I have had my picotope up and running for around 3 weeks with just live rock. I have an aquaclear 50 modded to hold carbon and a fuge, and im running the stock filter to run GFO through. (chem pure elite right now). I can not for the life of me get the water to be clear, its cloudy as all can be. This tank is a barebottom, so no sand at all.

-i have removed the chem pure and placed filter floss in the filter= no improvement
-cleaned out the carbon bag again.=maybe a tiny improvement?
-syphoned the debris off the bottom glass and from under the rocks.=no help
-turned dow nthe aquaclear50= no help


im at loss here of what to do?

Thanks!



before i syphoned the debris up

Have you tried blasting everything before siphoning? And the stuff the filter with lots of floss.

oh yea, went after the rock with a turkey baster. and I added a sponge as well last night to little improvment. Il try again though ha

That's odd. Where did you get your rock from?

At the risk of sounding stupid, have you tried cleaning the glass??? (or acrylic whichever it is)

just did it again, really good. and il clean the sponge and floss out in a hour or so.

little smile every time I start a syphon with airline tubing

spanko: yes
el fab: LFS cured fiji rock, cured it again myself for 4 weeks. smelled nice when I added it, nice and fresh with some good surviving coraline.

btw el fab, im a new post but been lurking for a while, I followed ur thread to build my picotope..thanks!

Where is your ammonia sitting?

how often are you doing the water changes...from your post I am assuming pretty regularly?

If it is going on this long I just wonder if your live rock bacteria has hit an exponential die off rate...I ran into this when I was younger when I (like the biggest idiot alive) put a nudi branch in my tank.

He died in the morning and when I came home the tank was a solid white cloud...I did water change after water change but so much life was dying on my rock that I could not get it back into order...sadly the tank was scrapped. I let the rock dry and then just had to regrow the coraline.

But seeing as you cured the rock I can't see it being the case but I thought I might just throw it out there...

Good Luck

Thanks!

Yes I thought it could be something along those lines, but I have done many many water changes and my ammonia is at 0ppm. Should I do another 1 gal water change? figure it cant hurt...

sounds like a bacteria bloom. something ugly is feeding off the excess nutrients in your tank.

50% water change?

also what could be causing this? only have rock in the tank...

are you using RO water or tap water on your changes?

Man, you guys jump to conclusions fast. Try the simple stuff first. A sponge only stops big particles. It you want really clear water, you need to use floss. Try that, come back tomorrow and see how it looks. Don't go panicing about bacterial blooms just yet.

Sounds weird, but is there alot of really really fine particles on the bottom of the tank? I'm thinking maybe with nothing on the bottom to stick to, those particles are always getting stirred up... If so, maybe a super thin (~1/2") layer of sand (not oolitic/sugar-sized) might be of some help in getting things to settle down if all else fails. Just a thought though.

always RO/DI, and I TDS check often




yea im gunna swap some finer filter floss from my 75gal SPS tank right now, good idea idk why I didnt think about that!



yea iv been worried about that this whole build, I have ran sucessful BB tanks before and with the proper husbandry I have never had issues and they turn out quite nice I think. I think the finer filter floss will help some, if not I might have to try sand

You're welcome and a nice looking pico too!

Like evil said, lots of floss and see if it clears up. As long as it keeps getting clearer I think you'll be fine.

my el cheapo walmart felt DIY filter floss is now in the AQ 50, I used to use it on my BC8 with great success.

sq ft for $0.15