green tinge to water in tank need help am a newby.

maybe others can help with the cloudiness issue, but I do know that you should soak the driftwood for quite a long time before adding it to the new tank to keep it from doing just as you say. I have heard anything from a week to a month on soaking the wood to get it nice and ready and to keep it from popping up and possibly breaking a glass top if you have one on your tank.

the color is most likely from the driftwood. also if you can boil it that will help also. you want to add marine salt to make it a brackish set up.

please leave the wood in, the fish will love having a place to hide and it makes imho the tank look nice as well. Just take the time to boil it as noted above, set your tank up leaving yourself some room for it and just let it soak for a week or so before putting it into the tank and all should be well.

as for the cycling go hit up the freshwater newbie forum for a nice discussion about fishy vs non fishy cycling and the pros cons and methods of each.

or just click here

I put it in. 10 live plants not sure what the names of em are. and as I'm going for a brackish tank to house my green puffers I was advised to put 1 teaspoon of aquatic salt per gallon which I have done.

Click to expand...

If you are creating a BW tank your plants are unlikely to survive, a few of the hardier ones can deal with low Sg (around 1.005 max I believe) but not too many. If the plants are not suited for BW they may be the cause of the green tinge (wood usually leaves a brown/tan color). IMO you should find out the names of the plants asap, and research whether they will work in your tank.
For the proper Sg you will need to pick up a Hydrometer at the lfs (about $6 around here), this will measure the exact concentration of salt in your water, and let you keep it stable for your fish.
IMO the best methods for cycling a new tank are "Fishless" (if you do a search of the site you should find info on this method), or transferring bacteria from a mature tank to the new tank by moving filter material/decorations/substrata etc. from the mature tank to the new one. A lot of people swear by an instant cycling product called "Biospira", but as it is not available in Canada I'll let others speak of it's effectiveness.