Good bye

olga

Member
I've tried and now I give up. I took almost every advise from this thread https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=195793 to clean cloudy water in my tank, bought tons of equipment, changed 70% of water with RO. Its getting cleaner for a day, then next day its cloudy again. I could be more patient if I seen some little improvement, but its not happening.

I think I done everything I could. I am taking my fish and LR back to the shop and will convert tank to freshwater.
Thanks again for taking your time to post suggestions, it was a great pleasure to communicate with you.
Olga.
 

mystic7

Member
Isn't there somebody knowledgeable in your area that could come over and give your tank a look? And I don't mean your friend with the perfectly clear water. There's got to be SOMETHING causing it that we may have overlooked or that you're not telling us. I mean, even MY water has cleared up by now.
Don't give up. If I had given up last week I wouldn't have the enjoyable tank I have now, only 7 days later.
btw, the mistress offer still stands ;-)
 

olga

Member
Mystic. Yes, there is knoweldgable people in "fish" shops which give you advise, but nothing exactly new which I already gathered from the forums, books and speaking to other people. (sorry if its sound arrogant). Plus they selling you load of unnecessarily stuff (maybe you need it, if you keep corals and invertebrate tank, but not for "fish and life rock" as in my situation.)
My friend did not do anything much different, even regarding to stocking fish tank to fast (he made this mistake also, lol) He also using tap water, not RO. His water is clear mine is not!
The only way around it as I can see: take everything from the tank to the bare shell and start everything from the zero! Maybe I've started my tank in one of those unlucky days, and in the wrong moon phase, lol. Yes, I am silly and superstitious like that.
It will be a pleasure to accept your "mistress " offer, Mystic, when I am in your neck of the woods. ;-)
 

steelgluer

Member
Originally Posted by Olga
I've tried and now I give up. I took almost every advise from this thread https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=195793 to clean cloudy water in my tank, bought tons of equipment, changed 70% of water with RO. Its getting cleaner for a day, then next day its cloudy again. I could be more patient if I seen some little improvement, but its not happening.

I think I done everything I could. I am taking my fish and LR back to the shop and will convert tank to freshwater.
Thanks again for taking your time to post suggestions, it was a great pleasure to communicate with you.
Olga.
Leave it alone dont touch it dont add anything except you 5 to 10% bi/weekly water change. It will be clear in 2 to 4 weeks.
 

pashari

Member
Olga-
I agree with the above. Just leave it alone for a few weeks. Cut your lights to 6 hrs per day (if on at all) and just do you water changes weekly (10%). Cut feeding down to a light feeding every other day.
Sometimes it seems that the more you mess with something the more it messes up.
Good Luck -
lisa
 

chipmaker

Active Member
Don;t know what the original post pertaing to this post was about, but i certainly would not add anything or do anything except water changes, and ensure parameters are right, and keep cleaning the filters. I may add some purigen or or AC, but no other additives at the most.......
 

wilsonreef

Member
I know this probably sounds redundant but do you have anything, a filter, powerhead or something that keeps the sand stirred up constantly? Could your cloudiness be micro bubbles? What type of filtration are you using? I agree with the others quit buying unnecessary equipment until you find out what's causing this, but let's not give up just yet....There is a cause we just need to find out what it is and address it from there. It just doesn't seem that bad water quality is causing this unless your over feeding in great quantities. Even somewhat brackish water is sometimes clear.
Carl
 

mystic7

Member
Originally Posted by Olga
It will be a pleasure to accept your "mistress " offer, Mystic, when I am in your neck of the woods. ;-)
Let me know so I can take a shower and do a water change ;-)
Skip the Perugen, it didn't work for me. Your water has to be clear to begin with and it will "polish" it but won't take care of the cloudiness you're experiencing.
I forget who said it but someone pointed out micro bubbles, which was a major source of my problem, and having a powerhead blow up dust from your substrate. Those sound like two very good possibilities.
 

corally

Active Member
Try to hang in there. I had a green water problem in my FW that lasted for 2 months and I was ready to tear the whole tank down! But, eventually it subsided.
 

maeistero

Active Member
when i went to london a couple years ago i was pretty excited to see some new stuff. i was really disappointed by every fish store i visited. they didn't even know freshwater! dublin was even worse.
i would just recycle your tank entirely for a couple months and keep testing everything you can. something in your setup isn't right.
can you post up your entire setup and procedure again? i really haven't ever used chems on my tanks yet. if you do fish only you should be able to do it pretty quick and easy with minimal maintenaince compared to a reef.
imho
 

olga

Member
Originally Posted by wilsonreef
I know this probably sounds redundant but do you have anything, a filter, powerhead or something that keeps the sand stirred up constantly? Could your cloudiness be micro bubbles? What type of filtration are you using? I agree with the others quit buying unnecessary equipment until you find out what's causing this, but let's not give up just yet....There is a cause we just need to find out what it is and address it from there. It just doesn't seem that bad water quality is causing this unless your over feeding in great quantities. Even somewhat brackish water is sometimes clear.
Carl
Thank you for your assurance, I will leave it for another two weeks, and see if its start to improve. Its just so frustrating when don't see any. I don't want to convert it to freshwater either, especially after investing so much time and expense in it. But I lost my hope now.
Its definitely not cloudiness from the sand. I know that "type of cloudiness" when I vacuum sand. its settles down after few hours.
Its not bubbles from protein skimmer also. Its use to blow bubbles. Now its adjusted to perfection and hardly makes any bubbles. However its only was working like that for a last 10 days, and only now started to collect skimmate. it was not adjusted right before.
Two power heads close to the surface and does not blow sand either, just an air.
I also done 40% water change 2 days ago with RO water. It did got more transparent, then started to deteriorate again next day. Also I fed my fish during last 2 weeks, once a week, and even then very little. Maeistero, you are right about UK shops, and I even don't live in London where suppose to be all experts are. I live in the wild province, lol. Here is my set up.
55 GL Rena tank
Rena XP3 filter
Rena XP2 filter (both with lots of media)
2 powerheads
RS Prizm protein slimmer
25LB of LR
3 black mollies
2 little clowns
2 little damsels
1 redlip blenny
12 turbo snails
10 blue leg crabs
Posting a picture of my tank which was taken 10 min ago
 

dogstar

Active Member
Where did you get your live rock. It could be leaking chemicals into the water as well as the those fake decorations. Remove any decorations or rocks that are not naturally from the ocean if you have not already.
 

steelgluer

Member
Originally Posted by Olga
Its definitely not cloudiness from the sand. I know that "type of cloudiness" when I vacuum sand. its settles down after few hours.
Dont vacum your sand
 

tinyreef

Member
while this and other forums are helpful, maybe you can get some local help as well. you can try ultimatereef.net (a UK reef site - not commercial).
good luck and hope you stay in the hobby!
 

swlover

Member
Ok I think I might be able to help you as I have had this problem here recently with FW, I have been keeping FW for years and have recently started SW..never had this problem before...I tried everything, did water changes, siphoned the gravel- it would sort of clear up and then bang the next day cloudy again..nothing helped, all fish accounted for. I was at a loss as to what it could be, I have 4 of clean up fish and only a few fish-total of 6-so it wasn't too many fish in tank. I had a filter strong enough for a 30 gal set up...I have a 20 gal so I didn't even concider the filter, until I have noticed nothing in the filter cartrige-it was clean..it should be full of stuff..from well filtering. Water flow was good, I just couldn't fig out why. So I went and bought a Technoflo Bio 120 for tanks up to 40 gals...It worked, in one night my tank is clear, the filter is smaller than the bigger one I had, and fish are happy, levels are great. They make them in larger sizes too for FW & SW-I know you don't want to buy anymore equiptment...but it just maybe your filter is not working properly.. like in my case. I'm not saying you should go buy the unit I have, but just maybe it might work..try what these people have mentioned first, but don't give up.. it would be a shame if it was something simple and you can fix it!
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
I had this happen to me a long time ago and never knew exactly what happened. It was right after setting up my bow-front. I used some type of water clarifier and it cleared up after a few water changes and clarifier applications.
Did you say that you set this tank up in 4 wks??
A product similiar to this:
 

bronco300

Active Member
go buy some more patience :joy: .......surely there must be something making it that cloudy...and they only thing that woud seem logical is that live rock?? could uncured rock make it that crappy...if all the dead junk wasnt off of it or something?
what are you running in your filters?
i'm sure someone else will be able to give better answers....maybe taking the rocks out and spraying them down to make sure everything is off of em...not sure if thats good to do....or maybe something is in your filter lines that is just crappyin it all up...maybe take your filters and do a thorough cleaning?
I just htink if you did an 80% water change and it went right back to normal cloudiness...its something in the tank and prolly wont get better for a while....i dont know, but leting it settle for a couple weeks could do the trick to.....

hang in there
 

maeistero

Active Member
personally in my 55 i had 100 nassarius snails and 50 hermits. they did a great job. i only kept a clown and his anenome with an engineer goby in the second month. the first month was cycling without them, then the next month water parameters were up and down everyday. after that everything was aok. i had 100lbs of lr also, which stabilizes things a lot. the snails, hermits and goby stirred my sandbed significantly and i never vacuumed or added any additive chemicals. you may have too many fish to begin with. i started with the same "skimmer" and it's junk. it does work, but takes daily maintenance. i usually replaced that 4" airline tubing once a week or so. 40% water change is a bit large for your fish, it probably stressed them badly. another thing to keep in mind is to mix your saltwater a couple days before and check the temperature before you add it. you may have to heat it before adding it, else add a quart or so at a time. it's a good idea to powerhead and heat the water in another tank to mix the salt/temp to your parameters a couple days in advance. it's a lot of work, but it's well worth it once you finally can get corals. i really don't care that much for fish, but i've a new big tank so i'm thinking aggressive will be impressive. :jumping:
i would get rid of the mollies (lots of waste) and try to get more lr. or better lr, if your's is contaminated. it's hard to tell from the picture because of the cloudiness, but i'd take what you have out and look more at good rock pictures to see what you need. look at the lr pics on this site to see what you need. maybe take all of your lr out into a tub or another aquarium and see if the tank clears up. then start looking for new better rock. i don't know about that green thing on the left and that white tree in front, start with just plain live rock. can you give us more pics? macro close ups of the rock?
i do think you need more cleaning crew though. snails are dirt cheap on eway.
i'm glad you're trying another couple weeks, but i'd try another month.

from what i saw in europe as far as personal tanks go, you'd have the envy of every other fish person in the country.
if i had the money for airfare, i'd take my fiance out and help you. unfortunately everything's going towards the wedding now. luckily my grandma has a place on the florida coast that'll be a cheap honeymoon. i plan on collecting a lot of stuff from those lfstores!!!
 

wilsonreef

Member
O.K. my sand suggestions and micro bubbles didn't work....dang it.. Let's look at your filtration. Check to make sure your water volume is still pretty good. Do you have something to "catch" the big particles of deitrus like a prefilter inside your existing filter. If not try putting something ahead of your filter cartridges to catch the big stuff. Are you using carbon? I use it 24/7 . I have two emperor 400 filters (HOB) on a 75 gallon. This is a little overkill but my water is crystal clear. I'm not saying you need two filters just giving you a little history of my tank. Before you go buying any more accessories try to find out why yours isn't working. But don't give up yet....I still think that the filters may be the problem. I thought you may have been overfeeding but in a earlier post you said once a week, and that's not too much. Look at your filters and try the filter media if not using it already. My emperor's have two cartridges in each side of each one. The two in the back (where the water comes in from the aquarium) have the blue filter media on the outside with a little carbon in them, the two in front of the filters are refillable I put extra carbon and phosguard in them. The phosguard helps control phosphates which attribute to algae. Keep us informed and if none of these works let us know and we will try something else... :thinking:
 
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