Clear water

[Chimo192]

Good day Reefers.

I have a questions with reference to clear / pristine water?

We are running a 65 Gal drilled two out flow, 1 return

two outflow merge into one thru a filter sock, a Biopellet reactor and a GFO reactor is housed in the same chamber as the Reef Octopus skimmer, flows thru a rubble refuge, 2 air baffles into the return, returned back into tank via a Jebo 1200 DC return pump.

Water is circulated using a RW 8 and RW 4 Jebo circulation pumps.

Lighting is 2 X AI Prime.

All water parameters are reading normal.

The issue is water appears to be cloudy.

Placed a Marineland C360 Canister filter on the tank with Carbon, sponges, bio-balls, ceramic media, and polishing pad water cleared up nice.

We would perfer not to run the canister filter if at all possible.

Any advise will help.

Thank you

Dave and Diane

 

[DrPheel]

could be a bacteria bloom from the bio pellets , how long has the tank been up and running ? do you have a big bio load ? do you have constant nitrates to feed the bacteria and complete your carbon dosing cycle ?

if you want to run your canister to polish the water just run filter floss and carbon , that usually does the trick. no need for bio balls or ceramic they are just nitrate bomb waiting to explode. MAke sure you change your sponge and filter floss on a daily routine depending on bio load not to create such said bomb. IMO bio-pellets are for a overstocked tank that has constant Nitrates and phosphate to feed the bacteria and keep the carbon dosing process , once the nitrates are depleted from the system and your bacteria cant feed on it , you get major die off and if the skimmer cant keep up with it you will get cloudy / dirty water , slime where water has less movement like refugium or sump area, algae bloom and cyano.

I would start by running the c360 with carbon and floss for a day or two and if the water is still cloudy then you have another issue causing this cloudiness.

 

[Chimo192]

Thank you

The bio load is as follows

1 X yellow Wrasse

1 X Bristle-tooth tang

1 X Mandarin

1 X File fish

1 X Mimic File fish (Puffer)

1 X Midas Blenny

3 X cleaner shrimp

2 X Peppermint shrimp

1 X Blood shrimp

1 X Kaudern's Cardinalfish

Various snails, hermits

1 X Sea Cucumber

Just found the pistol shrimp not doing too good.

 

[thomas.torode]

Likely a Bacteria Bloom.

I'd try waiting a week with carbon first.
If it gets any worse, id get a UV sterilizer. Clean it up good.

Also, that's kinda over stalked for a 65 IMO.

 

[Chimo192]

Forgot to mention there is a 40 gal breeder as a sump

 

[BigEZ77]

A bag of Chemipure Blue works amazing in my tank to keep the water crystal clear.

 

[Chimo192]

Thank ref Chempure. Where do you place the bag?

 

[BigEZ77]

I have a rear sump (AIO tank), I place it just before the return pumps so it gets good flow going thru it. You'll want the larger bag that treats up to 75G for your system. I'm sure there's other products that do the same thing, and probably for less cash, but this does the trick for me.

 

[CStrickland]

The skimmer needs to pull right from the outlet of the Biopellet reactor. Also, depending how fast water is moving through the sump, it might help to slow that down to give the skimmer a chance to pull that stuff out of the water. The biopellets are designed to produce stuff for the skimmer to remove, that's how they pull nutrients from the water. It sounds like in your tank the stuff is getting past the skimmer and removed by the canister filter instead.

 

[Chimo192]

very well thank you the advise, will give it a shot,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,