmful parasites and disease into their tank and it's basically doomed from the beginning.
Did you wash and scrub the live rock you got from the beach? Did you rinse and sift the sand really well? These are things you should do when putting anything in your tank, although its not recommended either way. Also, not sure if you're aware, but most states have laws against taking anything from the ocean/beach, especially rock and corals... Heavy fines and such...
If you can, I suggest taking all of the sand out and tossing it. Start fresh with some "safe" live sand from the fish store, or even from another persons tank. (If you look on local selling/trading boards, you can often find people that are breaking their tanks down.)
I also suggest taking the LR out and scrubing it really well in a bucket of saltwater with a toothbrush and letting it cure, either in the bucket or in your tank. Of course, this means your cycle will take longer than you probably had hoped, but you want to do things right, right?

Also, the test strips are not very reliable. There's been many a discussion about the test strips vs. liquids and the liquid test kits win hands-down. Salifert is the best, but has its price, but Red Sea has a nice test kit, as well as Aquarium Pharmaceuticals.
Anyway, I'll dredge up some more answers for you in a bit... hope everything works out. Good luck!

 

[king_nothing_]

thanks for al these responses everybody, let me read them real quick and then I'll get specific. hang on

 

[king_nothing_]

alright....so it sounds like everyone is pretty much on the fence with the whole ocean sand/rock thing. I'm almost positive I got all the living things off it when I got it home, scrubbed it real good. The only thing that was hitchhiking were some worms, but those are gone now, toothbrush took care of it. So I think I should be good.
Yeah, I know I need a liquid test kit, but the LFS ONLY had the strip one to test for multiple things. It was like 15 bucks for the strips that tested all but amonia, or 10 bucks EACH for drops. I had no choice at the time but to get strips. I think theyre fairly accurate, because my roommates tanks reads differently than mine, so thye work. I think I'm gonna just get a seperate liquid drop amonia kit. probably today.
The smell has gone down considerably. You guys were right, things were dying. I took out 2 dead crabs and the smell was gone in like an hour. Unofrtunatey that probably menas if I left the dead stuff in there that long without knowing it, my amonia is through the roof, which is gonna take my cycle forever to go through right? Theres a saltwater roof only aquarium store around here that gives away free water from their tanks if you buy something.....should I run up there and buy a little somthin'-somthin' and get like 10 gallons of free water and do a partial water change? WIll that help my cloudy-ness or will it make my cycle start over partially again and take longer to finish?
once again, thanks for all the responses. Good stuff.