cloudy water

[cfondie]

Please help me. I have had my tank (55 gal) for about 4 years. I had two damsels and a clown. I recently took the damsels out and added a tang and one other, can't remember the name, I also added 3 scalops and 4 peppermint shrimp. Everything was good except my Nitrate levels were a little high. I did a water change about two weeks ago. This morning my water looked a little cloudy, my nitrate level is high again and the tang, one scalop and one shrimp were all dead. Any ideas? Also how often can you do a 20% water change to get the nitrate levels down. Everything else, ph, amonia, nitrite were perfect.

 

[saltfan]

Type of filtration? Water flow, and how much? Skimmer? Sump? What were your Trate levels?

 

[cfondie]

I can't remember what the level of the trates were, but they were close to the wrong end of the chart i was using. It had numbers, I just can't remember them off the top of my head. I have a protein skimmer and a magnum on my tank. I'm wondering if I am feeding too much.

 

[rusting]

Do you use RO/DI water?

 

[cfondie]

I bought my water from the LFS.

 

[cfondie]

I don't know what RO/DI is?

 

[rusting]

IF you get your water from a lfs. store, it should be RO/DI. It is a purifying system.

 

[agent707]

Same kind of water you get from LFS probably. Just water you run through some filters. Reverse Osmosis and Deionized.
Prior to this water change, how often were you doing them before? And can your tank breathe well enough? i.e. Do you have it covered, or is it pretty open?

 

[cfondie]

my tank is covered and before this it had been a few months since i did a water change.

 

[rusting]

You need to do weekly water changes. I do 10% every week.

 

[saltfan]

10% bi-weekly is sufficient.

 

[nm reef]

it is possible that the additions caused an ammonia spike....if things were stable before there is a possibility that your filtration was just keeping up but with the added bio-load things were knocked out of wack.

 

[cfondie]

I did a 20% water change three days ago and my Nitrates are still high. Everything else is perfect. I don't understand why a water change does not change the nitrates at all.

 

[bang guy]

Originally Posted by cfondie
I did a 20% water change three days ago and my Nitrates are still high. Everything else is perfect. I don't understand why a water change does not change the nitrates at all.
Have you tested your LFS water for Nitrate?