newbie here,

O.k. need a little more info. Do you have a sump or hang on filter or canister filter? The pic will help so we can see how much rock etc. I said the cloudiness was problematic because it was there early on and never cleared. Is the ammonia still present? We will get there, just need to get the whole picture.

 

welcome to 3 reef amee

dont allow early dissapointments to put you off
you came to the right place for good advice
keep talking, sharing and it will come good in the end

Steve

 

Welcome to 3reef! questions and pics please.

 

pics of my cloudy tank

:-[ and this is after 2 weeks with lights off, no fish, 30% water change x2,I added the fish back yesterday because the goby was'nt eating in the hosp tank and the anemone didnt look that great





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i see a few problems here... the cloudiness looks to be micro bubbles. there are many causes for this #1 being the skimmer. also, your wet/dry isnt working properly. is water overflowing from the top into the return section? your bioballs should always be in air with water contact from dripping water. is there a distributor plate to evenly drop the water? the baffles afterwards are to make the water level in the return as high as the tallest one so water halfway up the ball chamber isnt correct. also, have you lost an anemone in the tank? that can nuke the tank. i also noticed you only have 2-3 pieces of rock. this plus the balls do not leave enough room for beneficial bacteria to establish. the sumberged bio balls are just hosting waste which can raise youe ammonia sometimes. what i would do is rinse the bio balls in TANK WATER not fresh water in order to keep the beneficial bacteria. do a water change and use that water. then while the balls are out figure out what is making your sump work improperly. finally search the site in the top right corner for "micro bubbles". you will find an overwhelming amount of help there. Hang in there and good luck!

-Patrick

 

well there isnt a skimmer yet, so the micro bubbles are coming from where? and yes I lost an anemone in the hospital tank which is probably why I lost most of the fish and why the last goby is so pale and not eating, which means I'm going to loose him soon if he doesn't start eating. so tommorrow i'll do another water change and use the water I remove to rinse the bioballs, but thats just a quick fix i need to find a way to get the sump/bioballs higher than the water level, since they are suppose to be in the air

 

you dont need to raise the bioballs above the water... just lower the overall water level in the sump. also, is that a metal hose clamp on the pump all rusted? id check that for sure

 

Look at this; http://www.fishsupply.com/saga-19000.html
There should be a sponge between the chambers just before the return pump like in the picture above.

You need a lot more rock to establish a good biological filter. Since things are the way they are, you can add 5-10 lbs. of some porous base rock, add live bacteria (Cycle brand is a good one) at double the dose, then 3 days later repeat the dose. After 1 week add 5-10 lbs of some more rock and repeat the bacteria dose. You really need to build up the rock work. A lot of the cloudiness may a combo sand blowing around (no rock to create eddys and current) and some ammonia from the submerged bio balls. With that small amount of rock, there isn't suffecient bacteria to break down waste.
I don't see any power heads so the only movement you are getting is from the return nozzle, so in essence, although you don't have stagnant water, you have a very slow moving water column.

I have a 55 gal. and have a Koralia 1, 3, 4 and nano in mine. At least put a coulple 3s or 4s in to generate more flow and get the water moving. Sometimes a pic helps, so here is my 55 gal. Notice the power head placement and rock, now I like a lot of rock, you may not use as much as I did but you will get the idea;

 

ok, i'm on my way to Nolens to get my supplies, 1) 20g r/o water 2) 10lbs of porous rock 3) live bacteria. Is it safe to do this all without removing my livestock? oh and there is a sponge between the chambers. powerheads will have to wait

 

Read the PM before seeing this, so we covered this.