Another cloudy water thread

[pstanley]

I swore to myself I wouldn't post a thread regarding cloudy water but here I go lol. I am assuming this is just related to the tank being new (slightly under 3 months old) but I wanted to verify. It is a 60 gallon reef tank with a 20 gallon sump. My water parameters are:

Temp - 79
SG - 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 2.5
Alk - 143.2
PH - 8.2
Calcium - 420

The tank has about 70 lbs. of live rock with roughly 45 lbs. of Aragonite Reef Sand. Tank currently has two Chromis and one Eibl's Dwarf Angel. Clean up crew consists of 6 Turbo snails, 3 scarlet hermits, and 1 cleaner shrimp. I am running a GFO reactor and Chemi-Pure Elite. I have been doing 10% water changes every 2 days since it became cloudy. The tank went through its' first Diatom bloom on 12/18 which lasted about 5 days. The tank has been cloudy ever since. It is milky white so I assumed it was a bacteria bloom?? If so, will it go away on its own? Another thing that I thought was strange is the filter sock is turning brown the day I change it. I thought maybe it was the GFO so I turned it down but it was barely tumbling to begin with. Is it normal for the socks to get dirty so fast? The skimmer is pulling some skimate but nothing excessive.

 

[2quills]

Sounds like a typical bacteria bloom to me. Personally, I'd just leave it alone and let it run its course. Should clear up within a couple of weeks if even that long. Keep your skimmer running. Socks get dirty like that from the organics in the water column. Somehow, somewhere there's been an abundance released into the system and the young tank couldn't handle it. Just takes time to adjust. Keep an eye on your parameters and livestock. You should get through it.

 

[snakeblitz33]

my advice is basically the same... though I would suggest to pull out the chemi pure elite and increase your water current through your tank. eventually it will all catch up.

 

[geridoc]

It sure sounds like a bacterial bloom. Be sure to have plenty of water movement throughout the tank since the bacteria will lower oxygen levels.

 

[pstanley]

Ok, thanks everyone. I defiantly have plenty of water movement with a Hydor Koralia Evo 1150 and 850 plus a dialed down Mag 9.5 powering the return just under the (not covered) surface in a 60 gallon DT. All of the live rock is pulled away from the back glass with the 850 running behind it.

Snake - do you recommend pulling the Chemi-Pure Elite strictly to increase water flow through the sump or for other reasons not stated relating to the bacteria bloom?

 

[snakeblitz33]

Chemi pure elite has been known to cause different illnesses and problems in tanks. Head rot and lateral line disease is two that I know of. If it causes that, then there is no telling what other chemicals it adds or takes away from the water column. It's also just that specific brand with both carbon and GFO that causes it. Just pull it and see how much faster the bloom goes away.

 

[pstanley]

Well I still had the bacterial bloom which was going on for about 2 weeks now. I purchased one of the cheap UV lights from ***** and it cleared it up overnight (wasn't extremely cloudy but definitely noticeable looking through the water from the sides of the tank). Now it is crystal clear. I am not sure what was causing the excessive bacteria...the tank only has two fish (the bigger Chromis killed the smaller one) which are not overfed and the water parameters are still as listed in my first post except I now have 0 nitrates as well. Should I just leave this UV light on permanently or pull it off after a week or so to see if the tank has stabilized? I don't have any filter feeding inverts that would benefit from live things floating in the water column anyways. As with anything in this hobby, I have read both positives and negatives to using UV in a reef tank.

 

[beaslbob]

Kill the lights and stop feeding until it clears.

then resume with less lighting and feeding and adjust so that things thrive (more) but cloudiness does not come back (less)

my .02