Cloudy and smelly , fishy water

[dnwolf]

Hey guys so as you all may have known I am currently cycling my Red SEA max tank ... I am doing so without any fish , some live rocks , reused sand and the filter that was built into the Red SEA max itself.
As for the filter media , i am currently using 2 small bags of active carbon , 1 bag of ceramic disc and a couple of sponges and wool .

So the story goes :
When i first got my tank from my uncle , there was already a layer of sand in it so i decided to use it instead of getting a new layer . It smelled really bad (like rotten eggs) so i gave it a wash . Then we brought the tank into the house and filled it up with water (chlorinated tap water) . Later , we found out that the previous bags of filter media was still in the tank ( apparently left there for really long) and it had some insects living in it ... we quickly took it threw it out and replace it with a fresh batch of filter media , however we did not give the filter compartment a good wash and there was still some insects and scraps of unidentified matter (probably the bio load from the previous inhabitants) in it...
Nevertheless we started the system and everything was flowing well (except for the protein skimmer as the air line connector broke , going to get a new one at qian hu tomorrow if possible) .. At first it was extremely cloudy and i could barely see the live rocks inside , but it was due to the particles so i did not bother it , however this morning when i checked , it had a really really fishy smell ! ( like dead shellfish or the smell from polluted cannels ) . The water less cloudy (more of chalky) now but i cant seem to find any particles , so could this be due to bacterial bloom? Is this good or bad? Should i strip down everything and wash it thoroughly with bleach and water or should i just leave it to cycle ? Is there a way to salvage it ? Please help!

[BFG]

If it's that bad, restart the whole system. Give the tank a thorough wash and rinse properly after washing. Go over the tank properly. There's no shortcut for a marine tank. Best is to do more research and have proper equipment before starting. Jumping the gun is a sure way to leave the hobby early and blaming it for your mistake.