I'm close to ending my tank, this hobby might be too much for me.

are any of those rocks that you have man-made?
did they all come from the ocean or were some of them made from concrete and then sold to you...

 

Hey don't quit, your tank looks nice for its age. If everyone quit when something in their tank went wrong, I don't think anyone would be here.

 

That cloudy water looks either like a bacteria bloom or Ca and Alk precipitating out. The precipitation isn't deadly or even harmful, I just had it happen to me. If that's the case it will go away on its own, if it's a bacteria bloom that could be a result of high nutrients, nitrate and phosphate and could also be a cause of your problems.

 

Definately keep the tank cycling. My guess with the cloudy water is some nutrifying bacteria has died off.?.? I'm also goin to guess it started after you broke the rock??? Without details on how long the rock was out of the water there is potential that bacteria has died off if left dry for too long. Was the rock LR when purchased? Did it need to be cured? Skimmer should help a lot if your not running one. Good luck and keep us posted..

 

This is the sump I am planning to build come January I just need some help with he products etc. If you guys could help me out on there also I would appreciate it.

As for the live rock, the huge piece I got from Petco and the other pieces I got from the LFS and they all were cured, even came with a few bristle worms. When I broke the rock I let it sit in really high salinity water to kill off some green hair algae for under 24 hours and then put it back into the tank.

Thats the strange thing, my corals are all doing great with growth on my brain and zoas! I can't find the problem with the water cloudiness or the fish health and the shrimp death...sucks.

 

A sump and a protein skimmer would help out alot. I have seen a few tanks with eclipse hood/filters, they all had problems. This is not a good filter for a reef tank. I would wait longer before adding anymore livestock to the tank. Start out with some inexpensive livestock. If they live for a while try adding something else. You can't add stuff too fast or you will have many problems. Good luck with it, Don't quit.

 

almost every new tank will go through the cayano algae phase, it also sound like your tank did not fully cycle before you started adding livestock, that might explain the issues....like others have recommended, let the tank settle down for a month or so, don't add anything, even if you think your parms are OK. In the years I've been doing this I've made many mistakes and the one common mistake most of us make, is that we're not patient when we setup a tank, it's understandable, we all get into this because we want a great looking tank, it just takes some patience. Don't worry about it, things will get better, just slow down a bit....don't listen to anyone telling you the tank only need 3 wks or 4 wks to cycle, that's what we want to hear in the beginning and I'm not saying that's never the case, but for the most part it's not, every tank is different and in my experience it takes longer than that....6-8 wks, or even longer to fully cycle (unless you started with cured LR).

 

Its just your awful filtration. One we build your sump, get a fuge going, and run a skimmer you tank will be much healthier. Just wait it out and let you tank run. Dont buy any more livestock. Stop tinkering so much as well.

 

I would wait on the tank to settle before you put anymore invert in there. The fog is probably a bacterial bloom as mentioned before. I cycled my tank for 12 weeks but I set my tank up the old school (tangster) way. You need to have patience with this hobby, if you don't then I would give it up now before you burn a bunch of money out of your bank.

Go slow and let it grow.

Just remember it's a ecosystem not a piece of furniture, it needs time.

 

I understand where everyone is coming from with me having to be patient I do. I feel like I was. I didn't add my first fish until about week 6 or so. If this cloudiness is a bacteria bloom would it last this long?