water is looking dirty need help ???

[jhnrb]

Just sit it out for a week to 10 days IMO. good luck

[IraqVeteran]

I know this thread is a little old, but...I too have cloudy water in my 75 gal fowlr. I dont think it is an algae bloom rather I think it is just the fish, lunar wrasse in particular, dive bombing the sand a lot causing fine particles to free float. I also have a blue throat trigger, spotted puffer, squirrel fish and sailfin tang in the tank. I change 10 gal of water each saturday in that tank and the parameters are always good. What can I do to combat this? Or do I just have to suck it up? The tank was always clear until I added the wrasse two months ago and then it started to get a little cloudy, not too noticeable. Once I added the puffer and trigger it got worse. The trigger hits the sand a lot also.

The sand is really fine sand. Should I change the substrate to something different? If so, how do I go about doing that?

Thanks,

Mark

[Bifferwine]

If you think it's the sand, running some sort of mechanical filtration will help to get rid of the suspended particles. You will have to clean the filter often though, so you don't get water parameter problems. I would not change out the substrate; that can just lead to problems.

[IraqVeteran]

I do run mechanical already and I clean it the same time I do the water changes. Should I add more mechanical filtration? Right now at the moment I just have an Emperor 550 HOB filter along with a protein skimmer.

[yote]

Since your running a FOWLR,it propbably wouldnt hurt anything to add a wet/dry.That along with what you already have might help.

[IraqVeteran]

I'm not so sure. Dont wet/dry set-ups possibly lead to nitrate problems? Unless you are talking about a regular under the tank sump.

[yote]

As long as its kept clean,it wont cause any problems.There just like canisters or HOB filters.They have to be maintained.
I ran a wet/dry for over a year and never had nitrates over 5.But I rinsed out the media and bio-balls every week.Washed it out good and hooked it back up.
Plus you could use it as a sump.Basically the same thing.

[IraqVeteran]

Good advice. I might try slapping on a powerful Eheim cannister filter. I used to use those and they worked pretty good. They arent too bad to maintain. I just hate that the fish make the tank couldy all the time from diving bombing the sand.