Dangerously Cloudy Water

[Alaeriel]

Hello! Very first emergency thread (also first tank), so I hope I'm doing this right.
Specs:
Tank has been set up since August, 20 gallons initially set with dry rock and bagged "live" sand
Salinity 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5 ppm
pH 8.1
dKH 10

The tank was a little cloudy before I did the weekly 20% water change but I thought it was because I just changed the powerhead to one that can be controlled with the Current-USA lights. This got worse the next day, so we did another 20% water change and most things I've read points to this being a bacterial bloom, and the most common advice is to let it run its course in about a week, or to add a UV sterilizer to speed it up. Since it was still just a bit cloudy, we decided to wait it out. That was Wednesday, and now it looks like this:

Since there is no sump, how can we utilize a UV sterilizer? Should we do a massive water change to try and clear it, or will that just prolong the bloom's cycling process? Thanks all for your help!

 

[Flippers4pups]

If you have fish in there you need to aerate the water ASAP. Point your power heads up to break the water surface to get some O2 in there. Blooms like this can suffocate fish quickly. If you have a air pump and airline with a air stone the better.

With that said, it looks like a algae bloom to me. I would add a UV sterilizer to the tank. They sell hang on the tank units. Green machine, aqua Uv..... etc.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like a bacterial bloom.
The answers to these questions will help:
- are you using carbon?
- are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet?
- what type of filtration are you using?
- is tank at or near a window
- what is your ammonia-nitrate -salinity?
- Tank temperature?

 

[Alaeriel]

If you have fish in there you need to aerate the water ASAP. Point your power heads up to break the water surface to get some O2 in there. Blooms like this can suffocate fish quickly.

With that said, it looks like a algae bloom to me. I would add a UV sterilizer to the tank. They sell hang on the tank units. Green machine, aqua Uv..... etc.

Mercifully, my firefish are still in the crystal-clear quarantine tank. Thank you! I'll grab one of the hang on filters.

 

[Alaeriel]

Looks like a bacterial bloom.
The answers to these questions will help:
- are you using carbon?
- are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet?
- what type of filtration are you using?
- is tank at or near a window
- what is your ammonia-nitrate -salinity?
- Tank temperature?

No carbon
RODI
40 gallon rated HOB filter (and seeded rocks with bio-spira)
Vaguely near a north window that receives indirect light
Parameters listed above
78⁰

 

[vetteguy53081]

No carbon
RODI
40 gallon rated HOB filter (and seeded rocks with bio-spira)
Vaguely near a north window that receives indirect light
Parameters listed above
78⁰

What I see- filter is mechanical offering little biological filtration.
Grab a small container of chemipure blue and stick the pouch in the filter
Black out the side of the tank facing the window with black construction paper. Indirect and direct sunlight will do this.
Reduce white light intensity a little until algae subsides a bit
Bio-Spurs is ok but I’d use micro bacter 7

 

[Brett S]

I don’t know if it’s the same problem or not, but I fought cloudy water like that in my 8G nano tank for months. Probably even more than a year. I tried water changes, carbon, less feeding, increasing bio filtration media, blackout periods and it just wouldn’t go away for me. Some things would make it a little better for a short time, but it always came back.

I’m not sure why I was so anti UV, but finally I got a 7W UV light from amazon and put it on the tank. It was probably close to a full week of running the UV light 24/7, but the water finally got crystal clear. After the water was clear I was able to cut down the UV and I ran it on a timer for about 2 hours a day, but any less than that and the water would start to get cloudy again. It ran for a while like that and as long as I ran the UV light for a couple hours a day it would keep the cloudiness at bay.

Eventually I wound up breaking down the tank and restarting it for other reasons. I replaced the sand and I used bleach and acid on the rock as well as wiping down the tank with bleach and letting it dry. I haven’t had to run the UV on the tank at all since then and it has stayed perfectly clear.

 

[Alaeriel]

If you have fish in there you need to aerate the water ASAP. Point your power heads up to break the water surface to get some O2 in there. Blooms like this can suffocate fish quickly. If you have a air pump and airline with a air stone the better.

With that said, it looks like a algae bloom to me. I would add a UV sterilizer to the tank. They sell hang on the tank units. Green machine, aqua Uv..... etc.

I've been trying to find any hang on UV sterilizer at all for the past couple days now. The green machine sits in the tank and the aqua UV needs to be plumbed externally, and we don't have a sump return to plumb through it. Do you know of any that have their own internal pump like a regular HoB filter? Its only a 20 gallon tank so we have no room for anything internal and no way to plumb traditional sterilizers since we can't put a pump in the tank.

 

[40g Nano]

HOB with uv inside


hope this helps!!!

 

[Alaeriel]

Order placed! Should be here in a week, hopefully it works!!

 

[schuby]

How about some history? Your tank was cycled in August and has never had any fish, correct? Any inverts/CUC? Any corals? Have you fed/dosed/added anything to it since the cycle completed? When did you turn the light on? Did you change the powerhead, increase the flow, or change the direction of the flow?

The bacterial bloom is the result of bacteria having a new, large food-source. Something must have changed right before your last water change. What is a regularly-scheduled water-change or did something prompt you to do it?

 

[40g Nano]

Good luck with it!!!

 

[Alaeriel]

How about some history? Your tank was cycled in August and has never had any fish, correct? Any inverts/CUC? Any corals? Have you fed/dosed/added anything to it since the cycle completed? When did you turn the light on? Did you change the powerhead, increase the flow, or change the direction of the flow?

The bacterial bloom is the result of bacteria having a new, large food-source. Something must have changed right before your last water change. What is a regularly-scheduled water-change or did something prompt you to do it?

Yep, never had any fish. We have some snails and pederson cleaner shrimp, who get fed every other day with a teeny amount of frozen food (same reef frenzy we feed to the firefish; the shrimp have it gone in less than 5 minutes.)
Total of 3 mushroom coral polyps, no dosing of any kind after the initial BioSpira on day 1. Lights first went on September 27th. We did exchange the original powerhead for a new one in the beginning of November, and seemed to be working well.
It was a regular weekly water change, the only thing I can think of that might have changed at that point was the small amount of codium macroalgae that was removed, if it had been competing for nutrients.

 

[Alaeriel]

HOB with uv inside


hope this helps!!!

Came in on the 11th and there has been absolutely no improvement since. It hasn't gotten much worse though, so yay? I finally found a Green Killing Machine in stock yesterday at my LFS. Fingers crossed this works! So, so glad there's not any fish in there.

 

[Cory]

Came in on the 11th and there has been absolutely no improvement since. It hasn't gotten much worse though, so yay? I finally found a Green Killing Machine in stock yesterday at my LFS. Fingers crossed this works! So, so glad there's not any fish in there.

Green killing machine worked on my 125 gallon for dinos 90%. Then i got a 90watt lifegard ho and thaf got rid of the remaining 10%. If that doesnt work, try a diatom filter maybe.

 

[ZoWhat]

MAJOR NUTRIFYING BACTERIA BLOOM

 

[Alaeriel]

Sorry for the massive update delay: the GKM worked like a charm. Didn't see too much improvement by day two, but by the end of the first week we were back to crystal clear water. The only loss was a single pederson's cleaner shrimp, so definitely not a catastrophe. Moving in progress or I'd attach photos :3 Thank you all SO much for your advice!!