cloudy tank
 

Ok, it's starting to get to me. My 70g has been somewhat cloudy ever since we set it up and transferred everything over from the 20g the week before Thanksgiving.

I don't think the 20g was ever this cloudy. The only real change between the two was we switched from Red Sea salt to Reef Crystals.

PO4 is 0.03, Alk is 3.3 meq/l, and calcium is somehow way up there at 590.

Any ideas? The tank actually looks a little more cloudy in real life than it does in the pic...

[IMG]http://synthetix.org/pics/reefcentral/70g/cloudytank.jpg[/IMG]

If CA is at 590 that could cause the tank to be cloudy. Are you dosing anything?

i had an issue when i switched to reef crystals... this might be what you are experiencing too. my water got cloudy and i got strings of clear mucus like stuff floating in my tank. i switched from instant ocean to reef crystals. everytime i did a water change to help clear the water up and get rid of the stuff floating in the water, the problem got worse. i could not get a good explanation of what was going on from anyone but it was def. because i switched to reef crystals.... now i will never use that salt again

I have used Reef crystals exclusively with this tank with out any problems. The only time my tank is cloudy is if I over dose kalkwasser.

How long are you letting you batch of change water cure for?

I would say there is two possible things this could be - bacterial bloom or calcium precipitation. what is your mag level in the tank.

There are many links on google about bacterial blooms in aquariums. Here is one:
[url]http://www.algone.com/cloudywater.php[/url]

if your mag level is low and your calcium is that high, there is a extremely good possibility that you are getting calcium precipitation. If you are adding anything for calcium you need to stop till it drops to normal levels. Mag levels should be around 1300, i shoot for 1350

oh, btw, new batches of reefcrystals are having quality issues, there is a thread in the chemistry forum about it right now.

not sure what the mag level is. I don't have a test kit. Ca and PO4 were tested by AT since I don't have those kits either.

I don't dose anything to the tank, the level is just that high on it's own.

I usually let the SW mix for anywhere between 12-48 hours before use. Water changes don't seem to help the cloudiness, even after mixing for 48 hours.

I'm wondering if we should get a bag of IO and mix it half and half with the half bucket of RC we still have...

Looks as though you've got a bacteria bloom. If it were precipitation, it would IME, be all over the rocks and glass. I have had my alk chems precipitate in my tank a few times and it gets all over the sump glass. Ride it out for a few days and run a filter sock if possible. It will clear up.

i would take your water in and have it tested for the following:
ammonia
nitrite
nitrate
alk
calcium
mag
salinity

i'm pretty sure it is a bacterial bloom or lack of magnesium which would make the calcium precipitate. i'm not sure how your calcium could be so high if you have never put anything other than that salt in there because it's levels freshly mixed are much lower then that. Unless whatever you were measuring salinity was way off...........

I had everything tested at AT, but they didn't do a mag test.

0 amm
0 nitrite
5 nitrate
3.3 meq/l alk
590 Ca
? mag
1.026 (verified at AT via refractometer)

30reef, I've been riding it out for 2 months :) I was considering putting a HOB in the sump with a fine pad in it, but haven't gotten around to it.

Your Mg wouldn't be low with that Ca. If you had abiotic precipitation your Ca and alk would drop in the ratio of 20 ppm Ca to 2.8 dkh of alk. Until the Ca saturation or ph dropped. Whichever came first. My Ca has been that high with zero cloudiness.

Dmilne's problem was definitely bacterial bloom. Something in the Reef Crystals was feeding it. I'm with Chad and think that's your problem too. I think it was Baja who thought Reef Crystals had an abundance of B12.

Locally we seem to have more problems with bacterial blooms. I got a bad one when I used Seachem's Reef calcium for top off when I ran out of CaCl. This is a gluconate calcium. The gluconate; ie sugar or carbon source, fed a bacterial explosion. Others outside of Phx use this with no problem. Don't know why just seems to be more prevalent here.

My tank started to get cloudy a few months after setting it up too. It was as if there was milk added to the water. I was trying to remember what I did exactly to clear it up, I did a 25% WC and added a filter sock and it went away in 2 days. It has never returned and I feed like mad. I still use the filter sock continuously. A bacterial bloom will usually die off on it's own when the food source is all used up. It is probably the salt you are using. I do recall a few threads here a while back about peoples bad experiences with ReefCrystals.

Can you borrow someone's DE (diatomaceous earth) canister temporarily? I have read a few locals have them but I'm not sure who.

Well this is interesting. The only issues I've read about reefcrystals was some buckets had very low calcium....are there other issues too?

I guess I will need to try the filter sock and/or a HOB with some fine material in there. And I guess it's time to go get a bunch of water and do a nice waterchange as well.

I think I need a better pump for my skimmer as well, as I'd assume that could be contributing to the problem.

Do you run a UV filter or Carbon?

I would think running one or both would clear that up in a day or two.

I threw a bag of carbon in the sump about a week ago. No change.

I don't run UV - I don't want to kill off anything I don't need to.