White Dust

[jazonPartij]

So my live rock and live sand seem to have a white "dust" on them.

Now when I turn my pumps off and back on my entire tank gets clouded because it stirs up the dust in my filtration.

What is this and any suggestions?

The white specs on the sand are normal. You can't really see the dust on the sand from my picture but basically the sand isn't as black as originally and from closer inspection it looks like the same dust from the rock.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I have two thoughts:

Bacterial Bloom - I've seen tank water take on a white opacity....but never to the point where it settles out when the pumps are off. It turned out to be a bacterial bloom in the tank.

Calcium Carbonate precipitation - Either too much alk and calc, or not enough magnesium, and you will get calcium carbonate precipitation....a white precipitate. What are your alk, calc and mag numbers?

 

[jazonPartij]

Hmmm interesting. I haven't started testing for any of that yet. Thought I was too much of a noob for that stuff to matter.

I just tested mag at 1200 and calc at 440. I don't have a alk test unless it's the same as KH... Which if it is then KH is 125.3

 

[jazonPartij]

I also used a coralline algae accelerator...

 

[redfishbluefish]

Now I'm scratching my head....those alk, calc and mag numbers won't cause precipitation. And if anything, the alk and mag number are slightly on the low side.

Also, I'm pretty sure that alk number you posted is in ppm (parts per million). Going to one of the converter websites, that 125.3 ppm converts to 7.0 dKH (or 2.5 meq/l).

 

[akitareefer]

First off it looks like you used dry rock or recently wet rock. Did you rinse before you put it in? Dry rock is well know to be dusty. With black sand you will definitely notice detritus build up.

Also if you want coralline raise the alk it will grow faster, just beware of precipitation

 

[jazonPartij]

It was live rock. The dust came recently. It's been up and running for a little over a month and the dust started this week.

 

[Icey MD]

im having issues with what I suspect is a CaCO3 precipitate too. how did this turn out for you? did it resolve itself or did you need to do something to fix it?