Please help -- very cloudy water

[amirs]

Hi. I just did a major overhaul on my 29g system, by adding a 10g sump and removing an Eheim canister filter. After everything was set up, the water was very cloudy, which I expected. But after I let it sit for 3 hours, the water was still very cloudy and even more weird is that all my live rock is covered with some sort of dust-like stuff...kinda like a volcano went off in my tank and covered everything with dust or something.

Does anyone know what this stuff is, or more importantly, what I can do to fix it? The sump has a protein skimmer sitting in it, and the canister filter is no longer connected to the system...could that be the reason? In case this information helps, the main tank has one overflow hole/pipe and one return line from the sump. Any help would be very appreciated.


Thanks,
Amir

[nathansdad04]

Do you have sand for substrate? 3 hours is nothing...give it some time. I just set up my 75 and it took 2 days to clear. i put a filter pad in my trickle filter and it helped clear the water much faster. It's hard to get things to settle with powerheads etc running so the filterpad worked great. You don't want the water to just sit motionless anyway.

[amirs]

Thanks, and yeah I use sand for substrate. I let it sit overnight and the water cleared up...BUT, just like last night, all the live rock is still covered with a layer of stuff. Should I hook up the canister filter for awhile to clear it out (since I don't have a trickle filter), since I have nothing to perform mechanical filtration?

[bond007069]

Ya my 75 gallon is still cloudy,{SD} hook up the canister and it should clear in a couple of days

[ReefWizard]

Use a turkey baster to "blow" the stuff off the rock. You will probably have to do this multiple times. This will help stir it up. I don't care what type of filtration you have, if the stuff is heavy enough not to be stirred by your normal water motion, you will have to get it suspended in the water or else it will never disappear. Also, you might try multiple powerheads to keep the water movement strong while you wait for the smaller particulate matter to filter through your system.

[amirs]

Thanks for the advice, but I don't understand the purpose of suspending the particulate matter in water again...where does it go from there? The way my system is now, there's no "real" filter set up, so what will trap these small particles?

[bond007069]

mech filtration

[Larry Waughon]

Your protein skimmer will catch these small particles.Turkey baste them off a little at a time.