Best filteration in Sump

[fishaman]

Help - Please...getting desperate!

I have a 180 g DT, 10 g Fuge and 20 g Sump and my water has been cloudy for the past 3 weeks. I have 10 fish and only feed them 1 cube of mysis shrimp p/day.

Fuge contains a portion of chaeto
Sump contains my protien skimmer (EuroReef) and 4 filter bags with carbon.

Is this a good setup or should I add something to my sump to better filter the water?

 

[walkthedog]

If this is a new tank I would say don't worry about the cloudy water. It will go away on its on and is common with new setups.(first few months.) What are your WP (alk, cal, no3, etc). A filter sock might help also. I wouldn't run 4 bags of carbon. 1 should do it or you can use a reactor.

 

[fishaman]

Tank has been setup for over a year and the parameters are all in line. I've been doing 20% water changes for the last 3 weeks (RODI Water) and params are all in check. What type of reactor?

 

[jer77]

Have you added new fish recently or done anything to increase the bioload of your tank? If so it may seem counter-intuative, but changing the water will actually prolong the time it will take for the cloudiness to go away. The reason is because the cloudiness may be actually good bacteria building their population to an adaquate size to process all of your waste.

 

[fishaman]

No new fish have been added in the last 6 weeks because I wanted to get this situation under control before making anymore investments. I will say that my protien skimmer was cleaned on Thursday and now it's filthy again. What type of reactor should I get?

 

[drummereef]

Have you dosed anything for alkalinity or calcium lately? There could be a precipitation issue. What are your current water parameters?

Also, could very well be a bacteria bloom. Are you running carbon?

 

[alextheromanian]

do you own a diatom filter?
you should own one.

pictures would help

 

[walkthedog]

You can run carbon thru a TLF reactor. IMO it works better than bags of carbon. In most cases the water just goes around the bags. In the reactor it is forced thru the media. Even if the water is in a high flow area of sump. I agree with others on a bacteria bloom but 3 weeks in kind of long for a bloom. Try running carbon thru a reactor and see if it helps.

 

[fishaman]

thanks....I'll look into it.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

activated carbon is what you need to put in your tank. the difference between running carbon through a canister like mentioned above and passively like putting the carbon in a bag and tossing it in your sump/refuge is the amount of time it takes for the carbon to work. You might see results running through a canister within a day but passively it will take a little longer. Which ever way you choose I would recommend running activated carbon 24/7 changing it every month…. Longer if you run it passive.

are you dosing vodka, sugar or vinegar? that would account for a bacteria bloom.