How to get crystal clear water?

Fishninja · Dec 21, 2016

If I was you I would just add some filter floss to an hob filter and see if it helps. If not you can always go a more expensive route.

Pola0502ds · Dec 21, 2016

David_Ewen said:
I use a couple products from Korrallen-zucht, Coral Snow and Zeozym that work great.
http://www.korallen-zucht.de
You can also get these products at Bulk Reef Supply.

Good luck.

What exactly is coral snow and what does it it do? I know coral snow from KZ is completely different from what two little fishes and brightwell sell as its actually coral food.

reef jacob · Dec 21, 2016

All I can say is filter socks and rox 0.8 carbon..

alten78 · Dec 21, 2016

My clowns alone constantly kicked up enough sand to keep particles in the water column. Add in high flow to sand, detritus, algae, bacteria, food, etc and its hard to get that crystal clear water without some sort of mechanical filtration as others have mentioned. I went BB and still get a lot in the water column if I don't syphon enough.

Reef Ryder · Dec 21, 2016

GarrDen79 said:
People always talk about having crystal clear water but mine never is. I've had tank up now for 5 months with LR and a few fish. Tank came with fluval hob filter that I replaced with aquamaxx hob skimmer last month thinking it would clean up the water, it didn't. I was just going to live with it but debris keeps building up on chaeto in hob refugium killing it. I have had to redo refugium because it just gets nasty. I see my lawnmower blenny kicking up debris when eating of the rocks but figured the filter or skimmer would eventually remove it, that's not happening.

Those specks are in water column and not in glass

New chaeto went in last week Thursday and already covered on water intake side. Water flowing right to left.

What can I change to fix this?

I agree with the socks but in the mean time here is a trick or two:
1) Don't forget your tank is still cycling and this is normal (new tank syndrome)
2) For a day or two, turn the power heads off, every 1/2 hour or so, get in there and turn up the sand, this will allow the water to pass through the filter catching all the debris. Clean the filter out every hour or so.
3) shoulda put this first but do a good water change.
Hope you cleaned the sand really well.
Also, how are your parameters? Phosphate level? Look into getting phosguard if needed.
It is a good idea to polish the water but maybe not just yet. Maybe wait a few months, again, you're not quite done cycling. If and when you do polish, stop once the filter puts out clean water after washing, if you polish too much you'll strip the water.

Yuen · Dec 21, 2016

Hi Garr,

For new tank setup it always have debris from LR, it take me at least 2months times have that clean with filter soak and finally LR cover by coralline algae..

Time to time i do additional filter by suck our water pass through filter sock and back to sump.. at most case, the overflow efficiency are not perfect due to wave position.

Based on picture algae on LR , this can be a sign the LR not mature or it growth because the debris on LR (if second factor , you wave and flow might need to improve)

With that you should get better water quality , but do notes ocean never crystal clear , there are a lot of phytoplankton too.. now, I don't keep my water column crystal clear also, I only setup partial water pass through filter sock.

Almost forgotten , there are another trick .. I blow microbubbles to my tank by put air stone at return pump water intake.. it help a lot to skim out debris. I read one article mentioned it also give a fresh smell to the water.

All best and enjoy reefing.

Yuen

alex.mccann99 · Dec 22, 2016

Get rid of the Chaeto and any sand you have in the HOB Refugium, crap is just building up in it and its going to continue to be a problem. As for polishing the water to make it cleaner and clearer, you need to use filter socks and carbon. So you might either look into drilling for a sump so you can put all that underneath or come up with some other way. Don't know what your amount of Flow is in there, but you need to keep the debris suspended to eventually make it's way to either the skimmer or some other method for removal, filter socks is your best bet there. Like other's mentioned, Skimmers are only good for very small debris and dissolving nutrients and exporting it via the foam. I totally got rid of my Chaeto in the sump, was always catching crap in it. I added some Macroalgae to my main take. Check out www.Live-Plants.com. They've got some great stuff on there and it's great pricing and they give you a ton of it usually. Can usually find stuff your fish won't be interested in eating also. I just use MarinePure blocks in my refugium with a bag of Carbon from BRS. I feed everyday, sometimes twice a day and my water is always crystal clear.

ReefRocker · Dec 27, 2016

Look into Fauna Marin's new bacteria product, Bacto Reef Balls.

I too have been searching around for something to make my water a bit clearer and found their product. Reading about it on German reef forums (thanks to google translate) and blogs, it seems that Germans and Europe are going nuts for this product because of how clean it made their water and easy 1x/2 weeks dosing schedule. I looked around for some English reviews and found this one on the FM USA website:
http://cm-distributors.com/bacto-reef-balls-review/

It sounded like it could be a good product so I decided to give it a try and well it sure does do a dang good job at keeping the water super clear. I'm only 3 weeks into it, but the results sure are good so far. First thing I've noticed is extreme water clarity and improved skimmer performance. At the price point, I think it's definitely worth trying out.

David_Ewen · Dec 28, 2016

Pola0502ds said:
What exactly is coral snow and what does it it do? I know coral snow from KZ is completely different from what two little fishes and brightwell sell as its actually coral food.

Hi Pola,
Sorry for the late response. I don't know what Coral Snow is. Kz products do not list ingredients. I do know that my corals thrive using the Kz products. If your more comfortable buying Two Little Fishes or Brightwell, then by all means go for it. There are a lot of good products out there. Just find and use the ones where other hobbyists have had success for a good period of time.

wpeterson · Dec 28, 2016

It sounds like you have an all-in-one tank without a sump. So you should have course mechanical filtration in a hang-on-the-back filter (either with DIY filter-floss or filter cartridges). If you change these regularly, this should filter out most of the detritus and larger particles.

If you want to go further than that, you should consider running activated carbon in a media reactor. You can get a cheap hang-on-the-back reactor like a Two Little Fishies 150 (TLF 150) reactor, which will let you run carbon, GFO, or other chemical/fine filter media.

This was effective for me in having crystal clear water even in our early all-in-one systems. If you have a sump, definitely invest in proper filter socks.

jasonrusso · Dec 28, 2016

I have a 150 with a sump and two 200 micron filter socks. My water is very clear, however there is always some sand floating around. I am not sure if that is ever going to be possible with live animals and the amount of flow we have in these glass cubes. I'm sure that in nature there is always something floating around.

MT. Reefer · Dec 28, 2016

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/vibrant-liquid-aquarium-cleaner-discussion-thread.271428/page-25

MT. Reefer · Dec 28, 2016

ReefRocker said:
Look into Fauna Marin's new bacteria product, Bacto Reef Balls.

I too have been searching around for something to make my water a bit clearer and found their product. Reading about it on German reef forums (thanks to google translate) and blogs, it seems that Germans and Europe are going nuts for this product because of how clean it made their water and easy 1x/2 weeks dosing schedule. I looked around for some English reviews and found this one on the FM USA website:
http://cm-distributors.com/bacto-reef-balls-review/

It sounded like it could be a good product so I decided to give it a try and well it sure does do a dang good job at keeping the water super clear. I'm only 3 weeks into it, but the results sure are good so far. First thing I've noticed is extreme water clarity and improved skimmer performance. At the price point, I think it's definitely worth trying out.

This sounds very much like Vibrant, which I just started using. Of course these are time released, but this is also a bacteria that eats up the nutrients that cause algae just like Vibrant.

Pola0502ds · Dec 28, 2016

David_Ewen said:
Hi Pola,
Sorry for the late response. I don't know what Coral Snow is. Kz products do not list ingredients. I do know that my corals thrive using the Kz products. If your more comfortable buying Two Little Fishes or Brightwell, then by all means go for it. There are a lot of good products out there. Just find and use the ones where other hobbyists have had success for a good period of time.

The thing is kz coral snow is a completely different product. Coral snow usually means coral food. With kz i know its not but i dont know exact what it is. I use it because i dose other products like LPS amino acid and its recommended that you dose it with coral snow.

BCSreef · Dec 29, 2016

Squid said:
Good flow and a decent skimmer does the trick for me

Same here. Water has been crystal clear for 20 years.

JP79 · Dec 30, 2016

Seachem seagel is what I used. But maybe the water changes, good skimming and mp40 I have all help too. My water hasn't been more crystal clear since I got that last month. It's probably all of the above.