newbee checkin in. cloudy water...

Thanks Eric.

 

I imagine I will have many many questions ...
I am glad I stumbled on to this site.

 

congrats on your newly found hobby! as far as the r/o unit goes...just set up a certain day for your water changes and then get started on your r/o water a couple of days ahead of time. as for the receptacle, i'd recommend using a nice rubbermaid container for the r/o water and give yourself a good 24 hours of mixing (up to temp of course) before adding to your tank. i agree with telman2010, all i've ever used is live rock for biological filtration and a protein skimmer for mechanical filtration. once in a while i'll run some carbon for chemical filtration...
for your lighting you are going to have a nice dawn/dusk simulation available to you because of the actinics. on my smaller tank i run pc's, a 12 hour photoperiod with my main lights running from 10am to 8pm and my actinics running from 9am-9pm (about an hour on each side of the photoperiod ...dawn/dusk). you'll really appreciate the bluish tint the actinics can provide for your tank inhabitants and your viewing pleasure. in the long run you'll eventually find out what works well for you and your tank. hth.

 

The Berlin method works very well for me. Live rock and live sand and a protein skimmer is all I run on my 75gal.reef tank. Everything is doing great...Boi wheels are as mentioned above nitrate and phosphate traps. Just don't go crazy stocking fish in your tank if you plan on doing many corals(reef) becuase you will decrease the water quality!
have fun!

 

Cloudy to Clear

Just set mine up R/O is key. I mix my salt water about 5 days ahead I keep a heater in it and a powerer head.

I'm with Telman2010. Get rid of the bio balls. Use LR.

Had to rebuild my LR. Things got all stirred up, very cloudy.

12 hours later Clrystal Clear.

See Before and after pics.