Cloudy water + tiny white things

rojees · Feb 4, 2022

Hello there,

So my tank (15 gallons Waterbox Pensinula) has ben up and running (fully cycled) for 5 months now. Water parameters are good and I do weekly 20 % water changes.

My last couple of clownfish died, end of October 2021. Never worked out if they had brook or ich. Either way, no fish in there since (almost 4 months). I only have a few shrimp, which were in there at the same as the clownfish.

Long story short:

1. Recently (since 2 weeks ago), the water has turned cloudy, see the picture attached. Apologies for the quality. I thought nothing of it.

2.I did a water change last week and noticed actually there are very small white "things' moving around. They are not jumping, just moving around slowly on the glass and back panel. I don't have a picture as they are so tiny. I can only attribute the cloudy water due to these white things. I cant even see the shape of them nor can even say how many (doesnt seem a lot from what I can see)

No plants, and I have not added rock or sand since the beginning of the tank. I cannot explain how its taken until now for them to show up or how they got into the tank.

I dont know what they are or what to do/ if I need to take any action.

I used to feed the shrimp daily, and probably thats too much, which may attributed to the se little white critters. I have since cut back.

Any suggestions?

landlubber · Feb 4, 2022

i assume the "white things" are copepods or amphipods which are common in everyone's reef tanks.
i don't see any information regarding water testing so its tough to draw a conclusion to your cloudiness with any educated guess. If i had to make a random guess i'd assume the cloudiness is just a stage of biological instability which takes more than just a few months to settle. for instance, i didn't have stable water conditions for closer to 18 months where i could depend on introduced corals to thrive instead of slowly withering away.
reef tanks are a marathon instead of a sprint. take your time and things should come around.

rojees · Feb 5, 2022

landlubber said:
i assume the "white things" are copepods or amphipods which are common in everyone's reef tanks.
i don't see any information regarding water testing so its tough to draw a conclusion to your cloudiness with any educated guess. If i had to make a random guess i'd assume the cloudiness is just a stage of biological instability which takes more than just a few months to settle. for instance, i didn't have stable water conditions for closer to 18 months where i could depend on introduced corals to thrive instead of slowly withering away.
reef tanks are a marathon instead of a sprint. take your time and things should come around.

thanks for that. I always thought copepods and the like are introduced? such as from live sand or live rock, live copepods etc

anyhow my guess is also copepods or sth similar. It doesn't look too appealing for me but understand its nature and part of the game.

Regarding the bacterial bloom, yeah I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Nothing has been added or died, so interesting to see how this pans out. Might throw in a air pump to see if it helps.