yellow tinged water in 210g SW tank....help

[Annie/Aggie]

OK , I admit it, I know nothing about sw tanks........ I have a 210g sw tank almost by accident. Don't get me wrong, I love it but am still truly baffled by a bit of stuff. I AM amazed at how much easier it IS as opposed to how it LOOKS on paper. Now . So far it is FOWLR as I don't have lights yet. I run a pondmaster 2400 pump in a 50 gal sump. The water was crystal clear for awhile. It's been set up for maybe 3 months now. I have 6 clowns in there and about 60 lbs of live rock. 1 turbo snail. My water is yellow looking so I added a protein skimmer, also with a pondmaster pump, and I do have bubbles all the way up it but there is nothing to clean out as yet and while the water is a little better color for $500.00 I expected it to clear a lot faster than this. It's been 24 hours so the tank should have re-circulated itself several times. Shouldn't it?
Was the protein skimmer what I needed to get rid of the yellow water or do I need something else?? You can see into the front of the tank ok but from the end it looks really yellow. Of course we are looking down a 7 ft length of water but it did look clear at first. I just tested everything right across the board and I don't even have so much as a hairs worth of difference in any readings and I do test them all that I know of. SO, why is the water still yellow?

 

[Devilishturtles]

What kind of skimmer did you get? How much are you feeding? Sometimes new skimmers need a few days to break in before they start skimming. You may need to fool with any adjustments on it that it has.

 

[melosu58]

I agree that skimmer needs to run alittle bit to break in. What type bulbs do you have

 

[roka64]

I think you may have problems with 6 clowns, what kind are they? Also, you can run GAC to clear up the coloration. Of course, it could be a diatom bloom.
Can you get a pic?
What are your water parameters?

 

[Annie/Aggie]

They are percula clowns, like nemo as I was told they are a hardy fish to start with. Why will I have a problem with 6 of them? It's a big tank, they don't fight as yet anyway.
The protien skimmer is an ASM g-series. That tells me absolutely nothing so I hope you know what it is.
I don't understand what you mean by what type of bulb do I have? Also what is a GAC?
My water parameters are 0 ammonia, 5-10 nitrates, 8.5 Ph and salt is 124ppg
So far they have flake food in the morning and shrimp at night, there doesn't seem to be any extra food floating around.

 

[lando]

GAC is activated carbon. Just hold your cursor over the abbriviation and the name should pop up. Carbon will help to clear the water. a few good size water changes should also help, provided your source water is not contributing to the problem.

 

[roka64]

GAC is granular activated carbon. If something is underlined, you can mouse over it and it will tell you the possible names...unless you use a MAC...I believe....I mean, that is a lot of clowns in a tank, even though it is a large tank. They do live in large numbers, in the wild, but have an ocean in which to live. GAC will take out the funky color and some other stuff.
"bulbs" means, what kind of lighting so you have....

 

[Annie/Aggie]

thanks everyone, I'll be getting the carbon today to see how that works. I didn't understand about what bulb do I have as I don't have the lighting as yet.
thanks for the tip on how to find out what the abbreviations are.

 

[roka64]

How long has your tank been up and running? Mel was asking what kind of lighting, but you just answered the question.

 

[Devilishturtles]

The reason it was asked what kind of lighting you had was because the lower kelvin rating bulbs put off a yellower tinge.