Water clarity problems

Aaronherara · Sep 30, 2019

I’ve been in the saltwater hobby for a little while now and never got very involved. But now that I have a 180 gallon tank I want to get more involved in the threads on here. Anyways I want to ask for advice for some water clarity, I have this debris all over my tank and I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of it. I’ve pointed my return valves more towards the surface and one of my 3 circulation pumps. I tried to put a sponge in my column for my sump to see if that would help. Could it be my salt? I use instant ocean.

BeejReef · Sep 30, 2019

That's a newer tank, right?
If properly mixed, IO doesn't (for me anyways) cause a lack of clarity.

Could be a lot of things. bacteria settling in to new system would be a guess. I can't see if you have sand. barebottoms are notorious for water clarity issues for the first year. Do you run carbon? A few tablespoons in a media bag has often worked for me.

Aaronherara · Sep 30, 2019

I have sand in the bottom. And ok, I was running to petco this upcoming weekend to get a 20 gallon for a new quarantine tank and I can buy some carbon. Thanks for the suggestion.

BeejReef · Sep 30, 2019

Aaronherara said:
I have sand in the bottom. And ok, I was running to petco this upcoming weekend to get a 20 gallon for a new quarantine tank and I can buy some carbon. Thanks for the suggestion.

Just thinking along with you. Can't guarantee it will work, but the nice thing is you'll know within six hours and carbon is a great thing to have on hand regardless. All of life's little oopsies

Mastiffsrule · Sep 30, 2019

Evening

As bee mentioned carbon is great. I think carbon is on the shelf of most reefers.

I wanted to add, if you just set up and didn’t rinse the sand it may be from that. If it is that it should go away. If you have an area to add filter floss it will help. There are also floculating agent but not a big fan.

jurgenph · Sep 30, 2019

try running a filter sock or some floss in your sump.
a sponge isn't going to filter out very fine particles.

are you sure it's particles though? and not micro bubbles from the skimmer?

turn off all your pumps except your sump return, see if things settle down.

J.

Jon Fishman · Sep 30, 2019

Carbon, Mechanical filtration, UV, Ozone. All options

Jon Fishman · Sep 30, 2019

Carbon, Mechanical filtration, UV, Ozone. All options

Aaronherara · Sep 30, 2019

Ok I can also try uv sterilizer and some filter floss with the carbon. And the sand bit would make sense. If it were micro bubbles and it was coming from the protein skimmer what would I do to fix that? And do uv sterilizers have any drawbacks?

edit: had to fix uv from saying sub