water quality vs. clarity

[cupcake]

the lights are 36 watts each and there are 2 lights sooo i guess that makes 72 watts for the approx. 20 gal display.
it was the book i have been reading that said to leave the lights on, not the lfs. plus i trust my lfs they have not steered me wrong yet. all have had their own sw tanks (except 2) for at least 10 yrs and i know the owner personally. oh, and i HAVE been running carbon since i set up the tank

 

[evilbob22]

There is nothing wrong with running the lights 12-14 hours a day.
One question: are you using a protein skimmer?

 

[tizzo]

Oh the protein skimmer... Yeah that's a good question.
As far as the carbon, you say you have been running it since you set up your tank. I am not aware of what you know so please don't misunderstand my question. How often do you change it out and when was the last time you changed it out??
And running it under water for ten minutes is a little overkill, unless it's RO/DI water then it makes no difference, but if it's not then you only need to rinse the powder off of it. The longer you keep it under tap water, the less surface area available to adsorb the nasties in your tank. It will adsorb the contents in your tap, thus leaving less room for tank stuff. Zat make sence??

 

[djmpj]

Wow, this is SO odd but I am having the SAME problem. Water is cloudy and green. Sand and glass look better than ever!! Started about 2 weeks ago. All test are great. (Amonia - 0, Nitrate - 0, Nitrate - 0, Temp 79, salinity 1.023, ph - 8.1 (little low but steady there for months) phosphates and silicates - undetectable)
My tank has been up and running since December with 2 clowns, a coral beauty, a golby, 2 chocolate chip starts and assorted cleaning crew.
I added a pre-skimmer to my Aqua C Remora protein skimmer about the same time all this started. That is all I can think of that I changed. I pulled that off yesterday and started running carbon in my canister filter for the first time. I am really hoping it starts clearing up cuz it is FUGLY! :help:
DJ

 

[cupcake]

I have been changing out the carbon about every 3-4 weeks and rinse it out with r/o when i change my water weekly. when adding a new carbon bag, I would usually rinse it out with tap until it runs clear, then run it under a little r/o in case of stuff from the tap building up. Is this ok? unnecessary? i changed it last about a week ago.
I do not have a skimmer, the smallest i could find is made for up to 100 gal and is huge! if i got it i would only be able to run it overnight. is that ok?

 

[cupcake]

I actually got REALLY tired of looking at the green layer in my tank so i took drastic measures. i did 20% water changes for 4 days in a row, so i basically changes most of my water. The green layer is now completely gone, but the water is still cloudy, but not quite as much. I was going to do another water change today, but my clown is showing signs of stress, so i guess my water looks ok until my weekly water change.

 

[tizzo]

Any skimmer is better than no skimmer but it's unlikely to be the problem if your nitrates and ammonia levels all check out OK.
And djmpj, you can put the carbon in the right side box of your prefilter, that'll make access easier for you.
Cup cake, I am clueless. Just keep doing your water changes and hopefully it'll clear up.
OMG!! I just remembered something...
My little brother put a fake marble looking rock in his tank, do you by chance have any decorations like that?? I ask because his literally started to descinegrate and caused his tank to be cloudy. Took a long time to realize the cause, the rock was half the size, and that kinda gave it away.

 

[cupcake]

nope nothing like that in my tank...all i have is cc (trying to get it slowly out of my tank and replace it with ls) and about 20 lbs of lr. any sugestions on how to introduce the ls? should i use a cup and put it in little by little? should i set up a QT, put my fish in it, and dump the ls in? could i mix the ls with a little of the cc? sorry for so many questions...

 

[tizzo]

Is it already cured?? If not you need to cure it first. If it's live, just let it go through it's cycle in a rubbermaid bin with a powerhead and a heater.
If it isn't live then do the rubbermaid thing, just add a raw shrimp to the batch. You will need something to break down and cause an ammonia spike.
When it's done you can remove the CC if you thing there are trapped nitrates under there you may wanna remove the fish, but you can just take it out with a clean dustpan or an old fish net and simply add the cured (now) live sand.

 

[cupcake]

Thanks so much! I totally forgot about curing the ls! i would have killed off everything in my tank! I would be buying bagged live sand so im sure it would need to be cured.

 

[djmpj]

We're still green here! Did a 20% water change today. The water we took out was REALLY green. Put in new water and it STILL looks incredibly green. Re-tested all parameters today and everything seems fine. We are lost with this one!
DJ

 

[titus24]

DJMPJ, do another 20% water change tommorow, and then another 20% the next day. This seems to work, and hopefully it wont stress out your fish too much. After you do the water change, you may want to consult your LFS on some water clearing chemicals, so you can pour them in and let it cycle before your next water change. If you wait too long in between water changes, the green will just come back.

 

[cupcake]

Keep an eye on your fish as well... my damsels saw a weakness in my clownfish and killed it. you might also want to get some bio-spira from your lfs to help replace some of the bacteria you have taken out with the drastic daily water changes. Hang in there, my water completely cleared up a couple of days ago!