Ever since firing up my frag tank, my water has been a bit cloudy. At first I thought it was the glass in the tank, since it was an old tank, but it looks cloudy even in my new 10 gallon sump.
I put a fresh bag o' carbon in the sump 48 hours ago, and no change. I also have changed out 20 gallons in the past 3 or 4 days. Thats like a 50% changeout, still cloudy.
I'm willing to bet that it is a simple matter of a natural bacterial bloom... the water is cycling and bacterium are not balanced with nutrients etc. This should even out soon.
I don't have any mech filtration to speak of, but I will wrap my pump intake with some filter media and and change it every 24 hours for the next few days and see what happens. I would have thought it would have cleared up by now, but we will see what happens.
What you DON'T want to do is large water changes..for now. That will just cause more blooms because it will cause more of a water cycle. Do smallish, partial water changes (20% or less).
i was assuming the rockwork came from the mains, i wouldn't have put my finger on a bacterial bloom dave, theres next to no nutrients to fuel a haze like that & taking into account the total volume is small, i dont know, you could very well be right. I would have prob expected more manual contributing factors that just new set-up.
i was assuming the rockwork came from the mains, i wouldn't have put my finger on a bacterial bloom dave, theres next to no nutrients to fuel a haze like that & taking into account the total volume is small, i dont know, you could very well be right. I would have prob expected more manual contributing factors that just new set-up.
Yes, but how much rock? It takes more than a couple frag plugs and a single tonga branch to "instantly" culture a new system. In a new set up, with new water, minus the nitrifying bacterium, you may have a bloom. I may be wrong as well, but there is certainly enough waste from coral (all you need is carbon dioxide and any nitrogenous element like ammonia) that would fuel a bacterial bloom. If there weren't enough of the heterotrphic bacteria to kick start the cycle, then BOOM.. cloudy water.
Again, I'd do SMALLISH water changes, and see if you can better oxygenate the water with powerheads causing a surface chop. This should help speed things up. Also keep an eye on your PH. If it strays, you will not have an optimal playground for the nitrifying bacteria to thrive and do their job.
Finally, if you do treat your frags with any type of dips or regimens that include any anti-bacterial treatments, you are also wiping out the good bacterium needed to keep a healthy nitrogen cycle in place.
For what it's worth..most of my pals use a single fish or so in their frag tanks to help keep the cycle on track.
Again, I may be totally off track..and if your report of parameters all "in limits" is not true (bad tests or something) then it could be calcium precip. If it were though.. I'd assume you'd see some of this precip in the form of snow on the coral plugs, rocks, etc.
I guess I still have much to learn, or at least review!
When I setup my other system, I didn't remember a "bacteria bloom" as I am seeing right now. I do remember a diatom bloom, is that the same thing? My water was never cloudy in my main display unless that was masked by what I supposed was a clody tank due to putting sand in the system.
Since my last post I am running filter floss in my sump (near my intakes) and also running floss in a small HOB filter, as this is what I have available. I also removed my disply skimmer and relocated to the frag setup just for the time being. It is producing alot in the collection cup. This process has been running now for 24 hours, and I don't notice much change.
I think the reason for such a bloom probably lies in the fact that I made several small errors in judgement. The first error was thinking that just because my Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates had settled out to zero that I was done with the cycle. Like I said I don't remember a cloudy bloom in my other startup. Secondly, I put about 19lbs of rubble in the system and I did this late in the cycle. I don't believe it was late enough to cause another cycle because I tested the water theree times since and all levels look good. The rubble was wet when I received it, is it possible it was cured and there for not much of a cycle to begin with?
My biggest mistake (such a rookie error) was that I rushed it and introduced a litte phytop to the system too early. I assume this may be causing much of my issue. I also introduced chaeto, and I noticed some die off, maybe due to the brighter lighting, and that may not be helping matters. And now maybe yet another mistake was made changing out like 50% of the water.
As far as parameters, I will test again tonight and report here. The only thing out of line was my PH which was a bit high at 8.3. I have not notices any "snow like" matter on my corals to date.
Thanks for all your input, it is ever humbling this hobby, just when you think you have it figured out you don't.
Hey, thats racing, even seasoned drivers rub the wall from time to time.
i wouldn't consider it harmful, your animals are hardy & theres next to nothing in there. your parematers are zero cause theres nothing fueling it, or its consuming & converting at a rate of deposition. drop a few drops of cycle in every week if your worried about it.
Ya know.. I have one last question.... do you have a real good magnifying glass? Can you tell if it is real tiny microbbles? Sometimes a smallish leak in plumbing will introduce air in such small bubbles that it looks like cloudy water.
Do you have any bubbles on the glass, rock anything that looks unusual? Typically, if it is micro-mocro bubbles, your tank gets coated in bubbles.
USA 
oh my god, they killed kenny, you bast@ards.
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