Cloudy Water ?

[Gabbone]

Good morning all,

My tank (30g AIO) has been running crystal water since ever and all of a sudden from yesterday morning I am noticing I have cloudy water --> more towards the milky/whiter side.
Fish, anemone, corals (sps included), inverts are doing all fine.

I checked for possible causes;

- Nothing trapped or blended in powerhead;
- Sand is very clean and not being push in the water column
- ALK/CA/MG 8.8/437/1400
- no3/po4 9.5ppm/0.07ppm
- ph 8.2
- I don't see anything dead
- Glass and sump are clean


What I changed?
The night before my water turned cloudy I dosed for the first time ever in the tank:

- TM All for Reef liquid --> 5ml for directly to the sump (very unlikely overdosed)
- TM Protect 10ml
- TM Zootonic 2,5ml

Before I was dosing Red Sea Alk and CA and never had problem. I thought about a precipitation but I checked my parameters and they are where they need to be.

Also, I have in the back sump a bag of charcoal for running crystal water. I replaced with a new one an hour ago to see if the situation will improve.

I also increase surface agitation and return pump nozzle up and I am noticing I am having a lot of tiny bubble formation on the surface but this can be due to the fact that I increase the agitation. I have good agitation previously.

I am attaching a few photos; Thank you in advance!!

 

[Dan_P]

Good morning all,

My tank (30g AIO) has been running crystal water since ever and all of a sudden from yesterday morning I am noticing I have cloudy water --> more towards the milky/whiter side.
Fish, anemone, corals (sps included), inverts are doing all fine.

I checked for possible causes;

- Nothing trapped or blended in powerhead;
- Sand is very clean and not being push in the water column
- ALK/CA/MG 8.8/437/1400
- no3/po4 9.5ppm/0.07ppm
- ph 8.2
- I don't see anything dead
- Glass and sump are clean


What I changed?
The night before my water turned cloudy I dosed for the first time ever in the tank:

- TM All for Reef liquid --> 5ml for directly to the sump (very unlikely overdosed)
- TM Protect 10ml
- TM Zootonic 2,5ml

Before I was dosing Red Sea Alk and CA and never had problem. I thought about a precipitation but I checked my parameters and they are where they need to be.

Also, I have in the back sump a bag of charcoal for running crystal water. I replaced with a new one an hour ago to see if the situation will improve.

I also increase surface agitation and return pump nozzle up and I am noticing I am having a lot of tiny bubble formation on the surface but this can be due to the fact that I increase the agitation. I have good agitation previously.

I am attaching a few photos; Thank you in advance!!

One or all the products possibly caused a microorganism bloom. I suppose we should also consider calcium carbonate precipitation.

Was there a reason to start dosing at this time?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Wjhat sticks out to me is the protect and zootonic, I have never heard of these. I just googled them, and there's nothing on the internet. What is it and why are you dosing it? I would stop that until you figure out whats going on.

 

[Gabbone]

Thanks for the answers;

- I am dosing because my tank is depleting 0.3dkh + 2ppm Ca a day. I bring my values where I wanted by dosing two parts and now I am dosing one part to keep consistency (all for reef).

I measured CA/ALK before and after dosing and I haven’t find any signs of precipitations.

Regarding the other two products from tropic marin:

- protect is a conditioner to improve water quality and fish well-being
- zootonic is a concentrate crustaceous food for all corals

 

[Gabbone]

--- UPDATE since I am a big nerd ---

I runned a little test;

I made two identical 500ml cup of RODI + Sea Salt;

Picture 1: ABOVE is fresh seawater only and BELOW is fresh seawater + all for reef. Nothing changed. They both look idenical.

Picture 2: ABOVE is fresh seawater only and BELOW is fresh seawater + all for reef + protect. Nothing changed. They both look idenical.

Picture 3: ABOVE is fresh seawater only and BELOW is fresh seawater + all for reef + protect + ZOOTONIC. When add zootonic water immediately became dull and oily on the whiter side. Looks exactly like the water in my tank right now.

Picture 4: To validate, I also added the same amount of zootonic to the water ABOVE and the water immediately became dull and oily on the whiter side. Looks exactly like the water BELOW and the water in my tank right now. In addition, I even added extra 500ml RODI to each of the containers to see if with diluition it improves. Nothing, looks exactly the same.

Any thoughts at this point? I will really appreciate!

@Lou Ekus Maybe Lou could you help me?

Last thing to clarify, I added 0,25ml of zootonic each container. In my tank I added in a day long 0,5ml. Would this be enought to transform my water that cloudy?

Dosage:​

Start with a daily dose of 0.1 ml per 100 L aquarium system volume and increase the dose if necessary.

For optimal distribution in the aquarium, Tropic Marin® ZOOTONIC should be dosed several times a day in the flow of the pump.

Maximum dose:​

A daily dose of 0.5 ml per 100 L (26 US gal) aquarium system volume should not be exceeded. When dosing ZOOTONIC, the dosage of other products that (also) contain organic carbon should be reduced accordingly because of their resulting increase in oxygen consumption.

Ingredients of zootonic: "shellfish and glycerol".

 

[vetteguy53081]

Good morning all,

My tank (30g AIO) has been running crystal water since ever and all of a sudden from yesterday morning I am noticing I have cloudy water --> more towards the milky/whiter side.
Fish, anemone, corals (sps included), inverts are doing all fine.

I checked for possible causes;

- Nothing trapped or blended in powerhead;
- Sand is very clean and not being push in the water column
- ALK/CA/MG 8.8/437/1400
- no3/po4 9.5ppm/0.07ppm
- ph 8.2
- I don't see anything dead
- Glass and sump are clean


What I changed?
The night before my water turned cloudy I dosed for the first time ever in the tank:

- TM All for Reef liquid --> 5ml for directly to the sump (very unlikely overdosed)
- TM Protect 10ml
- TM Zootonic 2,5ml

Before I was dosing Red Sea Alk and CA and never had problem. I thought about a precipitation but I checked my parameters and they are where they need to be.

Also, I have in the back sump a bag of charcoal for running crystal water. I replaced with a new one an hour ago to see if the situation will improve.

I also increase surface agitation and return pump nozzle up and I am noticing I am having a lot of tiny bubble formation on the surface but this can be due to the fact that I increase the agitation. I have good agitation previously.

I am attaching a few photos; Thank you in advance!!

I can assure you, half your issue is the window that is in the background. This time of the year, UV rays are strongest and will penetrate shades, binds and curtains and may be causing an algae bloom. Also check filter for proper flow and soiling. Other is addition of tap water, overfeeding and addition of new fish which causes a temporary bio-load

 

[Gabbone]

I can assure you, half your issue is the window that is in the background. This time of the year, UV rays are strongest and will penetrate shades, binds and curtains and may be causing an algae bloom. Also check filter for proper flow and soiling. Other is addition of tap water, overfeeding and addition of new fish which causes a temporary bio-load

I live in The Netherlands and here it's cloudy and rainy basically every day

I am quite obsessive with the cleaning of the tank, back chambers included. Never had algae bloom, bacteria, virus, various blooms etc and I run my radion g6 for 7hrs only at minimum intensity.

I vacuum sendbed and back chamber once a week and I change my filter wool weekly. I am very strict with feeding at the point that I learn how to exactly control no3 and po4 by the way I feed.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I live in The Netherlands and here it's cloudy and rainy basically every day

I am quite obsessive with the cleaning of the tank, back chambers included. Never had algae bloom, bacteria, virus, various blooms etc and I run my radion g6 for 7hrs only at minimum intensity.

I vacuum sendbed and back chamber once a week and I change my filter wool weekly.

Frequent cleaning of sand bed could be removing beneficial bacteria also in this case. My suspect is window and even when cloudy still has an impact

 

[Gabbone]

Frequent cleaning of sand bed could be removing beneficial bacteria also in this case. My suspect is window and even when cloudy still has an impact

I mean, I never had issues so far. Did you read my experiment above?
Everthing started right after dosing.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I mean, I never had issues so far. Did you read my experiment above?
Everthing started right after dosing.

I did and the addition of the zootech cn have effect just as here in the states with addition of carbon dosing, vinegar dosing and NoPox

 

[Gabbone]

I did and the addition of the zootech cn have effect just as here in the states with addition of carbon dosing, vinegar dosing and NoPox

I've heard a water change will only make things longer. Should I just wait?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I've heard a water change will only make things longer. Should I just wait?

You stated doing weekly water changes and sand bed siphoning. Consider Bi-weekly

 

[Gabbone]

You stated doing weekly water changes and sand bed siphoning. Consider Bi-weekly

No, I mean for this specific case; when you have a bacterial bloom (if this is a bacterial bloom)

 

[vetteguy53081]

No, I mean for this specific case; when you have a bacterial bloom (if this is a bacterial bloom)

I labeled it as suspended matter. Be sure to keep an eye on your nitrate and phosphate levels. When bacterial colonies suddenly increase in number, they become suspended in the water and grow quickly and become more visible causing the water to be milky and hazy in appearance due to nutrient increases in the water, so check those two levels mentioned.

 

[Gabbone]

Just checked no3 and po4.

Yesterday NO3: 9.5ppm
Yesterday PO4: 0.07ppm

Now NO3: 8.4 ppm
Now PO4: 0.03ppm

Because I knew of the nutrient rise, I dropped this morning an extra bag of no3/po4 binder, that's why probably my nutrients level went down in a day. I just removed the extra bag since I don't want to starve the tank.

 

[Gabbone]

Update —- water is crystal clear again. Therefore it was not a bacteria bloom but zotoonic.

 

[Lou Ekus]

@Gabbone I'm not 100% sure about what yu have going on. There are lots of details that are left as variables. The bottom line, though, is that you seem to have not had trouble before, and now you are running into this cloudiness issue. My suggesiton, just my thought, would be to go back to your old system of additives. Then make your changes one at a time. Give some time for each change to make a difference before instituting the next change/addition. This chould give you a very good way to hone in on which of these things is an issue.
I'm sorry that I don't have a better solution for you at this time. But there are so many variables, that it is extremely difficult to diagnose "over the phone" (if you get my meaning). Go back to square one, make one change at a time, and give each change a week or two to cause an issue. That should help you figure out where the issue is.
i know this may not be exacly what you want to hear. But it is my suggesiton for right now. And, as always, if you would like to chat in more detail about this by phone, I am always avaialbel to do that as well.

 

[Gabbone]

Thanks so much Lou! In the end, I was able to find that Zootonic was the cause of the cloudiness. I probably overdosed since the instruction suggested to start with 0.1ml per day and I did for first day 0,25ml at morning and 0,25ml at night for a total of 0,5ml. Issue is solved. After 24h water was crystal clear again. No harm for corals, fish, inverts. All good!

I am also using All for reef and the pro salt and so far I love both.