Persistent Haze

Shameless_Dood · May 24, 2017

Ok I am at my wits end, I have to be missing something and just can't figure out what is going on.

I have a haze on my 150 gallon tank that just won't go away, it's been there about a month now and it has come and gone in intensity over the weeks. I have been operating on the assumption it's a bacterial bloom as the tank is about 3 months old or so. I got fed up waiting on it (more like I got tired of my wife complaining about it), bought a water clarifier yesterday dosed it, and have been running carbon as well for the last 24 hours and the haze is only marginally better.

So I'm looking for other explanations or ideas. I test ALK daily and running the triton method (I'm not opposed to water changing this away). Looking at my logs the haze showed up around the time my ALK demand essentially stopped, ALK is currently at 9.0 (PH is 8.17 at the moment) and I'm dosing only 1 ML a day of the original triton elements. I had been dosing around 25 ML a day until the ALK was trending higher then I started dialing it back.

I don't want to just start trying different solutions to see what works. Fish are happy, CUC is happy, corals (only a couple SPS frags) are not angry but not happy.... I had attributed that to the lessened light penetration, but maybe I'm wrong.

Any ideas?

Psymon · May 24, 2017

Fine sand? CUC/fish stirring up the sand, maybe your flow pumps...

Can u send us a pic?

Nano101 · May 24, 2017

Are you using a combination of purigen and carbon? I have found that helps my tank personally for clarity.

Shameless_Dood · May 24, 2017

Here's a picture, I was waiting for it to finally upload to the cloud.

Sand is not fine and only moves if I have everything turned up 100 percent.

Only running carbon at the moment.

Motts · May 24, 2017

what kind of carbon and how much are you using? any mechanical filtration? any macro algae how's the fuge? so many variables

Shameless_Dood · May 25, 2017

It's the red sea reef spec carbon and I used a little more than the recommended amount ( used what was left)

Refugiu there's chest, ulva, and 3 different red macros I got from live-plants.com...i know one was graccialira, but I forget what the other 2 were. No mechanical typically, but I have put a sock on it to try and capture it out with no luck.

BlueCursor · May 25, 2017

3 months isn't that long. Lots of tanks take a while before they clear up. Unfortunately, we tend to compare our tank to the guy who got lucky and has clear water right from the start.

Your rock could have been loaded with phosphates, and even other dead things that are releasing nitrates now. Even if your phosphates are undetectable, there is probably lots in there that is getting sucked up by the haze bacteria.

Run some GFO to see if that helps. Wait a week for it to grab enough free phosphate to make a difference, then see how your progress is. Unfortunately, some things just take time and patience in this hobby. My rock must have had lots of silica in it. To this day (4+ years with the tank) I still get nasty diatom blooms if I add a little too much carbon. Also, interestingly enough, if I don't add enough I get cloudy water. Darn annoying how tricky this hobby can be.

Glenn503 · May 25, 2017

I had the same problem when my tank was first set up. A friend lent me his UV light, and it cleared up in less then 2 days.

Shameless_Dood · May 25, 2017

BlueCursor said:
3 months isn't that long. Lots of tanks take a while before they clear up. Unfortunately, we tend to compare our tank to the guy who got lucky and has clear water right from the start.

Your rock could have been loaded with phosphates, and even other dead things that are releasing nitrates now. Even if your phosphates are undetectable, there is probably lots in there that is getting sucked up by the haze bacteria.

Run some GFO to see if that helps. Wait a week for it to grab enough free phosphate to make a difference, then see how your progress is. Unfortunately, some things just take time and patience in this hobby. My rock must have had lots of silica in it. To this day (4+ years with the tank) I still get nasty diatom blooms if I add a little too much carbon. Also, interestingly enough, if I don't add enough I get cloudy water. Darn annoying how tricky this hobby can be.

I get the patience thing. I'm also in a believer of staying ahead of problems. I was operating under the assumption it was a bacterial bloom, I don't want the "wait it out" I have been doing turn into, "should have done something dummy." HA!

Anyone have ideas why the ALK consumption would have stopped right around the time this started? Or is that just a coincidence?