Cloudy water....HELP!!

[Reefa25]

Ok, so I own a Biocube29 and it is primarily frags with one fish. I went with a bare bottom, and my back chamber has crushed LR.
Parims
Alk-11
Calcium-360
PH-8.2
Phosphates-0
Nitrates-0
Nitrites-0


My tank has already gone through a complete cycle, now suddenly the water is CLOUDY and hard to even look at. Corals are all opened up still. The reason I posted is because this has been going on for 2 weeks. I originally thought a mini cycle was in play until now. The weird thing is this....it gets moderately clear at night, but every morning even before the lights turn on it gets cloudy. It is a white haze if that helps, you can almost see the "clouds" in the tank, but nothing has helped.(as in a wc) Any advice??

 

[Reefa25]

I also use Reef Crystals....if that makes a difference?

 

[jdezek]

Are you running any bio pellets or dosing vodka or vinegar, bacteria bloom? Could be micro bubbles.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

What's your salinity and what are you using to measure salinity? Also, can you test for Magnesium?

 

[baldbean]

What color is it? White is a bacteria bloom, green is an algae bloom in the water column.

My tank did this too, but it was of the green variety. It looked its best when the lights were about to come on and it looked its worst when the lights were about to turn off. Its an 18" cube (~24 gal) and there was a point where I could not even see halfway through it. It was pretty bad.

To remedy this I used an in tank UV sterilizer for a couple weeks. My tank was 3 months old at the time.

 

[bertoni]

I'd guess you're seeing a bacterial bloom. It might disappear on its own, but if you could borrow a UV unit, that might be a bit faster. A diatom filter might work, too.

Some water changes, maybe 10% or so, might help export some of the nutrients, if this is indeed a bacterial bloom.

 

[Reefa25]

I use a plastic salinity meter to measure it. I have my salinity at 1.025. I was told that my meter may be off by quite a bit and a higher salinity may be causing this. I've ruled out bacteria due to the fact it has been the same cloudiness for the past 2.5 weeks. I could be wrong though. I'm bringing in water tomorrow to my lfs to have him check salinity with his refractometer. My mag is around 1400 ppm. I was also told that this can be the "snow storm" effect due to unbalance in mag and cal. my cal has been 360....which is low isn't it?

 

[Rbs07fxstc]

Cal is a lil low. Usually want mag 3x the cal. I'm surprised your mag is that high with IO. I read a thread here other day when guy was talkin about mag being high in IO salt. But I don't think it's out enough for that to be the issue. I would say more likely bacteria/ algae.

 

[bertoni]

Those calcium and magnesium levels are fine as is. The calcium might be low enough to indicate that some precipitation has occurred. I'd get a second opinion on the SG device, but precipitation should settle in less than 2 weeks, so I'm guessing bacteria.

There's no need to keep calcium at 3 times magnesium. The ratio of the two is not important.

 

[Reefa25]

Is a bacterial outbreak something that'll go away on its own?? or is it something that I need to take action with by doing a wc or something?

 

[bertoni]

If the tank is having a bacterial bloom, some water changes should help. You might or might not need to intervene at some point. Most likely, the bloom will go away on its own in some small number of weeks, but maybe not. We see tanks go longer than that from time to time.

 

[Reefer54]

A bacterial bloom will run its course when the food the bacteria are feasting run out. NO food,No life. If you are doing water changes on a regular basis, it sounds to me like this is calcium precipitation, as your cal should be higher.

 

[bertoni]

Well, the problem is that the tank has a regular energy input, light and possibly fish food, and the bacteria might be recycling everything else. A skimmer can help, if it can remove the bacteria.

 

[Reefa25]

UPDATE: ok...now I'm just stumped. It has now changed over to getting cloudy throughout the night and into the morning and by the time 6pm rolls around it is clear. (this has gone on for 2 days now) I've NEVER run into a problem like this. I'm lost lol.

 

[bertoni]

I guess there might be an animal that's active at night and is kicking up the substrate. That's strange, though. I'm puzzled, too, and I don't have any very good ideas.

 

[batgo]

Do you have any snails? I had a similar problem caused by Trochus snails releasing eggs and sperm. Ended up with hundreds of baby snails.

 

[Reefa25]

no snails and tank is bare bottom. im soooooo frustrated

 

[ReefTron5000]

Did you ever get this figured out?