Tank became foggy overnight...

Budman93 · Apr 17, 2017

Hello everyone. I have a 2 month old 29g nano reef. I run a HOB protein skimmer and recently setup a new HOB aquafuge refugium. (Is this the culprit?). Salinity is a bit high at 1.0265 but I'm going to wean that down tonight. Ammonia is zero, nitrites are zero, nitrates are approx 5ppm. I also run chemipure blue but I think that should be helping not hurting in any way. It's been foggy for about 3 days so I think it has to do with my aquafuge maybe kicking up the new sand I put in it. I also had a big diatom outbreak the last week but it's starting to be managed by a couple turbo snails I bought.

I should also mention that my livestock is 1 ocellaris clownfish and 1 yellow clown goby with maybe 8 snails total, a fighting conch, and a tuxedo urchin.

Any ideas?

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 17, 2017

Are you using any air fresheners? Thinking bacterial bloom

jwshiver · Apr 17, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Are you using any air fresheners? Thinking bacterial bloom

I agree. Are you carbon dosing? It's a young system. Your tank still has some funky times ahead of it. I personally wouldn't worry about your current salinity level.

Budman93 · Apr 17, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Are you using any air fresheners? Thinking bacterial bloom

No air freshners in the room with the tank. Asked around and nobody has been using anything like febreze around the tank.

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 17, 2017

What did you put in the fuge?

Budman93 · Apr 17, 2017

jwshiver said:
I agree. Are you carbon dosing? It's a young system. Your tank still has some funky times ahead of it. I personally wouldn't worry about your current salinity level.

I have a very small pouch of carbon in one of the compartments in my skimmer. That and the chemipure are the only carbon in the tank.

Budman93 · Apr 17, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
What did you put in the fuge?

The fuge has a 3inch sandbed of new live oolite sand. It's fine grain so im wondering if this is whats fogging the water, but its been almost four days now so I thought it would settle. It also holds the chemipure, the heater, chaeto, and some small pieces of precured LR from my other tank.

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 17, 2017

Budman93 said:
The fuge has a 3inch sandbed of new live oolite sand. It's fine grain so im wondering if this is whats fogging the water, but its been almost four days now so I thought it would settle. It also holds the chemipure, the heater, chaeto, and some small pieces of precured LR from my other tank.

Hahaha. Yea. That's it. Oolite. It'll settle in. Did the bag have a pouch of clarifier? Or bio magnet?
It's a bacteria.

Budman93 · Apr 17, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Hahaha. Yea. That's it. Oolite. It'll settle in. Did the bag have a pouch of clarifier? Or bio magnet?
It's a bacteria.

Ok thats a relief haha. And yeah I poured in that little pouch but I dont think it did much especially with the sand getting constant light flow in the fuge.

Thanks for the reassurance!

Budman93 · Apr 19, 2017

No noticeable improvement yet and I believe it's either the 6 day or 1 week mark. I can't even see the back of my tank!

Fish are all eating and seem ok but at this point I'm getting to my wits end. I am going to do a decent sized water change tonight and see if that clears it up some. If not does anyone have any experience with water clarifiers and know if they are reef-safe? I wish I hadn't gotten the oolite at this point...

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 19, 2017

Budman93 said:
No noticeable improvement yet and I believe it's either the 6 day or 1 week mark. I can't even see the back of my tank!

Fish are all eating and seem ok but at this point I'm getting to my wits end. I am going to do a decent sized water change tonight and see if that clears it up some. If not does anyone have any experience with water clarifiers and know if they are reef-safe? I wish I hadn't gotten the oolite at this point...

the correct clarifiers are bacteria like the bio magnet. if the flow is too much in the fuge you may just be adding it right back in. A silt reactor..
you could cap it with regular sand or get rid of it.

do you have a reactor or canister filter laying around? stuff it with floss maybe.

Tautog · Apr 19, 2017

Budman93 said:
No noticeable improvement yet and I believe it's either the 6 day or 1 week mark. I can't even see the back of my tank!

Fish are all eating and seem ok but at this point I'm getting to my wits end. I am going to do a decent sized water change tonight and see if that clears it up some. If not does anyone have any experience with water clarifiers and know if they are reef-safe? I wish I hadn't gotten the oolite at this point...

Remove the carbon from the skimmer, it doesn't need to be there. I use ChemiPure Elite, be sure to rinse out with R/O before putting it in the sump and away from your skimmer

Budman93 · Apr 19, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
the correct clarifiers are bacteria like the bio magnet. if the flow is too much in the fuge you may just be adding it right back in. A silt reactor..
you could cap it with regular sand or get rid of it.

do you have a reactor or canister filter laying around? stuff it with floss maybe.

I think I am going to order 8oz of the bio magnet. The fuge is turned down and only coming out to a trickle. I have larger grain size in a 10g that I am slowly decommissioning. Should I try scooping some and putting a layer of that on top of the oolite in the fuge? I have a small aquaclear filter with some filter media inside on the 10g but that's been in their maybe 2 months now so I'm note sure how much of an effect it would have if I moved it...Theres also a couple anenome shrimp in their and they would be a P.I.T.A to fish out and move to the new tank...I'll stop by the store and pickup some filterfloss tomorrow after work tosee if it helps.

http://imgur.com/a/rnbMm
^ Imagine coming home to that! ^

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 19, 2017

Budman93 said:
Imagine coming home to that!

Oh I have. Ive had the oolite.

yea, no drastic moves. sounds like prob hit the LFS would be best.

Budman93 · Apr 21, 2017

BioMagnet came in so I did a dose of that. Water is maybe 10-15% clearer after 2 hours so it's a start. Turned my skimmer up as well and it's pulling dark brown skimmate. Hopefully that helps too. Didn't have a chance to pick up filterfloss but I should grab some before work tomorrow.

Progress!

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 21, 2017

Budman93 said:
BioMagnet came in so I did a dose of that. Water is maybe 10-15% clearer after 2 hours so it's a start. Turned my skimmer up as well and it's pulling dark brown skimmate. Hopefully that helps too. Didn't have a chance to pick up filterfloss but I should grab some before work tomorrow.

Progress!

whew!

Budman93 · Apr 24, 2017

Another update...

So the tank is still very cloudy. I bought some filterfloss and put it in my refugium so it has to pass through the floss before going back into the display. I've also been dosing the biomagnet once every 24 hours like the bottle states for the past couple days.

Clearly adding oolite to a 'relatively' established aquarium with a HOB fuge is a HORRIBLE idea. Please dont do it!! I am going to keep up the doses until friday then re-evaluate my options. I might completely drain the fuge and take all the oolite out.

It is also possible that I am dealing with an enormous bacterial bloom...Maybe a UV sterilizer would help?

jwshiver · Apr 25, 2017

Budman93 said:
Another update...

So the tank is still very cloudy. I bought some filterfloss and put it in my refugium so it has to pass through the floss before going back into the display. I've also been dosing the biomagnet once every 24 hours like the bottle states for the past couple days.

Clearly adding oolite to a 'relatively' established aquarium with a HOB fuge is a HORRIBLE idea. Please dont do it!! I am going to keep up the doses until friday then re-evaluate my options. I might completely drain the fuge and take all the oolite out.

It is also possible that I am dealing with an enormous bacterial bloom...Maybe a UV sterilizer would help?

A properly sized UV sterilizer with the correct flow will work. I use to run a Emperor Auqatics (now Pentair Aquatics) from BRS because I was having frequent bacterial blooms. My water was crystal clear after installing it. You may need to turn your lights down at first so you don't burn your corals do to the water clarity. If you decide to go with a UV sterilizer BRStv has a good video on them in their 52 weeks of reefing series. I stopped using it when I switched over to a Zeovit system a year ago. If not for the Zeovit I would still be using it. Good luck. I hope you solve your problem.