White cloudy tank

[Ijwapoto]

I have been setting up my system since the beginning of this year. I have a 36 gallon bow front display tank and for filtration I have a 20 gallon diy sump. I also have a 15 gallon tank for a refugium also plumbed into the system. For the last 3 months I have had the refugium and sump running and about a month ago I started adding live stock.

Yesterday was the big day! On my last trip for water to get my display tank filled. I took a water sample form my refugium to have it tested. The water test showed it was great except the ph was a little low. I was very happy. I got home with the last 7 gallons and that is when everything went south. While I was gone my 3 year old threw a bunch of stuff in the 15 gallon refugium. He threw in all of his gummy bears, a hand full of raisin, and a hand full of his toys. When I got home most of my coral was all shriveled up and the protein skimmer was over flowing. I quickly moved all of the coral and fish to the display tank and removed all of the stuff that was thrown into the tank. This was around 2pm. About a half hour later the protein skimmer stopped going crazy. So I thought everthing was okay and I connected the display tank to the system. Everything was looking great. All of the coral came back out. The fish looked happy with their new home. At 8pm the light turned off and everything still looked great. I woke up this morning and the tank was cloudy white. I quickly did my internet research. I think the gummy bears and raisin must have spiked the nutrients and I have a bacteria bloom.

Please let me know if you agree. Do I need to add a UV sterilizer to clear this up? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Tom

 

[azsoccerpop]

That was my first thought. You may want to run a carbon reactor to help clean things up


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ijwapoto]

I don't have any reactor chambers in my system yet. I did add a fresh bag of carbon in the sump. I put it between w of the baffles. Hopefully that will work for now.

 

[VoiceInTheDeser]

Definitely a bacterial bloom. It'll die down, but it may be rough for a bit while it basically goes through a mini-cycle and your corals will likely look a little angry until it's done. Some water changes will help if you can do that over the next few days.

 

[tcamos]

If the gummy bears where in there for a little while the released sugar is a perfect food for bacteria. They likely went crazy on it. Since they are food safe I doubt that would do much harm but some Carbon and a could days of water changes seems like a plan.

 

[Ijwapoto]

It has been a little over 24 hours since the bacteria bloom. The tank is 75% clearer than it was yesterday. I added poly dil to the filtration and the bag of carbon. I also saw a video on Youtube that said to flood the tank with micro bubbles. I gave that a try. Not sure if that helped or not. I will be adding my UV sterilizer this evening. So far I think only My dps frag has not made it. Everything else is looking okay.

 

[Ijwapoto]

I just read my previous post. Lol this phone's auto correct drives me crazy. I added poly fil not poly dil to the filtration and it was my sps frag that didn't make it. Anyway, the tank is all cleared up now!

 

[kjonulak]

As a side note, I flood my tank with micro bubbles each night for 3 hours. Rocks and sand have never been cleaner. Corals look fine.

 

[Legot]

I've always been interested in doing bubbles. How does it effect the salt buildup that you experience (on the tank rim, on screen lids, etc) and what equipment do you use to produce the bubbles?

 

[Ijwapoto]

I only did it the one time. To get the micro bubbles all I did was take a 2 foot piece of clean air line tubing and blew the bubble under one of my power head and it did the rest.

 

[kjonulak]

I've always been interested in doing bubbles. How does it effect the salt buildup that you experience (on the tank rim, on screen lids, etc) and what equipment do you use to produce the bubbles?

I'm using the following:

Aqua-Lifter Dosing Pump AW-20
Lee's wooden air stone
Timer

I have the airstone positioned at the intake of my return pump. My return pump feeds 2 tanks. So when the air pump turns on, the bubbles go to both tanks. I run it for 3 hours at night. Since I've started with the bubbles I don't have to blow my rocks off with a turkey baster anymore.

In my nano tank, I have the same setup, but I'm using it to raise my pH levels. I don't have the airstone in front of the return pump, it's just in the sump. The air pump draws air from outside. The air pump for the nano runs 24/7.

I am also planning on running the bubble scrubbing on my 2 new tanks. Since they are much larger, I am thinking of getting a small pond air pump. I would have 4 airstones, one for each of the 4 return pumps (2 pumps per tank). I am going to put the air pump outside and feed the airlines into the house through a 1/2" pvc pipe I installed when the house was built. I am also thinking of using another air pump with an air stone to raise the pH on the larger tanks and using an Apex to turn the air pump off and on based on pH levels. I don't use a skimmer on my tanks so I can't feed the air into that. I am using an ATS for nutrient export.

 

[kjonulak]

Forgot to answer your question about salt buildup. I'm not having any issues with salt buildup. The bubbles are directed down and into the tanks, and the flow pumps push them around so they are not rising to the surface in one spot.