Someone Help! (cloudy)

[codyl1121]

OK, so I got a new 25 gallon tank early this morning from PetSmart. I bought a bag of dark SeaChem Fluorite, Driftwood and a Bag of Gravel. I rinsed the gravel and the driftwood, but didnt rinse the Fluorite (this is probably where I went wrong). I put the Fluorite on the bottom and the gravel on top of it, evened it out then added 2 pieces of driftwood then added the water. The water was supperrr cloudy so I started running the filter. After a few hours, nothing really changed. Water was still cloudy as heck. Mind you, I have no plants as they are sitting off to the side in their gel waiting for the water become un-cloudy (shh I made that word up) so I can see what I'm doing. I did about a 25% water change and ehh it helped a little but figured I really shouldn't do water changes. I gravel vacced it a little just to see and there it was a bunch of cloudiness! Here's a picture at this point:


http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd305/codyl1121/20120817_131641.jpg




The bag said to buy SeaChem Clarity if I wanted to speed the process and take away the cloudiness so I did. I went to the pet store, got home and noticed my tank was white and cloudy at the very top and yellow and cloudy the whole rest of the tank. I put the Clarity in and it turned even more Yellow lol. Is this good? Am I being impatient? Will the bottom ALWAYS be so cloudy if a fish or shrimp digs into it? Do they like that lol or will it hurt them? Will my filter eventually clear all this up even the clouds of dust from the bottom? I really don't have the money to buy all new substrate again just to rinse it. Here's what the tank looks like now

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd305/codyl1121/20120817_181946.jpg

 

[butterfly_koi]

The cloudiness can be caused from a couple of different things:
A. Your water is still settling
B. It could be from the substrate
C. It could be a bacteria bloom
Or, D. If it is none of these it could be also that the Seachem Flourite is known to cloud up tanks.

In the case of the bacterial boom;

When you first set-up a tank, the fresh new water has lots of nutrients and trace elements in it. Bacteria will use the nutrients and trace elements to grow and multiply and thus, cloud the water. Water changes will probably not clear the cloudiness as when you remove the free-floating heterotrophic bacteria, the others will reproduce more to compensate.
Give it time and the water should clear up on it's own, the tea color your seeing is more than likely from the driftwood, driftwood will often leech tannins into the water. Some pieces will leech for a short period of time and some will leech for a longer period. The cloudiness will not hurt the plants.
Seeing as how it's a newly set up tank your in for a few water changes along the way anyways so keep a close eye in the water parameters, perform a pwc when needed, ask questions if you need help, and as always,
~*Welcome to AA*~
Also, have you learned about cycling yet?

 

[shellieca]

Did you boil the heck out of the driftwood? I think the brown is tannins from the DW. As for the cloudiness, could be your substrate &/or from the starter (I think you said you added some). Usually it'll all clear up but it'll take LOTS of BIG water changes & time. My fish in cycling takes clouded up about week 2 & took about 2 weeks to completely clear up.

 

[Bearchumjs]

I added pool filter sand in my tank and it was cloudy for a couple days. I think if you do a pwc it will help. It just needs time to settle and it should clear up. So pwc's will remove the particles. Or you can just wait for it to clear up on its own.

 

[Bearchumjs]

And about the brownish color- that's tannins in your tank from the driftwood, pwc's will help with that too however the driftwood will continue to release tannins overtime. Not a big deal if you do your weekly pwc's.