New tank w/ crushed coral substrate has cloudy water.

BloodThirsty

AC Members
Mar 17, 2005
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Not terrible but there is lots of stuff floating around in the tank. Of course when I first set it up a month ago is was extremely cloudy and you couldn't see through it. Yes I washed the coral out about 5 times. Anyway, I have a Penn Plax Cascade 1200 running on it. I've changed two of the four floss pads and each time they have been crammed with junk from the coral I assume.

So my question is what do I need to do to get this problem cleared up? Add more floss pads or what?

PS - I am doing 50% weekly water changes. All water params are perfect. Also I am posting a pic below.


reworked.jpg
 
I used the micron fillter and cleared it up in 3 days, then switched to charcoal...about 45 pounds of CC....:)
 
I will reccomend underworld polyfilter as a fine filter floss. Like you I used crushed coral substrate. Had a lot of particles in the water. Added this floss to my filter and I saw a dramatic improvement within hours. You need to change it apparently every 6 weeks and its relatively expensive.
 
try not to mess around with the substrate too much, it may release a cloud of dust no matter how well you clean it.
 
Rent a Vortex diatom filter from your LFS or buy one. Two hours and it will be spotless.
 
i think my problem with fine particles was not so much the crushed coral but in fact 1) a crummy filter (now replaced with a fluval four plus) and 2) not cleaning off my tufa rock better.

I think you will find as it matures you will have less and less problems with this, especially with some good filter floss.
 
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