Need advice: water cloudy

[Tautoga]

75 gallon tank been up for 8 months.

Did weekly 10 gal water chance as normal yesterday.
The water was crystal clear as usual.
Came home from work today and the tank is cloudy white.

Tank parameters ~ 3 hours after water change:
SG=1.0255
pH=8.1
KH=9.5
CA=360
MG=1980 (I think this was a bad test)

I added CA liquid supplement from Seachem yesterday afternoon to try and bump the CA up.

I retested the levels tonight and they were slightly different
SG=1.0255
pH=8.0
KH=9.5
CA=370
MG=1720

Other chemistry
NO3 = 10 mg/L
PO4=0
Iron = 0
Iodine = 0.06
Potassium=380

I also cleaned out and rinsed the canister filter yesterday as I do every month. I was running ceramic balls in 2 tiers of the canister and a tier of seachem SeaGel. I kept the SeaGel (didnt need to be replaced yet) but replaced the ceramic balls with 1 tier or Matrix and a second tier of charcoal. Both were well rinsed before adding to the canister (Ive been keeping fish for 35 years and this is standard operating procedure with all my tanks).

I also cleaned the skimmer and made sure the air intake was not clogged with salt.

The corals and fish dont seem to have any issues. Behavior and appearance are normal (polyps extended, even some feeding tentacles on some)
All stock alive and accounted for.

Stock: 1 Diamond Watchman Goby, 1 Maroon Clown, 1 Melanuras Wrasse
2 Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp, 3 Bali Hermits, 7 turbo snails, 1 fighting conch
Corals: 2 mushrooms, 4 brain coral frags, 1 branched frogspawn and 1 montipora digitalis
Population of amphipods and copepods have become established along with small feather duster worms on the rocks.

Should I panic? What should I do? Need recommendations please.

Thank you

 

[reelfreak]

Throw a bag of carbon in the sump, should help.

Any chance you have snails that might have spawned? I've had some trochus snails cloud up my water pretty good before.

You didn't mention any carbon dosing, so I take it that's not a possibility.

 

[Tautoga]

No I dont do any carbon dosing yet.

The only snails I have are the turbo and they arent known to spawn in the tank and the fighting conch who is solo.

 

[reelfreak]

I wouldn't worry too much, things seem in order from your numbers perspective.

Running a big bag of carbon in the sump will likely solve it overnight

 

[cougareyes]

I wouldn't panic especially since you don't see any adverse effects on anything. But I am a little curious you said you removed the ceramic balls in your canister filter, is the matrix you added the matrix media. If this is the case it is a little odd to replace biological media. I would test for ammonia to make sure you are not getting an ammonia spike. Other parameters your mg is quite high and the balance between your ca and kh is a little off, but this would not cause panic or the cloudiness.

 

[bertoni]

I probably would run an ammonia test, as suggested, but I suspect everything will be fine. Removing the ceramic filter media might have cut the effectiveness of the filter suddenly.

The other parameters are okay as is, although I agree that the magnesium is rather high. There's no need to worry about any "balance" between calcium and alkalinity as long as the parameters are in their recommended ranges of 350-450 ppm Ca⁺⁺ and 7-11 dKH.

 

[Tautoga]

I tested the ammonia it was 0

Thanks

 

[tmz]

Was the replacement water cloudy? Might check the calcium, mag and alk levels for newly mixed salt water. It's also possible something got stirred up when eh new water was added.

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome. Are all the animals still doing well?

 

[Tautoga]

Was the replacement water cloudy? Might check the calcium, mag and alk levels for newly mixed salt water. It's also possible something got stirred up when eh new water was added.

No the replacement water was just as clear as usual and I did the water change the same way as I have been doing it. The sand gets disturbed a little in one spot but my diamond watchman moves a ton more sand around every day.

Are all the animals still doing well

The tank is much clearer tonight. Still a tiny bit hazy but much better overall.
All the animals still look fine. In fact the frog spawn coral is more extended tonight than it was last night.

I did rinse the matrix and the carbon pretty well before I put them in the canister, and I would think I would have seen an effect sooner if that was the problem....who knows.

I am beginning to think it was the calcium supplement I added to the tank. Maybe some of it started to precipitate out. Id like to get the CA a bit higher than 360-370. Ill try adding more later this week and see what happens then.

Thanks again to all that replied. Much appreciated.

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome. Sounds like good progress!