Cloudy Water - Calcium precipitation ??

[porschefan]

Hi Guys

I have a new tank, running for about 3months now, and the water has gone very cloudy (white suspension).

I recently started dosing it with a Kent marine starter kit for Calcium,Iodine,Strontium/Moly and also a buffer.

Now stupidly i overdosed slightly on the buffer:eek2: teaspoon tablespoon , you get the drift although it did say it wasn't possible to overdose it, i think i may have.

I have a Diamond goby, who has his work cut out on the brown patches of algae, a hammer coral and Xenia, all appear fine, and my water tests for pH Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia are all Zero and 8.4 for pH.


I noticed when i switch the powerheads off, i can see whisps of white rising from the substrate (55lbs Caribsea Argonite) is this precipitation, i've been reading about here?

Whats the best course of action?

Thanks

 

[cbrownfish]

It could be precipitation or it could be a bacterial bloom. The former sounds more likely. Are you running a skimmer? Is it responding and foaming a lot? You can certainly do a water change to assist. In either case, the system will naturally lose the excess calcium/alk and a bacterial bloom will subside in a couple days.

 

[Peter Eichler]

If you're not testing for things you shouldn't be adding them... (for the most part ) The first thing you should do is purchase a good calcium and alkalinity test kit. Maintain your calcium and alkalinity levels by monitoring them and not just dumping things in. As time goes on you'll be able to add buffer and calcium by figuring out your tanks daily uptake of those elements, once you figure that out you just have to test every now and then to make sure the doses are still adequate., skip the whole iodine strontium/moybdenum additions. Unless you can tell me a good reason for adding them, because I can't think of one Finally, there's a chance it is a bacterial bloom and if it doesn't run its course in a few days revisit this thread. One other posibility is just the substrate being stirred up and causing clouding of the water... Did you recently add this Diamond Goby or more flow by chance? If the answer is yes to either of those I think you've found the problem.

 

[rockyz]

porschefan It sounds like it may be. When I overdosed and caused a major snowstorm I did a 20% water change blew all corals off with a turkey baster. The next day the water was clear and I used the turkey baster to blow off the corals one more time and everyting turned out fine

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12419958#post12419958 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rockyz
porschefan It sounds like it may be. When I overdosed and caused a major snowstorm I did a 20% water change blew all corals off with a turkey baster. The next day the water was clear and I used the turkey baster to blow off the corals one more time and everyting turned out fine

It's possible but we're talking a tablespoon of overpriced baking soda vs. a tablespoon. Even if his levels were already a little high that's probably not enough to cause precipitation like that. Though starnger things have happened...

 

[rockyz]

hi peter ; you are probably right but for some reason I've found even adding the correct dose of the A& B parts of a 2 part calcium can cause a snow storm ir you add them to quickly together or in an area of poor flow.ecspecially if you are using baked baking soda for the b part

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12420102#post12420102 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rockyz
hi peter ; you are probably right but for some reason I've found even adding the correct dose of the A& B parts of a 2 part calcium can cause a snow storm ir you add them to quickly together or in an area of poor flow.ecspecially if you are using baked baking soda for the b part

Yes, but don't you find that the "snow storm" is pretty short lived in those circumstances?

 

[porschefan]

Thanks Guys, i'll get an Alk+Calcium test kit too.

The Goby does stir the sand up, but not enough to cause this snow storm.

I'll lay off the supplements, for the time being

Thanks for the advice

 

[Longchamp]

Most of that kent stuff is snake oil. I'm not saying it doesn't work but more often than not they're depleted at such a low rate that there's no point in adding the stuff. Plus water changes will replace most of these trace elements sufficiently.

 

[porschefan]

Well, it had been cloudy for more than a week, but today, it actually looks clearer.

I've also had a slight, what looks like a cyanobacteria bloom, my sand and rocks have gone brown, similar to how they did when the tank cycled. (Am,Nitrate,Nitrite = 0) Perhaps its related, if it was a bacterial bloom rather than precip ?

I use tap water filtered through carbon and polyfilter with chaeto in my 20gal sump. Perhaps i'll get an RO/DI system with my tax rebate