Crystal clear water

[Lyss]

IDK what I’ve done but my water is suddenly crystal clear beyond anything I’ve been able to achieve until now. I’m talking everything inside looks sharp and clear, look through the tank end to end and you can see what’s beyond in the next room like there’s almost nothing between you and it. And I haven’t done a water change in three weeks.

I thought I had clear water in the past, but it was nothing compared to this. I wish I knew what I did that got this result.

There are a few things I changed, but they’re not things I’ve never done before — just things I wasn’t doing recently but now am doing again:

• Skimming wet — cup fills and is emptied daily
• Changing filter sock and floss every 2 days
• Added macroalgae to the DT

Aside from that I run chemipure blue that I change about every couple of months. I dose AFR, live phyto, and NoPox daily. And I put a poly filter in this week since no WC — but this is not even close to the first time I’ve done that.

I haven’t tested nitrates yet this week (will do that tomorrow) but I did test phosphate and got .02 so have increased feeding.

What the heck?

 

[Timfish]

WHat changes occured or happened in the microbiomes? How have cryptic sponges changed? How have organic nutrients changed? There's lots going on in our systems which unfortunately we can't test for. Your clear water may be the result of something that happened or started weeks or months ago or may be the result of gradual changes in your corals and sponges. This paper on microbiome dynamics is a good example how "stuff" fluctuates, it looked at the bactrial counts in water in a public aquarium and even though maintenance was unchanged there were significant changes in the bacteria counts.

 

[Lyss]

WHat changes occured or happened in the microbiomes? How have cryptic sponges changed? How have organic nutrients changed? There's lots going on in our systems which unfortunately we can't test for. Your clear water may be the result of something that happened or started weeks or months ago or may be the result of gradual changes in your corals and sponges.

The only other new things I did were dose AF Life Force mud twice last month, and added the macroalgae and a some new critters from reef cleaners three weeks ago — a conch, more pods, and some porcelain crabs.