Cloudy water and algae bloom on 8 yr old tank

MKcat · Oct 2, 2018

Ok, this will be a bit long. I need guidance, and to vent a bit...
Tank rundown: 190 gal with 30 gal sump; running GFO and carbon; sump is Marineland dual trickle filter with bio wheels-been using this for entire 8 yrs of tank life. Lights are Maxspect LEDs. I keep things simple. No dosing. No skimmer. FOWLR. Reef crystals salt
Livestock; serpent star, brittle star, yellow, kole, powder brown, sailfin tangs, six line wrasse, clarkii clown, replenished clean up crew(hermits and snails) 6 days ago.
So about 3 months ago my husband put our soft water system online. I did not know that it was feeding to my RO unit(I thought it was on a separate hard water line). About 2 months ago I had a massive algae bloom with crippling cyano that came on over a matter of a few days. It was EVERYWHERE, mind you, I did not know about the soft water going to the RO. I was doing weekly 40 gallon water changes, sucking the nasty cyano out of the tank, scrubbing the rocks, changing carbon and GFO to no avail...obviously because the freaking RO wasn't getting all of the particulates out from the stupid soft water. Finally around a month ago, I said, the only thing different is you put the soft water online. That is not going to the RO is it? Well, yes it was(and after I freaked out).. so I told him to shut it off immediately until we could run a dedicated hard water line. Anyway, It's been a solid month of normal RO filtered water to do my changes. The cyano is completely gone, but now there is still a ton of hair algae(I fought that battle 7 yrs ago and won with GFO on my newish tank) but I've got horrid diatoms. I literally clean the glass daily because it is so "dusty". Two weeks ago the water got cloudy. So, immediately I thought, ok, do a big water change, change the filters again and cut back on my lights significantly. Before I did the water change, I checked my nitrates, nitrites, ammonia and phosphates. All read within normal. I have now done two 70 gallon water changes, tore out half of the rock, scrubbed it, cut my lights back to 50% intensity and shortened my sunlight by 2 hours(11am to 6pm). The tank is still cloudy and covered in hair algae, and diatoms on everything.
And the kicker...my poor fat yellow tang developed lateral line a month ago as I assume it was from upping my carbon load after I battled the cyano. Ugh. I've been hand feeding it to keep it nourished to try and save it.
Could the diatoms now be because of the 140 gallons of new water over a 10 day period, like a mini cycle? The cloudy(white cloudy, not green or red) water is just throwing me way off. I just cannot understand it.
My debate: 1.tear down the tank and start over(I have a 30 gallon I can throw my fish in for a few weeks) 2. do 2 more 70-80 gallon water changes over the next week and up my GFO, Or 3. just ignore the mess(it's killing me looking at it everyday...did I mention it's a 190!? Not exactly easy to ignore, lol) and keep doing regular maintenance and pray it resolves on its own.
Anyone have any ideas what I am missing? I don't have photo of it yet because I am so embarrassed by the condition, and it's 11pm-lights off.

KrisReef · Oct 2, 2018

You have so many moving pieces in your puzzle it is hard to guess what is exactly happening in your tank? Generally, cloudy water is either a bacteria bloom often with measured ammonia, (but I am assuming yours is reading zero?) or else the clouds are stirred up sediments. If it was ammonia, I would expect more negative reports on your fish, but except for on YT you didn't report they are acting poorly.

If you are only suffering green hair algae and cloudy water, without other ill effects I would recommend keeping your hands out of the tank and let it cruise for a while without changing more parameters, except maybe making sure the GFO is still in good working condition so that gha will slowly starve and go away.

If you do measure ammonia then perhaps some bacteria in a bottle would help heal the cloudiness, otherwise you might try some flocculant to speed up water clarity. But again, if your fish are ok, I would suggest all you do is stay calm and the tank will likely right itself.

I would let your handyman out of the corner if he is still sitting there?

MKcat · Oct 2, 2018

KrisReef said:
You have so many moving pieces in your puzzle it is hard to guess what is exactly happening in your tank? Generally, cloudy water is either a bacteria bloom often with measured ammonia, (but I am assuming yours is reading zero?) or else the clouds are stirred up sediments. If it was ammonia, I would expect more negative reports on your fish, but except for on YT you didn't report they are acting poorly.

If you are only suffering green hair algae and cloudy water, without other ill effects I would recommend keeping your hands out of the tank and let it cruise for a while without changing more parameters, except maybe making sure the GFO is still in good working condition so that gha will slowly starve and go away.

If you do measure ammonia then perhaps some bacteria in a bottle would help heal the cloudiness, otherwise you might try some flocculant to speed up water clarity. But again, if your fish are ok, I would suggest all you do is stay calm and the tank will likely right itself.

I would let your handyman out of the corner if he is still sitting there?

Thanks for the feedback! I agree with you. My gut is to ride it out like I have done in the past as every issue over the years ends up correcting but I am so sick of looking at an ugly tank. My ammonia is reading zero which is why I'm so perplexed. My fish are unfazed by all of this and are fat and happy,( other than the whiting out and fin erosion of my poor yellow tang.) They should be flipping me off for the way their home looks! lol. Over the years I've battled various issues from bubble algae, hair algae, ich. I've approached those by going as natural as possible and riding things out. I'll keep on the GFO and reg. maintenance and hopefully it'll resolve soon. AND, I'll let him out of the corner, he's been a trooper though helping me with those pesky bigger water changes

ZachR32 · Oct 2, 2018

I would try a UV sterilizer before you do a tear down. I've had success with this clearing up algae looks before

Ghost463 · Oct 2, 2018

Also consider changing some of ur carbon.
I use these to start up but u will want to look lore onto them for an established tank. These things are magic

Centerline · Oct 2, 2018

MKcat said:
Ok, this will be a bit long. I need guidance, and to vent a bit...
Tank rundown: 190 gal with 30 gal sump; running GFO and carbon; sump is Marineland dual trickle filter with bio wheels-been using this for entire 8 yrs of tank life. Lights are Maxspect LEDs. I keep things simple. No dosing. No skimmer. FOWLR. Reef crystals salt
Livestock; serpent star, brittle star, yellow, kole, powder brown, sailfin tangs, six line wrasse, clarkii clown, replenished clean up crew(hermits and snails) 6 days ago.
So about 3 months ago my husband put our soft water system online. I did not know that it was feeding to my RO unit(I thought it was on a separate hard water line). About 2 months ago I had a massive algae bloom with crippling cyano that came on over a matter of a few days. It was EVERYWHERE, mind you, I did not know about the soft water going to the RO. I was doing weekly 40 gallon water changes, sucking the nasty cyano out of the tank, scrubbing the rocks, changing carbon and GFO to no avail...obviously because the freaking RO wasn't getting all of the particulates out from the stupid soft water. Finally around a month ago, I said, the only thing different is you put the soft water online. That is not going to the RO is it? Well, yes it was(and after I freaked out).. so I told him to shut it off immediately until we could run a dedicated hard water line. Anyway, It's been a solid month of normal RO filtered water to do my changes. The cyano is completely gone, but now there is still a ton of hair algae(I fought that battle 7 yrs ago and won with GFO on my newish tank) but I've got horrid diatoms. I literally clean the glass daily because it is so "dusty". Two weeks ago the water got cloudy. So, immediately I thought, ok, do a big water change, change the filters again and cut back on my lights significantly. Before I did the water change, I checked my nitrates, nitrites, ammonia and phosphates. All read within normal. I have now done two 70 gallon water changes, tore out half of the rock, scrubbed it, cut my lights back to 50% intensity and shortened my sunlight by 2 hours(11am to 6pm). The tank is still cloudy and covered in hair algae, and diatoms on everything.
And the kicker...my poor fat yellow tang developed lateral line a month ago as I assume it was from upping my carbon load after I battled the cyano. Ugh. I've been hand feeding it to keep it nourished to try and save it.
Could the diatoms now be because of the 140 gallons of new water over a 10 day period, like a mini cycle? The cloudy(white cloudy, not green or red) water is just throwing me way off. I just cannot understand it.
My debate: 1.tear down the tank and start over(I have a 30 gallon I can throw my fish in for a few weeks) 2. do 2 more 70-80 gallon water changes over the next week and up my GFO, Or 3. just ignore the mess(it's killing me looking at it everyday...did I mention it's a 190!? Not exactly easy to ignore, lol) and keep doing regular maintenance and pray it resolves on its own.
Anyone have any ideas what I am missing? I don't have photo of it yet because I am so embarrassed by the condition, and it's 11pm-lights off.

Might ant to check out peroxide dosing. Worked for me.

MKcat · Oct 10, 2018

Centerline said:
Might ant to check out peroxide dosing. Worked for me.

I’ve done peroxide dosing in the past for cyano and it worked like magic! Not so much on the hair algae
I’ve actually just let it alone since my post and yesterday the water was almost back to clear.
Doing a routine water change tomorrow night and changing out filters GFO and carbon, plus tearing out some rock and scrubbing it down again to see if I can’t get rid of some more hair algae to help the GFO along.

Ghost463 said:
Also consider changing some of ur carbon.
I use these to start up but u will want to look lore onto them for an established tank. These things are magic

I’ll check into it. Thanks! I did order some ROX .8 from BRS. I had always used that in the past, expensive but affective. Ran out and decided to try the large particle they carry as it was cheaper . Stuff was awful, very dusty, hard to rinse and it made my Yellow tang sick with lateral line. I also think that could have contributed to the cloudy water and algae with water conditions. Definitely not worth the cost savings.... My kids were ticked that one of there favorite fish looks horrible now. Good news is it seems to be recovering after about 6 weeks and fins are regrowing even in cloudy water