Cloudy Water help please

[Brando457]

So I am looking at my tank the past few days and noticed the water is a bit cloudy. I am not really sure why that may be.

I changed the carbon on Saturday 2/23/13 and changed to a new filter sock also yesterday as well. Today I did a 15g water change and yet the tank is still cloudy.

Any ideas how I can fix it? I plan on doing another 15g water change on Wednesday to see if that helps and switching my gfo as well. But other than changing water and socks I am at a loss

.

Thanks!

 

[GratefulReef]

How long has the tank been up and running?

 

[Brando457]

About 2 months I would say, just noticed the cloudiness in the past few days. I normally do 15g of water change a week or every 2 weeks on it.

 

[GratefulReef]

What are your current water params? Could possibly be the carbon you added, sometimes it will cloud up water if not rinsed properly.

 

[Brando457]

I will retest in the AM, currently getting ready for bed.

The way I always rinse my carbon is I place 5g of ro water in a bucket, place the reactor pump into the bucket and then run the ro water through the reactor to clean the new carbon and disgard the waste water after.

 

[GratefulReef]

Hmm, that def seems like a logical thing with the carbon so prob can rule that out. Hopefully its just a small mini cycle and you can get it under control.

 

[Brando457]

Hope it isn't a mini cycle, I will mix up 30g of water and change that out on Wednesday then!

 

[jdpiii3]

its probably a bacterial bloom, its common in new setups. I would just wait it out it will clear on its own.

 

[Reefnjunkie]

Not sure how needed carbon and GFO are on a tank that should only be a few weeks out of a cycle, assuming it has fully cycled which I would suspect it has but IME a tank that new should not be having any PO4 issues.
As far as Carbon I have never ran it but I also have a SPS dominant tank, always have.

I agree letting the tank clear on its own but posting those params will answer a few questions too.

Im sure you posted it somewhere but what size tank do you have?

 

[Brando457]

I always run carbon and gfo on new tanks, especially using dry rock it tends to have a good amount of po4.

The tank is 180 gallon with 75g sump.

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[Reefnjunkie]

I always run carbon and gfo on new tanks, especially using dry rock it tends to have a good amount of po4.

The tank is 180 gallon with 75g sump.

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Agree with that- I hate starting with dry rock LOL.

Those tests will help but my hunch as others have posted is just new tank-Sounds like you've been doing this longer than your join date, so as you know this stuff happens and will pass.

It could depend on what you have added to the tank if anything, when I have set up new systems I won't do a water change for at least a month unless my water tests tell me to do different. I also add live stock at a snails pace as you know adding any bio load has an impact on newly set up tanks, and if your rock was dry and your only a few months in, it'll be a whole before its seeded-IMO/E

 

[Brando457]

I've been in the hobby about 3 years. Most likely spike caused by adding new live stock. I did add quite a bit of fish in Saturday so that is probably one reason now that you Mention it.

I did a bit of a quick cycle using a sponge from one of my other tanks that I seeded two months and then bio spira from io.

I'll do the 15g water change on Wednesday, it can't hurt to lower nutrients while the system stabilizes. Thanks for your help

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[reefer antax]

its probably a bacterial bloom, its common in new setups. I would just wait it out it will clear on its own.

I totally I agree with you bacterial bloom has nothing to do with the carbon or wc or mini cycle just wait and it skill clear on on its own and stop doing wc its to new for wc if u keep doing wc u set up its go thru a big cycle.....


Wait a min in the thread u said you tank is 2 moth old and you do wc every 2 weeks well let tell you the your set up hasnt been thru a cycle at all because you keep doing wc...so just wait and don't do anything any more

 

[Brando457]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there minimal bacteria actually in the water column and more so on the rocks. This being the case I don't see how lowering nutrients through water changes is necessarily a bad thing.

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[Zack]

I had exact same issue for first three months of my tank. I figured mine was a bacterial bloom. Once when a good sized crab died and was rotting, I found it and pulled it out and within two days it was clear. I did notice though that when I was running carbon the blooms seemed more frequent. Not sure if they are correlated or not. After about the four month mark they stopped completely.

 

[Brando457]

Well today the water is clearing up some so that is good news!

I also got the pleasure of seeing my melnarus wrasse pick up a blue leg hermit, smash it to pieces and devour it. Only thing left were a set of some legs .

I have no idea how I am going to keep a CUC with this monster lol