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aberg12012
01/04/2005, 09:19 PM
Last evening I turned off the pumps for about 45 mins while I took a bunch of photos. This was around 7pm.

Then I turned the pumps back on, and of coarse this created a cloud of normal debris in the tank from presumably the return lines having junk being kicked out.

Then after the lights went out, I notticed the tank was still looking cloudy. Sorta similar to when my clown fish decides to clear out the DSB under her RBTA. I passed it off as this.

Then this morning I woke up, the tank was quite cloudy, and not from the southdown sand. This was different. Much like the cloudiness you get in FW tank when there is a bacteria bloom. This was while only my 10K VHO and PC actinics were running. Then at 11am, when my MH kicked on, the cloudiness slowly started clearing up. By the time I left for work at 1:30pm, it was almost, but not quite cleared up. Not sure if the added light is relavant to the cloudiness clearing up or not. But, thats the order of what happened.

I use Kent's 2 part additive, in equal parts. I hadn't added any since about 2 days before this occurance. And unfortunately I havn't had the chance to test PH, Calcium or Alk. I'm posting this from work, so sorry for the lack of details provided.

Maybe tonight when I get home at 1am I'll do some testing. I'm just assuming the cloudiness was caused from precip? Maybe my PH was a little off and caused it, which could explain when my MH kicked in, it cleared up?? I'm just throwing out ideas, nothing with any real evidance. Normally the PH runs 8.3-8.4, alk is usually between 8-10 and calcium 380-440 (depending on if i keep up with the 2 part.) I never thought the higher end of this would cause visible precipitation.

Guess I'm just wondering if I'm way off base thinking this was precip.

aberg12012
01/05/2005, 05:14 AM
Ok... did some testing:

Nitrate: 0
PH: 8.0 (after 6 hours of darkness, still a little low)
Alk: 8 dkh
Calcium: 400

When I got home this morning at 1am, the tank was cyrstal clear. So whatever it was, cleared up. Guess I'm not so much concerned as I am curious what it was.

Oh yea... I added more 2 part. Seems I need to add a couple cap fulls of each (from the 1/2 gallon jug) every 2-3 days to keep up. Crude way to measure, I know, but does this seem right for a 75 gallon reef w/ a few zoo's, a large colt, a large candy cane, some zinia, and a very small sps frag? Dosn't seem like anything but the sps frag and the candy cane would use alk/calcium on any notticable level.

Mr_Quality
01/05/2005, 07:17 AM
Do you have any halimeda or caulerpa? Maybe one of those guys went sexual on you.

Randy Holmes-Farley
01/05/2005, 12:18 PM
My guess is also a spawning event of some type. many organisms in my tank ocassionaly do so. Abalone, snails, macroalgae.

The scenario does not sound like it would lead to a calcium carbonate precipitation event.

aberg12012
01/05/2005, 04:55 PM
Well I don't have any macro algaes other than hair algae (sigh) :hammer:

But I'm satisfied with knowing it was probably something not harmful. Since that time, my water has been crystal clear. My skimmer picked up a bit more it seems. I'll change my filter bag tonight again.

Hmm... theres a thought. I think I changed my filter bag shortly before it clouded up. hmmm.... Who knows. It's better now, thats the important part. :D

Randy Holmes-Farley
01/06/2005, 07:40 AM
It's better now, thats the important part.

:thumbsup:

Sometimes we just don't have the information availableto figure everything out, but as long as things seem OK, there's no need to worry. :)