Water went cloudy suddenly

E

ElevenEleven

Reefing newb
Im 26 days into my cycle, and a couple of days ago my water got super cloudy. Now this happened before earlier on in my cycle, but now it has happened again, and coincided with a large outbreak of diatoms and hair algae. I check my water and everything is perfect, ph, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia. How long will it take for my water to clear up? Why did it get super thick and cloudy all of a sudden?
 
What are you using to cycle your tank? Fish? Food? Live rock?

Cloudiness is an indication of a bacterial bloom. Which usually results from overstocking, overfeeding, stocking too fast, stocking before the tank has finished cycling properly, or something dying. Basically, a huge food source becomes available, and the bacteria grow so fast because they have so much food. So much, that their population clouds the water.
 
"I don't have a protein skimmer" saw this in your last post, i'm guessing you dont have a refugium ether. how much live rock do you have in the tank? what marineland filter are you useing? whats you current stock? whats your PH - NO2 - NO3 - Ammonia?
 
Bifferwine said:
Hmmmm...

https://www.livingreefs.com/update-my-tank-t30774.html#post422486

How is that anemone doing?
Click to expand...

What a couple of eventful days we're having on the Reef.:D C'Mon man, we'll help you out, but you've gotta be honest with us, or all the typing in the world won't help you. Are you cycling or are you not? Did you just toss an anenome into a tank that you were cycling?

We don't expect you to know everything, but you've gotta be honest about what's going on or you're just gonna spin your wheels and spend hundreds of dollars on an empty tank.
 
ElevenEleven said:
Ok first I wanna say no flaming. I understand the typical process of starting a reef tank, but everyone has a slightly different way and no way is 100% right.

Any questions and or advice? Remember don't judge me. I wont be adding a mother fish until 2 weeks from now.
Click to expand...

Don't judge him PRC. :mrgreen:
 
Pwny said:
"I don't have a protein skimmer" saw this in your last post, i'm guessing you dont have a refugium ether. how much live rock do you have in the tank? what marineland filter are you useing? whats you current stock? whats your PH - NO2 - NO3 - Ammonia?
Click to expand...

I have about 25 ponds of live rock and just added two more pounds recently. I have no slimmer. My marinelans filter is the one for 70 gallons.

Ph is 8.0 ammonia is 0 nitrite is 0 and nitrates seem slightly above 0, like 1 ppm. Its definitely not 5ppm as the test tube didn't get tha dark orange. I test my water everyday and this is the lowest nitrates I've seen so far.

2 chromis (I originally was told to cycle with 5, 3 of them never ate for some reason. I watched them and eventually they starved, im thinking these three were sic at Petco). Also I am aware now that that was too many fish to cycle with anyway with using that method. The other two are doing great now.

firefish had him for about 11 days now (had a pink smith damsel but gave him to lfs)

1 sally lightfoot crab

My condylactus which is doing great and has yet to pollute water in 11 days.

2 large hermits which never stop moving.

Could the new pieces of live rock have caused a new bloom of bacteria? Also, is it normal to have such an intense algae bloom as well right now? Despite the cloudy water and algae spread...the animals inside seem to be having a feast in these conditions. Never seen my sally lightfoot out so much o. The rocks.

1
 
PRC said:
What a couple of eventful days we're having on the Reef.:D C'Mon man, we'll help you out, but you've gotta be honest with us, or all the typing in the world won't help you. Are you cycling or are you not? Did you just toss an anenome into a tank that you were cycling?

We don't expect you to know everything, but you've gotta be honest about what's going on or you're just gonna spin your wheels and spend hundreds of dollars on an empty tank.
Click to expand...

If I chose the dishonest route I would have never told you all about my anenome ;).
 
ElevenEleven said:
If I chose the dishonest route I would have never told you all about my anenome ;).
Click to expand...

This is true. ;)

When you added live rock, it's possible that it caused a bacterial bloom, but that's probably only going to happen if there was a lot of die off on the live rock. I think a more likely scenario is that you've just got a lot going on in your tank (a lot of waste, a lot of food) and the bacteria is trying to catch up to it so they can process it. Doing a water change every couple days will help. Algae is normal in a new tank, and every tank will go through a few different algae stages -- usually it goes diatoms, red slime, hair algae. It can take many months to get over this "newness" but the tank will eventually settle in and you will get the algae under control. In the meantime, water changes and a CUC are your best friends.

Make sure you are not overfeeding as well. That will contribute to the bacterial bloom and the algae problem. I recommend feeding only frozen foods, as flakes and pellets contain preservatives which can be bad for water quality if you feed too much.
 
you might wana add about 15 pounds more of live rock if you can to help with water quality. also if your able to a fuge with Chaetomorpha algae its great for removing both phosphates and nitrates from the water, also it can become a pod farm to helpkeep your tank healthy. make sure the anemone keeps eating well since tank is new it would be easy for him to go downhill fast. you will have to post some pics sometime.
 

Similar threads

F
New to marine.
Replies
2
Views
1K
kbuser92
kbuser92
Stellabl3u
Just looking for some pointers or advice
Replies
0
Views
2K
Stellabl3u
Stellabl3u
K
Reef Tank is Suddenly Cloudy with Unhappy Coral
Replies
3
Views
2K
dantimdad
dantimdad
Hellybell80
Water quality advice needed.
Replies
4
Views
2K
Hellybell80
Hellybell80
B
New reef tank project
Replies
0
Views
2K
boricuamed
B
Back
Top