New tank gone all sedimenty - help?

[stephicozar]

Newbie here. I've just set up my new saltwater aquarium and have a murky issue.

The tank is 3', 120 litres (30 gallons??) and there's super clean (washed to within an inch of its life) shell grit in the bottom - about 2 inches worth. No fish and no plants yet.

I filled the tank with lukewarm water then added the salt to the correct SG. When I turned the filter on all this sedimenty stuff, kind of like undissolved salt, started floating around. We thought we'd run the filter for a couple of days to clear it but its still there. We took the filter out and gave it another vigorous washing, still floaties. Its been 48 hours now.

Before we put the salt in the water was crystal clear, with the filter going and everything.

Is it a filter problem? Will I need to empty alllllll that water and start all over again?


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Stephi

 

[Fishieness]

it sounds like you didnt rinse your sand of all the powder?
a good way to fix that is to put a fine filter, or even some panty-hose over your filter and powerheads. then jsut take it out and rinse it every once in a while.

 

[stephicozar]

Not sure about rinsing - everything got a major rinse before it got put in.

I had another clean/rinse of the filter and it seems that most of the little specky bits are clearing away from my tank in the past few hours.

Only now, with all these specky bits gone, I can see that some of them weren't specks (many were, fine white stuff) but are tiny bubbles. Everywhere!

So my next question is, now that most of the silty stuff has gone and I can see properly, how many bubbles is too many bubbles for my fish? They are very very tiny and fine, hence confusing them with more rubbish, but they are everywhere. The tanks at the petshop are all crystal clear - why isn't mine? The filter doesn't have any other power increments - only 'on' Its a BioMax something.

How many air bubbles?

Thanks! Its great to have a handy, helpful place like this when you're just staring out.

Stephi

 

[Fishieness]

what is producing the bubbles? skimmer, filter, or your powerheads?