Brand new water cloudy

pandaparties · Jan 30, 2023

I mixed up a batch of water for a water change last night and then decided i was going to do it in the morning instead. I woke up and started changing the water in my tank (50g water change on 500g). It was a little dark so i didn't notice sooner but it looked like the new water coming in was really cloudy (wasn't that way the night before). It was too late to stop so i just finished and low and behold my entire tank is super cloudy now and some of the brand new water i left in the barrel to inspect was also very cloudy. I've never had this happen on a WC change before and wondering if i should be in panic mode or what. Red sea blue bucket salt, i left the heater in overnight though it was turned off, didn't have a recirculation pump going over night either. Bacterial bloom on new water from lack of circulation? Salt precipitated? Leaching from the heater? Any ideas and course of correction here? My tank had been doing awesome lately

pandaparties · Jan 30, 2023

Double checked TDS coming in was 0, all new resin/membranes/carbon within the past month. Tank been back running for 30 minutes and still cloudy

Lavey29 · Jan 30, 2023

I have heard that with some salt brands that if you mix them for to long like over 2 hours the water could cloud up but it should clear up on its own with your filtration.

pandaparties · Jan 30, 2023

Lavey29 said:
I have heard that with some salt brands that if you mix them for to long like over 2 hours the water could cloud up but it should clear up on its own with your filtration.

Fingers crossed! Thanks for the reply!

vetteguy53081 · Jan 30, 2023

pandaparties said:
I mixed up a batch of water for a water change last night and then decided i was going to do it in the morning instead. I woke up and started changing the water in my tank (50g water change on 500g). It was a little dark so i didn't notice sooner but it looked like the new water coming in was really cloudy (wasn't that way the night before). It was too late to stop so i just finished and low and behold my entire tank is super cloudy now and some of the brand new water i left in the barrel to inspect was also very cloudy. I've never had this happen on a WC change before and wondering if i should be in panic mode or what. Red sea blue bucket salt, i left the heater in overnight though it was turned off, didn't have a recirculation pump going over night either. Bacterial bloom on new water from lack of circulation? Salt precipitated? Leaching from the heater? Any ideas and course of correction here? My tank had been doing awesome lately

Some salts will retain precip and remain cloudy. Try circulating the content in the barrel and see if it clears. Also even with 0 TDS assure it does not have phosphate.
My suspicion is the amount of calcium carbonate precipitation in relation to ph of the water.

pandaparties · Jan 30, 2023

vetteguy53081 said:
Some salts will retain precip and remain cloudy. Try circulating the content in the barrel and see if it clears. Also even with 0 TDS assure it does not have phosphate.
My suspicion is the amount of calcium carbonate precipitation in relation to ph of the water.

Thanks for the reply, beginning to think it's just the salt and I normally do the water change right after mixing so it doesn't precipitate as much. Water is clearing up in DT and all my acros still have nice PE so probably okay.

Also checked the phosphates on the RODI and they were zero. Thanks Vette!