Persistently clouded water

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Hey guys, I wanted to post here all my tank details to see what I'm possibly missing as far as coming to a solution to my persistently clouded water of 3 weeks duration.

Tank is 75 gallon display cycled since Jan, 2020 with dry real reef rock with the help of microbacter 7 and biospira. . About 3 wk ago became cloudy. Reading this forum it has the description for what people think is a bacterial bloom. It had a white haze to the tank which is always there. Ive read that these tend to last days though as opposed to weeks on end. Microbubbles are 0.

Lighting: orphek atlantik v4.
Filtration:
-Biological. real reef rock seeded with nitrifying bacteria during cycle.
-Mechanical. Life reef skimmer, filter sock on the main drain, just added poly-fil 100% polyester to the overflow box that I plan to change every 2 days to see if that helps at all.
-Chemical. Activated carbon in media bag in sump.

Flow: maxapect gyre xf330 on random mode 30%. Varios4 return on full power.

Heat: 78F by 2 eheim glass heaters on inkbird controller.

Water. RODI. tds 0 to 2 depending where I am in the DI before changing. RODI is held in a 65 Fallon norwesco tank. Fresh saltwater stays mixing in a 32 gallon brute. AWC 1 gallon daily, ramping up to 2 gallons daily to see if it helps.

Parameters.
Last checked yesterday
SG 1.024
Ca 455
Alk 9.0
Phos 0.03
Nitrate - pending. Test kit arrives tomorrow.

As you can tell, it is very difficult to see the back of the tank.

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

It does look to be a bacterial bloom. A bloom can last as long as there is sufficient fuel to feed the bloom.

I'm curious to what your nitrates are sitting at.

Also a side note, what sand are you using?

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
It does look to be a bacterial bloom. A bloom can last as long as there is sufficient fuel to feed the bloom.

I'm curious to what your nitrates are sitting at.

Also a side note, what sand are you using?

Bare bottom. This is glass covered by diatoms (I think?). The white specs came from a galaxea colony that I just fragged a piece off.

Also meant to add that I'm not longer dosing 2-part. The AWC is keeping the numbers where they are for now.

Paulie069 · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
Hey guys, I wanted to post here all my tank details to see what I'm possibly missing as far as coming to a solution to my persistently clouded water of 3 weeks duration.

Tank is 75 gallon display cycled since Jan, 2020 with dry real reef rock with the help of microbacter 7 and biospira. . About 3 wk ago became cloudy. Reading this forum it has the description for what people think is a bacterial bloom. It had a white haze to the tank which is always there. Ive read that these tend to last days though as opposed to weeks on end. Microbubbles are 0.

Lighting: orphek atlantik v4.
Filtration:
-Biological. real reef rock seeded with nitrifying bacteria during cycle.
-Mechanical. Life reef skimmer, filter sock on the main drain, just added poly-fil 100% polyester to the overflow box that I plan to change every 2 days to see if that helps at all.
-Chemical. Activated carbon in media bag in sump.

Flow: maxapect gyre xf330 on random mode 30%. Varios4 return on full power.

Heat: 78F by 2 eheim glass heaters on inkbird controller.

Water. RODI. tds 0 to 2 depending where I am in the DI before changing. RODI is held in a 65 Fallon norwesco tank. Fresh saltwater stays mixing in a 32 gallon brute. AWC 1 gallon daily, ramping up to 2 gallons daily to see if it helps.

Parameters.
Last checked yesterday
SG 1.024
Ca 455
Alk 9.0
Phos 0.03
Nitrate - pending. Test kit arrives tomorrow.

As you can tell, it is very difficult to see the back of the tank.

The best piece of equipment I’ve ever had is a UV light get one it’ll put your tank in HD

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
Bare bottom. This is glass covered by diatoms (I think?). The white specs came from a galaxea colony that I just fragged a piece off.

Oh, wow! Okay.

Turn your lights off for a couple days and let's see if the water clears up. If it doesn't, something else is up.

As @Paulie069 stated, a UV unit may help.

Are you dosing anything?

JoshO · Apr 17, 2020

Definitely seems like a bacterial bloom. Likely down to a high available food source. If you can address this then you'll likely solve the issue, however UV could work but so could vibrant

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

If it's diatoms on the tank bottom, it's likely there's a source of silica getting into you water. Likely sources are through your RO/DI unit.

What stage RO/DI unit do you have?

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Paulie069 said:
The best piece of equipment I’ve ever had is a UV light get one it’ll put your tank in HD

Flippers4pups said:
Oh, wow! Okay.

Turn your lights off for a couple days and let's see if the water clears up. If it doesn't, something else is up.

As @Paulie069 stated, a UV unit may help.

Are you dosing anything?

JoshO said:
Definitely seems like a bacterial bloom. Likely down to a high available food source. If you can address this then you'll likely solve the issue, however UV could work but so could vibrant

Thinking about ordering the pentair 25W soon since I haven't been able to figure out the cloud. Locally, I could grab a 24W green machine from petco and drop it in the sump.

I dose a very small amount of phosphorus daily to keep phos up. I started dosing to keep it around 0.05. Nothing else dosed at the moment.

I can go lights off for a few days and see how that goes. Coral should be fine since they ship for that period of time or longer.

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
Thinking about ordering the pentair 25W soon since I haven't been able to figure out the cloud. Locally, I could grab a 24W green machine from petco and drop it in the sump.

I dose a very small amount of phosphorus daily to keep phos up. I started dosing to keep it around 0.05. Nothing else dosed at the moment.

I can go lights off for a few days and see how that goes. Coral should be fine since they ship for that period of time or longer.

Discontinue dosing P04 for now until you know what your N03 is at.

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
If it's diatoms on the tank bottom, it's likely there's a source of silica getting into you water. Likely sources are through your RO/DI unit.

What stage RO/DI unit do you have?

I'm running a 5 stage unit, from The Filter Guys no longer in business. I have new 75gpd RO membrane in there as well as 2 chloramine filters and 1 sediment filter, plus the DI stage. I was about to add-on a silica chamber from spectrapure for this reason. If you think that's reasonable, then I can go ahead and get that.

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
I'm running a 5 stage unit, from The Filter Guys no longer in business. I have new 75gpd RO membrane in there as well as 2 chloramine filters and 1 sediment filter, plus the DI stage. I was about to add-on a silica chamber from spectrapure for this reason. If you think that's reasonable, then I can go ahead and get that.

I'm in the same boat right now. I've been battling diatoms for years now. I've decided not to guess anymore and buy a Hanna HI 705 silica Checker to test my water. Adding a second chamber with a Anion resin would help with silica. This is something I'm thinking of doing, but I need silica confirmation first.

My diatoms where confirmed with a microscope.

My battle:

Rexless · Apr 17, 2020

A UV sterilizer helped my tank and it was even more cloudier than this and almost gave up. I'm by far no expert, just sharing my experience. In any case you are in good hands here in R2R!!

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
I'm in the same boat right now. I've been battling diatoms for years now. I've decided not to guess anymore and buy a Hanna HI 705 silica Checker to test my water. Adding a second chamber with a Anion resin would help with silica. This is something I'm thinking of doing, but I need silica confirmation first.

My diatoms where confirmed with a microscope.

My battle:

Whatever I've got just rolls off thick. I cleaned the bottom panel once before with an old ccard. It all piled up into a nice pile in a corner and I was able to suction it out. I can't tell if what you have in the photo is similar to mine or not. On the rock structures of my system there are tiny air bubbles on it. I could take it in and have a look at it under microscopy.

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

Thanks @Rexless. I'm looking into pentair vs aquamax pro and what pump and plumbing I need to actually get it going, then I think I'm going to go that route. Between UV and ozone, I felt like I've done most of what I can think of and still can't come out in the clear.

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
Whatever I've got just rolls off thick. I cleaned the bottom panel once before with an old ccard. It all piled up into a nice pile in a corner and I was able to suction it out. I can't tell if what you have in the photo is similar to mine or not. On the rock structures of my system there are tiny air bubbles on it. I could take it in and have a look at it under microscopy.

Microscope identification is best.

t5Nitro · Apr 17, 2020

I was debating grabbing one of these UVs since it's easy to find at a local petco: https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petco...ne-internal-uv-sterilizer-with-power-head-24w

Plus it's 10% off curb pickup at the moment. I can buy 5 of these for the price of 1 pentair and a pump to fuel it. Maybe I'll give this a try this weekend!

Flippers4pups · Apr 17, 2020

t5Nitro said:
I was debating grabbing one of these UVs since it's easy to find at a local petco: https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petco...ne-internal-uv-sterilizer-with-power-head-24w

Plus it's 10% off curb pickup at the moment. I can buy 5 of these for the price of 1 pentair and a pump to fuel it. Maybe I'll give this a try this weekend!

They can work and many hobbyist use them. I personally use a Aqua UV unit. Cost more than the Green machine and does require a pump or manifold to run.

Joseph Disalvo · Apr 17, 2020

Didn’t read all of this but bacterial bloom comes to mind, you usually get these when you’re dosing a carbon source to out battle a nuisance algae high phosphates, nitrate etc. when you over dose you get this cloud “bacterial bloom” not a big deal will clear up in a couple days. If just running activated carbon bags you may be running a little to much

brian2kgt · Apr 18, 2020

I would get the brown stuff under a microscope asap, sounds like it could be dinoflagellates. A UV light is the main tool in battling most types of dinos(except Large-cell Amphidinium) along with getting the water "dirty"(stop water changes, skimmer off, PO4 ~0.1ppm Nitrate ~10ppm). I beat Ostreopsis dinos about a month ago in my 75 and am now battling Prorocentrum dinos, both times they started when I let my PO4 bottom out to zero.

If that is dinos and you want to get a cheap UV, I would personally go with the Jebao 55 watt over the Green Machine for the same price. The more wattage the better for dinos. These units are a bit bulky but I have read of many people that have had success with them for dinos. You can also just disconnect and store it after the dinos/water is clear. I used a Evolution Aqua 55 watt unit, that I already had for my koi pond, and got rid of my Ostreopsis in 3 days, just hooked it up again last night.

Check out this thread for info on identifying different types of dinos.

Dinoflagellate Identification Guide

I've had this laying around for a while. Had some recent interest, so I tweaked it a bit and am posting it. Not really about cures just ID pictures, videos, and a few short facts. Hope it can be helpful.

www.reef2reef.com