Cloudy water

[Matt Miller]

I have a marine x60 that's been running just over 2 years, and I've been struggling to clear up this water lately. I had gotten a little behind on maintenance so I assumed it would get better with some cleaning/WC.

Over the last week I've changed out 50+ gallons, added fresh carbon and changed my filter floss pads multiple times. I have chaeto and red ogo in the sump that's growing quite well. Most of my zoas and other corals are doing good also.
I've been changing 10-15g daily or every other along with microbacter7. It used to be BB but I started adding heavily rinsed sand also, water was cloudy before this, and the sand rinses completely clear before it was added.

Anything else I should be doing or checking for?

 

[Saltyreef]

I have a marine x60 that's been running just over 2 years, and I've been struggling to clear up this water lately. I had gotten a little behind on maintenance so I assumed it would get better with some cleaning/WC.
View attachment 3088797

Over the last week I've changed out 50+ gallons, added fresh carbon and changed my filter floss pads multiple times. I have chaeto and red ogo in the sump that's growing quite well. Most of my zoas and other corals are doing good also.
I've been changing 10-15g daily or every other along with microbacter7. It used to be BB but I started adding heavily rinsed sand also, water was cloudy before this, and the sand rinses completely clear before it was added.

Anything else I should be doing or checking for?

Is the floss in a cup? You might want to try polishing socks instead.

Also, where is your source water from?

 

[Matt Miller]

Is the floss in a cup? You might want to try polishing socks instead.

Also, where is your source water from?

Yes, I got rid of the socks when I started the tank and use a blue and a green pad in the cup. There's only 3 fish in the tank.

I use rodi water and recently changed out the resin, I have 0 tds coming out of the filter.

 

[bushdoc]

Milky, cloudy water usually means heterotrophic bacteria bloom.
What triggered it?
Could be your recent maintenance, especially changing carbon and filter floss. Both can be an additional substrate ( other than live rock) for nitrifying bacteria and by changing them you depleted surfaces which bacteria can colonize. Water changes are rather ineffective in heterotrophic bacteria blooms as those are multiplying too fast to keep up with them. Here‘s what I would do

• Decrease feeding
• increase skimming and add aeration with air-stone
• add UV sterilizer
• possibly add more live rock?
  

 

[Matt Miller]

Milky, cloudy water usually means heterotrophic bacteria bloom.
What triggered it?
Could be your recent maintenance, especially changing carbon and filter floss. Both can be an additional substrate ( other than live rock) for nitrifying bacteria and by changing them you depleted surfaces which bacteria can colonize. Water changes are rather ineffective in heterotrophic bacteria blooms as those are multiplying too fast to keep up with them. Here‘s what I would do

• Decrease feeding
• increase skimming and add aeration with air-stone
• add UV sterilizer
• possibly add more live rock?

It was definitely started before I did all the water changes. I had let my sump get pretty overgrown with chaeto and detritus, could that have been what started it?

I have never used a skimmer in this tank, I used that sump chamber for the fuge. Would it work to increase return flow and direct more surface agitation? I have 2 Nero 2's I could probably speed up some as well.

I have a sterilizer I never got around to hooking up, and I have no more LR on hand ATM.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have a marine x60 that's been running just over 2 years, and I've been struggling to clear up this water lately. I had gotten a little behind on maintenance so I assumed it would get better with some cleaning/WC.
View attachment 3088797

Over the last week I've changed out 50+ gallons, added fresh carbon and changed my filter floss pads multiple times. I have chaeto and red ogo in the sump that's growing quite well. Most of my zoas and other corals are doing good also.
I've been changing 10-15g daily or every other along with microbacter7. It used to be BB but I started adding heavily rinsed sand also, water was cloudy before this, and the sand rinses completely clear before it was added.

Anything else I should be doing or checking for?

Agree on heterotrophic bacteria . Often this is triggered when a sudden increase in the number of bacterial colonies colonizes and becomes suspended in the water and grows so quickly that it becomes more apparent causing the water to become milky/cloudy and hazy in appearance due to an increases in nutrients in the water particularly with nitrates and phosphates. If you have applied Nopox, this can be one trigger as will be dirty filters, clogged pumps, decayed matter and loss of flow

 

[bushdoc]

Increase aeration whith whatever means you have available, agitating surface is good, but airstone is even better. Second UV sterilizer if you already hve one.
next time you change carbon, change half of it as it is a substrate colonized by nitrifying bacteria and you don’t want to throw away too many of them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It was definitely started before I did all the water changes. I had let my sump get pretty overgrown with chaeto and detritus, could that have been what started it?

I have never used a skimmer in this tank, I used that sump chamber for the fuge. Would it work to increase return flow and direct more surface agitation? I have 2 Nero 2's I could probably speed up some as well.

I have a sterilizer I never got around to hooking up, and I have no more LR on hand ATM.

Added live rock will help

 

[Matt Miller]

Agree on heterotrophic bacteria . Often this is triggered when a sudden increase in the number of bacterial colonies colonizes and becomes suspended in the water and grows so quickly that it becomes more apparent causing the water to become milky/cloudy and hazy in appearance due to an increases in nutrients in the water particularly with nitrates and phosphates. If you have applied Nopox, this can be one trigger as will be dirty filters, clogged pumps, decayed matter and loss of flow

I feel like this is my sump. I've always had trouble keeping nitrates and phosphate above 0. I did let my sump get overgrown and full of junk.

I haven't added anything but microbacter7 and something (I honestly can't remember the name) I mixed up to raise nitrates and phosphate.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm trying to get myself into better maintenance habits

 

[Saltyreef]

I feel like this is my sump. I've always had trouble keeping nitrates and phosphate above 0. I did let my sump get overgrown and full of junk.

I haven't added anything but microbacter7 and something (I honestly can't remember the name) I mixed up to raise nitrates and phosphate.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm trying to get myself into better maintenance habits

Could be from dosing excess bacteria from MB7 too. I would cease that if you already havent.
Your BB population is likely maxed out.

 

[Matt Miller]

Could be from dosing excess bacteria from MB7 too. I would cease that if you already havent.
Your BB population is likely maxed out.

I had been adding it about every other day, but I will stop now!

 

[Matt Miller]

I remember why I never hooked up my sterilizer, the hose is smaller than my return line.

 

[Matt Miller]

I was able to get the sterilizer hooked up and running in the sump. It's been running close to a day and I am seeing the cloudiness starting to clear up!

Thanks for help help guys!