Some concerns regarding my new tank

[skippy]

Hi. As I posted in the newbie section, I'm just starting this hobby. Today, I got me a 15 gallon tank. So far, I have a flourescent lamp, a piece of driftwood, a stone, pots, gravel and some plants. I'm returning the airpump and filter I got tomorrow since it apparently had too much power for the size of my tank. Aside from that, I'll be buying the ammonia, oxygen, kH and gH test kits tomorrow, and some ammonia for the fishless cycling (which I learned from one of the pinned posts here ).

This is what I've done in order:

1) Rinsed everything with tap water, especially the gravel, which was quite dirty.
2) Placed the gravel and ornaments as well as the plants.
3) Put in 12 gallons of water.
4) Added the recommended dosage of water conditioner.
5) Installed the thermometer.
6) Checked the water pH level. It was somewhere between 7.5 and 8.5.

Here are some of my problems:

1) The water is quite murky . I tried taking pictures of it. Although there still isn't any filter and aerator, shouldn't the water be relatively clear, since I just added it today? Any suggestions? Am I missing something?

2) The glass of the tank has some of those hard-water stains. Can I just use a new window cleaner to fix that? Is there anything else I can do aside from buying a window cleaner?

3) Just out of curiousity, if any of you can identify the plants I placed in the tank, I'd greatly appreciate knowing what plants those are.

If I'm missing something, kindly point it out. Doing this the first time, and I want to do it right.

 

[Dragonslair]

Hello skippy,
Everything that you have done seems quite normal, right down to the murkeyness.
The tank is totally unsettled at the moment and the murkeyness will be of two things.1. there will be tiny suspensions of dust and dirt from the newly washed gravel in the water. No matter how many times you wash it there will always be suspension. It is the nature of the substrate. 2. After a little while you may notice a white cloud in the water, this is known as a bacterial bloom. You will also notice too if you did water tests you would have a spike in all your readings. This is all perfectly normal in a brand new setup. To help clear the "solid" suspension, you could try and add something like Accruel F to the water. This liquid "clumps the suspended matter and when it gets heavy,sinks to the bottom. If you have a filter system you would switch it on after 4 hours and the filter would polish the water through the filter floss. The bacterial bloom is treated differently. Sorry can't help you with the plants. You can however call on our resident expert-Rose.

 

[Mamaschild]

I believe the "grass" type plant is Valisneria. almost looks like the shoots of Giant Val I just planted in one of my tanks "IF" that's what it is, be prepared to have the leaves floating on top of the water as it grows. I have one that I just put in my 80g (just bought it) that must have 3' leaves. It runs halfway across the top of my tank

I have no clue what the other 2 are, but I like!! They look like little palm trees I will follow this post, becaus I would like to see what everyone else thinks it might be.

HTH

 

[joshua]

dang do not return the air pump!! you can get a stainless steel valve (at least its sold here in singapore) to control the air flow rate. as for the filter if it works with the pump the flow rate also will be controlled by the valve but if its a hang on back or internal power filter then i dunno

 

[joshua]

you may wanna use blackwater (peat extract) or peat to lower the pH as the pH is too high unless you wanna keep african cichlids or something. seeing ur high pH i also assume your water to be hard, making it unsuitable for most aquarium fish. ignore this if you are keeping fish who like those conditions