Water Turning Milky White

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

I just noticed that my tank water started turning white. I am concerned this could be a bacterial related issues. My tank is a 65G with a Model 4 ProFlex sump with refugium. I did start switching over to Red Sea Coral Pro Salt yesterday. My plan is to do a 3G water change a day until Nov when I believe the salt should be about 90%+ of Red Sea salt and 10% Reef Crystals. Some of my corals are not opening like they normally do. My duncan and toadstool have closed over the last 2 days. I have been dosing vinegar for 53 days with no observable problems. I am running GFO (Two Little Fishies) and Carbon (Two Little Fishies) - it is 3 weeks old and due for replacement next Saturday. My maintenance is regular. Here are my water parameters from my weekly testing yesterday...

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - close to 0 ppm (Red Sea Algae Control)
Phosphate - 0.02 ppm
Calcium - 370 ppm (very low for me I usually run around 450 ppm)
Alkalinity - 10.9 dKH
Magnesium 1320 ppm
pH - 7.9 (I continually struggle with pH and have been dosing kalk along with cal & alk to try to keep at 8.1-8.3 range)
Temp - 78 deg F
Iron - Not measurable (Red Sea Colors)
Iodine - 0.06 ppm

Any ideas on what could be happening? Thanks in advance!

AquamanE · Jul 5, 2015

Not as expert on carbon dosing since i just started 6 weeks ago my self with vinegar, but would not rule that out as at least one possible cause.

tagging along

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 5, 2015

How do you dose alkalinity and is there any chance you overdosed it?

Live Water · Jul 5, 2015

i have had this problem before it was a alkalinity issue that was caused by a calcium reactor.

AquamanE · Jul 5, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
How do you dose alkalinity and is there any chance you overdosed it?

Randy- ive accidentally overdosed both Alk, and Kalk. The white appearance usually goes away in a few hours to 24 hours for both Alk/Kalk respectively.

New to carbon dosing so wondering if this is not a feasible possibility. Ive been vinegar dosing for 6 weeks and am expecting the OP's signs any day now as a sign ive reached maximum dosage (bacterial bloom).

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 5, 2015

The answer is almost certainly either precipitated calcium carbonate, or bacteria, and carbon dosing could have caused the latter.

That said, one does not always see the bacteria as they can be benthic (grow on surfaces, such as down in your live rock).

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

I dose both calcium and alkalinity with BRS 1.1ml/min dosers controlled by my Apex. I just retested the tank this afternoon. Note I usually test at 8am and I repeated the test at 1pm today. My calcium is reading 425ppm and alkalinity is 10.7dKH. I increased my calcium dosing yesterday during my regular weekly testing when I read 370ppm for calcium. Good news though - my euphyllia and leather did open up since my initial post. Duncan is working on it, but not much so far. Not seeing much out of any acro or even the acans. I have attached a quick photo from my iPhone.

Other information that might be relevant...I stop dosing kalkwasser on Friday because of the problems that I had with regular clogging of the dosing lines. Also, it was not keeping pH at consistent 8.1 levels due to the clogging. Unfortunately, unclogging the lines a couple of times a day was leading to swings from 7.8 to 8.2 pH within a minute and I thought it was best for the corals to keep it more steady - even at the lower level. I know that is another question altogether, but I am still seeking for ways to improve my pH control/situation. I have read and followed your (Randy's) articles on pH control. The kalkwasser solution seemed to have the most significant impact for me - but just caused unsteadiness in my tank because of the clogging. As I mentioned previously, I am in the process of converting over to all Red Sea Reef Care Program products to include dosing, but have only started to use the salt so far because I am trying not to throw too many variables at the tank at once. I am hopeful that I will start getting better results with using consistent Red Sea products. I am planning to watch the alkalinity a couple times a week because the Coral Pro Salt has reported alkalinity of 12.2dKH.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 5, 2015

I'm surprised your limewater clogs so fast. Mine takes 6-12 months before it clogs. You added it above the water line, right?

Any chance your alk doser is malfunctioning and adding more than you think?

If not, it is probably bacterial.

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

Yes - if you mean above the water line in the sump. I do all of my dosing and water changes in a completely automated manner with the Apex. As such, I can't dump kalkwasser directly into my RO/DI freshwater container because it would clog the pump at the bottom. So, I have a 2 gallon water container (like the ones you get at the grocery store) that I mix at near saturation levels with kalkwasser. Surprising enough to me I was dosing almost the full 2 gallons daily. For this dosing pump, I am using Tom's Aqualifter and airline tubing and it clogs all the time - no kidding was cleaning twice per day and my pH was swinging 0.3 each day even though the dosing pump was pH controlled with the Apex.. Very frustrating. It seemed just too much work and it was not resulting in proper pH control. Clearly I am doing something wrong.

Could stopping the limewater dosing create the bacteria bloom? I will post my vinegar dosing method in the next post.

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

Here is my vinegar dosing data. I am currently dosing 66ml/day of vinegar in the tank. My total estimated volume of tank and sump is 94 gal. I have not achieved a 0 ppm nitrate and phosphate yet, so I have been increasing the vinegar every week or two until I can cut back by 50% once I read 0 ppm nitrate and 0 ppm phosphate. I have been dosing this level of vinegar since 28 June.

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

The horizontal axis on the chart is the number of days I have been dosing vinegar.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 5, 2015

samba_dad said:
Could stopping the limewater dosing create the bacteria bloom? I will post my vinegar dosing method in the next post.

Not in any way I know of.

You may just have built up the vinegar to the point where the bacteria took off. I wouldn't raise it further for now.

samba_dad · Jul 5, 2015

Thanks Randy for all the help! I will hold it here for now and see if this clears up. Do you happen to know if the Red Sea NoPOx could be treated as a simple replacement for vinegar? In other words, what would be the best way to transition over to NoPOx?

Mark

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 5, 2015

NOPOX is a mix of acetic acid (vinegar) and ethanol (vodka). You could transition to it (with volume adjustments), but I wouldn't expect it to work better.

samba_dad · Jul 10, 2015

I may have found the source of my milky water. The macro algae in my sump has strange long white strings and appears to be dying. I added a new dose of macro algae to the sump about 2 weeks ago. Can you vinegar dose and have macro algae in the refugium?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 10, 2015

samba_dad said:
I may have found the source of my milky water. The macro algae in my sump has strange long white strings and appears to be dying. I added a new dose of macro algae to the sump about 2 weeks ago. Can you vinegar dose and have macro algae in the refugium?

You can (I do), but if you drive needed nutrients too low, the macroalgae can die.

samba_dad · Jul 10, 2015

So I should reduce my vinegar dosing until I get some nitrate (~2 ppm) and phosphate (~0.04 ppm)? Should I remove my GFO? Anything else I should do? My iron levels are close to zero according to my Red Sea color test kit.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 10, 2015

Forget the iron kit. Iron should never be high enough to read with a kit. Typical surface seawater levels are on the order of 0.000006 ppm. No need to be at detectable levels (IMO).

If you want to grow macroalgae, backing off on the vinegar or GFO may help, but overall to the tank, it may not be necessary to grow it.