Hazy water after dosing No3Po4-X

[ficertyn]

Hi Everyone,

I woke up this morning with cloudy water and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. This is a 15 gallon nano. I have 2 clowns, 1 large BTA, 3 blue-leg hermit crabs (found an empty shell this morning), 2 cerith snails (+1 suspected deceased which has been removed to QT), 6 trochus snails (2 small, 4 largish) and a strawberry conch. A quick google search indicated that this might be a bacteria bloom and had me increase oxygenation to the water (pointed the return pump nozzle somewhat “up”, though there was plenty surface agitation before) and do a water change/sandbed vacuum, which I did and ended up with about a 25% change. That was about 8 hours ago. The cloudiness remains about the same.

One of the clowns seems to be breathing heavy, but is otherwise about as active as normal and feeding fine. The other is acting normal. The nem closed up shortly after the lights came on (this is abnormal), but now that they’re dimmer seems to be open about as expected this time of day. None of the inverts seem are acting any different.

Recent changes to my normal tank maintenance are:

31 March started dosing Red Sea Foundation KH/Alkalinity. I dose 1ml M/W/F and based on testing after my water change on Saturday
24 April started dosing Red Sea NO3PO4-X. I have dosed 1.8ml yesterday and today

I noticed the cloudiness after the lights came on this morning, but after dosing.

I tested my water parameters on 20 April:

Nitrate: 36 (Hanna)
Phosphate: .37 (Hanna)
Calc: 400 (Salifert)
Alk: 8.2 (Hanna)
pH: 8 (API)
Salinity: 34ppt

Testing this afternoon:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 24.3 (Hanna)
Phosphate: .27 (Hanna)
Calc: 410 (Salifert)
Alk: 8.5 (Hanna)
pH: 7.8
Salinity: 35ppt

Should I stop dosing anything? Continue water changes? Anything else I should be doing?

Thanks for your help!

 

[FUNGI]

do WC's and stop with the NoPox....
Just curious why you are dosing NoPox for a nano.....
.you dont mention skimmer.....add a airstone to increase gas exchange...

 

[Uncle99]

How old is your system?

 

[blecki]

Air stone and a water change won't hurt. This is pretty normal for just starting any kind of carbon dosing. The haziness is the bacteria multiplying, It will stabilize and be crystal clear pretty quick. But, in a tank that small, it's much easier to accidentally cause a bacterial bloom that sucks all the oxygen up and kills your fish.

Airstone isn't really going to do anything more than a skimmer if you've got a skimmer running. And you do have a skimmer, if you're running nopox, right? But I'd cut the nopox dose until the cloudiness resolves and then slowly ramp it up again more conservatively. You can't stop it entirely or the bacteria will just die.

 

[Jimbo327]

Cloudy water means bacterial bloom from adding carbon source NoPox. You need to add more oxygen to the tank since bacterial bloom will drop oxygen level in the tank. To increase oxygen, do more surface agitation or add airstone/airpump bubble into tank or crank up skimmer. Until you can add oxygen consistently, I would reduce or stop the NoPox additions.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I would just comment that as a general principle, the O2 consumed comes from the organic metabolized, whether or not there is a visible bacteria bloom. Aeration should be good when organic carbon dosing, but is not more in need due to the cloudiness, IMO.

 

[ficertyn]

do WC's and stop with the NoPox....
Just curious why you are dosing NoPox for a nano.....
.you dont mention skimmer.....add a airstone to increase gas exchange...

I’ve been having a heck of a time getting Nitrate/Phosphate at the levels that I’ve been targeting

 

[ficertyn]

How old is your system?

About 6 months.

 

[ficertyn]

Air stone and a water change won't hurt. This is pretty normal for just starting any kind of carbon dosing. The haziness is the bacteria multiplying, It will stabilize and be crystal clear pretty quick. But, in a tank that small, it's much easier to accidentally cause a bacterial bloom that sucks all the oxygen up and kills your fish.

Airstone isn't really going to do anything more than a skimmer if you've got a skimmer running. And you do have a skimmer, if you're running nopox, right? But I'd cut the nopox dose until the cloudiness resolves and then slowly ramp it up again more conservatively. You can't stop it entirely or the bacteria will just die.

I don’t have a skimmer running. I didn’t realize that was recommended. I’ll see about getting one. I’ve looked into getting one, but wasn’t super sure where it would go and how to set it up.

When you say cut the nopox dose, do you mean stop dosing, or reduce it?

 

[FUNGI]

I would stop NOPOx until everything is back under control. Get a skimmer or a way to increase oxygenation before you start dosing.
secondly, you are overdosing. 1.8ml for 15G is too much. I would cut that down to .75ml and test.= until you get to your target, and then drop even more to mainitain
I have a 125G and I only dose 2.5ml everyday to keep things in check.

 

[FUNGI]

 

[Uncle99]

I would have no concern with 25ppm nitrate and .27ppm phosphate, been running that for years.

I’d just stop nopox and let that system stabilize.

Now, if week to week it’s steady increasing, then consider a small, frequent dash of nopox daily and full skim, we want to “pull” stuff from our water.