Cloudy Water with perfect perameters - Need Help!

J

jreinhold

New member
I have a 125 gallon FOWLR tank thats been up and running for about 3 months. The tank was perfectly clear for the first 2 and a half months and for the last 2 weeks no matter what I do I can't seem to get it to stop being hazy. Its not that bad but it is very annoying that it's not perfect like it was. At first I thought it was microbubbles form the skimmer so I turned that off for a day and still no change. I used Seachem clarity and still no change. I use RO/DI water and do a 10% weekly change. The perameters are very good with

PH 8.1
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Temp 79.5

For the life of me I can't figure out why the water looks hazy and has tons of tiny particles in it that can't be microbubbles unless its the power heads making microbubbles? :headwallblue: Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
Bacteria bloom perhaps? Is this is in fact the case the best thing to do IMO is nothing at all. Don't fiddle with anything, don't move things around, don't do any water changes etc. Just let nature take it's course & let it clear up on it's own. GL.
 
Have you tried a filter sock, if you don't use them? Did you add any new sand-sifting fish or inverts?
 
No I don't use a filter sock. What is it and where should I put it? I don't know if it makes a difference but I use a Fluval FX5 filter not a sump and I have a hang on the back skimmer reef octopus BH 300. I have had the skimmer turned off now for almost 2 days so its not the skimmer. I was adding a new fish to the tank every 5 days for almost 2 months and about a week after I added my last fish the cloudy water appeared. My tank stock list is a blue hippo tang, kole tang, fox face, bluejaw trigger, dog face puffer, valentini puffer, goldenhead sleeper goby, and 2 clown fish. I watch the goby sift sand but I know its not enough to cause this problem.
 
A new fish every 5 days is pretty fast. Their poop/other excretions is probably whats fueling the bacteria bloom and caused it. Most commonly bacteria blooms are caused when the autotrophic bacteria cannot keep up with the bioload. Then you have excess nutrients, mainly ammonia being produced by the heterotrophic bacteria that break down organics. When the autotrophic bacteria (these are the ones that handle the nitrogen cycle) cannot keep up then the heterotrophic bacteria are allowed to take over. Heterotrophic bacteria cannot convert ammonia to nitrites nearly as well as the autotrophic bacteria can, and thus take alot more heterotrophic bacteria to do so, coupled with their extremely high rate of propogation leads to a bacterial bloom.

A uv sterilizer can provide results in days, large water changes and cleanup of organic detritus will help if you cannot get a uv sterilizer, but other then thats its probably more of a waiting game for the autotrophs to catch up
 
If the cloudiness is a result of small particles, then it sounds to me like your goby is the reason. Run a filter sock for a while to see if that helps, though eventually sand fines will all get filtered out. Doubt it's a bacterial bloom. I've had those on rare occasion, but they don't last very long and always have a slight smell to them.
 
Did you use sugar fine sand or something a little bit larger? Did you rinse the sand thoroughly before you added it to your tank? How long have you had the gobies for? When did the cloudiness start?
 
ca1ore said:
If the cloudiness is a result of small particles, then it sounds to me like your goby is the reason. Run a filter sock for a while to see if that helps, though eventually sand fines will all get filtered out. Doubt it's a bacterial bloom. I've had those on rare occasion, but they don't last very long and always have a slight smell to them.
Click to expand...

cloak said:
Did you use sugar fine sand or something a little bit larger? Did you rinse the sand thoroughly before you added it to your tank? How long have you had the gobies for? When did the cloudiness start?
Click to expand...

The goby has been in there for about a month or so before this cloudiness happened. When I first set up the tank I rinsed the sand very good. I had cloudiness for a day but it was gone. Then when i added all the rocks i stirred up the sand a lot and the tank was cloudy for a couple days. Since then the sand didnt cause a problem. Whatever this is it is its extremely fine, at least 10 times smaller then the smallest sand particles I can see my goby moving around. It just looks a very light hazy fog still 90% clear.

One other thing I noticed as well is the back wall of the tank last month had a pinkish red algae now it is green. Dont know if that helps.
 
I just went through the same thing in my 100g. If it's cloudy/foggy if is most likely bacteria. It won't go away on it's own. Even large water changes didn't help at all. I finally hooked up my uv steralizer and it was all gone in one day. It took about a week for my corals to get back to normal, since then I won't run the tank without the uv
 
UPDATE

Before the UV sterilizer arrived the cloudiness went down by about 50%. I hooked up the UV sterilizer and cleaned my filter and did a water change. 2 days later my water was back to crystal clear. Thanks for all the help!
 
I had the same issue, UV sterilizer cleared it up in less than a week. I bought the in-the-tank kind, so there isn't any dry running worries from amazon $30-$40.
 
Just went through the same thing myself. I had a bacterial bloom and it started to clear when I took some steps to oxygenate the water such as increasing flow and surface agitation. I totally knocked it out in 2 days when I added two 24W Green Killing Machine UV sterilizers. They are rated for up to 100 gallon tanks so I used 2 for my 187 gallon tank. Once I zapped the bacterial bloom I took them offline and the tank has remained clear.
 
how often are you cleaning your filter, i think thats your problem With saltwater tanks you shouldn't really be using a canister filter. i know people do, but dont. The reason is they really need to be cleaned out every week, reason is they are too good at trapping dirt, after a week the dirt breaks down making nitrates. I know i am not cleaning an fluval fx5 once a week. i personally think uv sterilizers are a waste of money. keep your water on point and stable and no reason to have one

my advice to you
unhook your fx5 and add a sump. get one as big as possible with a refug if you can fit it. use a filter sock (buy 15 there 5bucks on brs) and buy a very good in sump protein skimmer. those hob are crap.

also how many pounds of rock do you have in the tank and whats your flow like
 
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