White cloudy water from water change?

[Kristal]

Hello!

 

Ive just added my first ever self-mixed Ro saltwater to my tank in a 100% water change. The Tds wasnt as good as the store bought stuff, but im working on getting a DI filter (theyre hard to find here).

 

I noticed last night that it looked less clear than my old water, but this morning with the ambient light you can really tell its vaguely milky white. I have no sand, and i doubt its an algae bloom as it was happening when i just poured it in.

 

Did i fail at mixing the salt jn?? I left it stirring overnight. The salinity of the water is a tiny bit higher than previously? Am i just not used to seeing higher salinity SW?

 

I added an airstone to my tank in hopes that it would help mix it up.

[Preybilly]

Hello!

 

Ive just added my first ever self-mixed Ro saltwater to my tank in a 100% water change. The Tds wasnt as good as the store bought stuff, but im working on getting a DI filter (theyre hard to find here).

 

I noticed last night that it looked less clear than my old water, but this morning with the ambient light you can really tell its vaguely milky white. I have no sand, and i doubt its an algae bloom as it was happening when i just poured it in.

 

Did i fail at mixing the salt jn?? I left it stirring overnight. The salinity of the water is a tiny bit higher than previously? Am i just not used to seeing higher salinity SW?

 

I added an airstone to my tank in hopes that it would help mix it up.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you did a 100% water change? If so, it's pretty hard to not cloud the water, what with all the residual dust on stuff on the live rock in my experience. 100% water changes, as you know, can be somewhat shocking to a system's bacterial population, and sometimes the cloudiness can be a sign of a mini-cycle afterwards. Also hard to comment without knowing what brand salt mix you use. I know some brands in the old days took 2-3 days to mix! I don't have a lot of experience myself, but figured you can use this comment to bounce some ideas around.

[Kristal]

Yup, 100%. I'm actually worried I didnt mix it well enough, might go see about buying a stronger pump/powerhead?

 

It could be the dust, but every other time I've done a 10% water change it hasn't been a problem... I'm using "Red Sea coral Pro Salt".

 

 

I'll test the params when I get home! Seeing as I have no critters right now, I figured itd be good to just go do a full change.

[tetraodon]

never ever do 100% water changes. just dont, the white is either dust from the sand or bacteria. if it was salt it disapates really quickly, so should the dust. its bacteria, you pretty much restarted the cycle by doing the 100%. feel free to test the params, but they will be wacked out, youll either have high everything or nothing. the largest water change you should do on a regular basis is 50% but even that can be risky. doing a full change is only something you do in extreme cases.

[brandon429]

Do 100% water changes anytime you want since the oldest and longest lived pico systems in the world do them.

 

Just verify the change water before use, search out precipitation

 

Your water if inspected in a clear container with background would've shown cloudy before adding, there's no mechanism for it to change after being added to tank, unless dusty detritus got kicked up which bb tanks do collect on the bottoms etc, if the color improves today that was likely the culprit.

 

The volume you change has nothing to do with precipitation

 

If you did a correctly mixed 100% every morning for the life of your pico, you could feed heavier than normal in response and corals would grow faster.

 

Causes for precipitation are a few... We just need to verify your mix and prep ways

 

To change only twenty percent wouldn't have helped anything, that's 2/10 use of cloudy water, the percent changed doesn't matter.

At no time can 100% percent of water changed in a bb tank cause a cycle of any measure, unless the changed water had meds that kill bac added to it.

 

The science of full water changes is documented on here for the last 15 yrs, it doesn't waiver but prep methods sure can vary. Mix up a new round and test it for clarity before use, it's ok to practice getting clear mix up

 

Like el fab did for three years, it's ok to reduce to 50% a while during practice, but 100 is a fine standard to earn soon enough.

 

 

Use distilled water if you can, until low TDs water can be had via ro di, it's only three gallons. Add the salt slowly and mix, not all at once or you can get precipitation then your mixing pumps keep it in suspension

 

Swirl the mixing container around to mix well, no need for pumps and waiting

When salinity is roughly close heat by setting mix container in sink of hot water three mins

 

Make salinity to your exact setting and get the water to 78 then wait an hour with it still, check the bottom of the container to see what settles if any

 

*adding another quick load of salt to warm water, already close to salinity levels, can cause precip make sure it's small stirred lumps at a time

 

Some salts get clumpy, precip in the bag depending on its humidity storage, then we grab some and use it pre-precip, that happens too.

 

 

Pick up a gallon of pre made lfs water to compare to your for clarity, water prep consistency is just a little test to overcome. Try a large water change using their water for once, to see how it doesn't cloud if mixed right (no, using another brand with different params isn't harmful, again documented years on here)

 

 

Since my tank has had maybe five thousand full water changes, sometimes three in a week to prepare for article shoots/fattening corals for pics, it'd be like milk if it wasn't your water prep method causing the cloud... there's some small variable we are missing

[Mariaface]

100% water changes are not a problem if parameters match. So long as you didn't wait hours to add water back in, and the rocks didn't dry out, you've still got your bacterial population.

 

Has any of the milkiness dropped onto the surfaces, coating them in what looks like dust? Because that signals precipitation. You want to make sure, when you use your salt mix, that alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium are balanced. Look up ideal parameters, and note that magnesium is what keeps alk and cal in your saltwater. Without enough of it, they'll precipitate and become unusable. Make sure you're adding salt to the water when mixing it, slowly, instead of putting salt in a bucket and adding water to that.

 

Does your tank have mechanical filtration that the water runs through? Filter floss, or anything?

[Clown79]

I don't recommend 100% waterchanges on a tank.

 

It may work for picos but most ppl have seen issues with doing 100% water changes.

Its not necessary to do that much without a serious issue occuring.

 

Is there a reason you did 100%

[brandon429]

Because it's documented fifteen years on tanks of all sizes... We use full system changes to restore algae wrecked systems in gigantic threads, the method is used today to repair tanks. We do consider her three gallon a pico

 

 

Not anyone has seen problems with 100% water changes unless they failed on one of the prep steps, and that also means whatever percent they were changing had the same fail included.

 

 

https://reefbuilders.com/2013/05/21/fix-fish-tank-reef-aquarium-problems-95-water/

 

Works fine on larger tanks but is impractical

 

The prep method is what's suspect, not the technique that thousands of nanos use. Pico Reef biology and large tank biology is no different just different time scales

 

Just streamline your mix technique, all w be fine.

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/4/aquarium

[Mariaface]

It may work for picos but most ppl have seen issues with doing 100% water changes.

Its not necessary to do that much without a serious issue occuring.

 

 

 

I agree that there are issues seen, but a 100% water change with matching parameters shouldn't cause an issue. On the other hand, doing a 100% water change on a low-alk or high nutrient system with respectively high alk or low nutrient water will cause issues like 'alk burn', recession, etc in corals.

 

I wouldn't recommend that kind of water change if it weren't a complete emergency (tank leaking/cracked with too much water loss, need to transfer contents, etc). Instead, phosphate/nitrate issues can be solved with GFO or phosguard or a bacterial supplement, chemical warfare with carbon, low alk with dosing, miscellaneous pollution with water changes small enough not to shock, etc. And once the tank's most important parameters are in line with the new water, a 100% water change is a great reset.

[brandon429]

http://www.marsh-reef.org/archive/index.php/t-10496.html

 

Just from searching on Google 100% water changes Anthony calfo

 

It's not harmful at all if you want to back down to 20% until you feel comfortable but in the end it's your mixing doing it and it wouldn't matter if you did it three hundred percent change which is 3 full water changes back to back and I do them sometimes in big cleanings

[Kristal]

Okay.. Lots of posts!!

 

 

 

I really don't think its a bacteria bloom as I saw it the MOMENT I poured the water in. The bucket i was mixing in (Food safe, made of PP) is white so I couldn't really tell that immediately, will have to try putting it into a clear container.

 

 

It was kind of an emergency seeing as I hadn't been able to do a water change in over a week and the tank isn't even remotely cycled yet, so the params were flippin MENTAL. Really needed to change it out ASAP. And doing 100% water changes in the past (As in, in the past month..) have been totally fine/good for it.

 

 

Didn't notice any of it settling onto surfaces, will check when I get home!! Maria, the tank has a pump and a 'drip down' mechanical filtration... Not the strongest, I plan on replacing the pump in a while once life has settled down lol. I'll check the magnesium tonight to see whats up, I was just assuming that the reef-salt I bought already had the 'correct' mix of all that stuff. Not really sure what you guys mean by Precipitation? Like, rain and stuff???

 

 

The water I bought from the store showed like, 75 TDS, mine showed I think around 95TDS. So i figured the giant difference wasn't an immediate cause for concern (As in, its not a huge difference if I go to the store vs. making it myself right now) though I do really want to find SOMEWHERE that will sell me a silica filter.

 

 

How do I now avoid precipitation? Or fix it? In the already mixed water? Is it because I left the pump on all night? Should I have let it 'sit'? I have another full WC worth of water sitting in mah bukkit. Will that stuff be mixed properly now??

 

 

Thanks everyone!!

[Mariaface]

If you saw it the moment it happened, it seems like precipitation. It's possible for the salt mix to have a bad batch, with low magnesium. It's also possible your store water had components in it that caused the precipitation: your calcium carbonate is trying to form small crystals, and there isn't enough magnesium in the water to inhibit that. Once the crystals are large enough, they reflect light and show up as that milky-white stuff in the water. Past that, they'll settle out of the water (precipitate, the verb) onto all the surfaces. And it's tough to reverse that process, so I wouldn't suggest trying to add magnesium after the fact in the hopes that the dust will disappear.

 

Your water, before mixing, should have as close to 0TDS as possible. A lot of us have our own RO/DI filters at home that create deionized, pure water. The guideline is to change the filters out as TDS start to creep up to 2-3. You can use distilled water instead of whatever you're currently buying, as it should be a lot purer.

 

If there's nothing sensitive living in the tank (sensitive corals, for example), test your parameters and see how out of whack they are. Salinity, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium. If they're not too out of alignment, just correct them as best as you can. If things are drastically out of place, feel free to do a water change with saltwater made out of distilled or RO/DI water. The precipitate itself isn't going to harm anything, it'll just look pretty awful until it gets filtered out by your mechanical filtration. Basting surfaces to blow the dust off and using finer filter floss or a skimmer would help.

 

As far as avoiding it in the future: Start off with pure water, drop in a circulation pump or powerhead or something, and slowly add the salt. You don't want any salt sitting at the bottom of the bucket for longer than a second or two, so the pump needs to be strong enough to keep the salt in suspension without blasting water out of the bucket.

[brandon429]

I would also add as well that even if you did 18% changes for the next three years, but still simply refused algae out of your system, things would still be fine.

 

 

The criticality of the full water change isn't that its required for long term success, its that full water changes are an option and don't have varying outcomes if you run them right, and this *increases* your ability to control your tank if/when needed

 

we run the full water changes when practical in smaller systems only because it saves all the other tedious work and allows for good feeding, that's what corals require. stability isn't impacted in large water changes, if the same temp and salinity is used. Variation isn't the same as unstable, and for sure corals deal with variation quite easily, study the intertidal reef zone or the fringing reef zone, how many corals grow there, and if that's a gentle place or not

 

full water changes if not ran by practice are critical emergency response options for death of animals in tank

 

nothing beats an accidental ammonia spike from death of a hidden fish or worm like the full water change, no additive is better or safer for that event.

 

 

if you were to get dinos by not quarantining your stuff, hardly any pico reefer does, then the full water change is your #1 option to prevent tank loss, per absolutely giant threads correcting peoples dino problems. Sure, advice exists saying not to change water, but the big threads for nano fixes shows differently

 

being able to pull off a large wc is more important than doing them, since mechanical and procedural changes we can make will offset doing or not doing large water changes. Glad you found your variables that may have lent this temp problem. good discussion on precip here too

 

since large changes are used in so many rescue and correction threads, running them preemptively is just fine, and wise if practical/ that is the complete science of full water changes regarding nano reefs, in my op.

[Kristal]

I have my own RO filter, unfortunately it seems next to freakin impossible to buy an RO/DI filter here. So working on finding a DI bit to get my water down to 0TDS.. but kinda annoyed that i bought a filter and the TDS isnt that low. Grrr!! And if I buy it from another country, its a pain to switch out the filter as I'd have to order them all online. It seems like nobody in this country does RO/DI though, they all just either use tapwater (Which I tested at like.. 400, 450 TDS) or they just use RO.

 

The one coral polyp I have seems to be bigger and happier than ever with the new water?? Real weird.

 

 

 

I'll test the magnesium tonight to see if thats the problem. Sucks that theres no way to fix that other than buying new salt. : ( Is it possible I just did a crap job mixing it?

 

 

What happens if salts sitting on the bucket for more than a second or two? I definitely had that, so I guess my pump isnt strong enough for suresies. Could that have been the ish?

Also thanks for the explanation on Precip maria!! Really helpful and informative : )

[Mariaface]

Hmm.. Which filter do you have? Lots of places ship them, if that's an option for you. If not, look into replacing the cartridges on your filter (assuming it's standard housing) with something in the .5micron sediment/carbon range, THEN a high-efficiency RO membrane. Sediment replacements are cheap, so you're better off replacing that one frequently and not allowing your membrane to become damaged. It may already be. If you like, try asking for help in the hardware section? Or look up posts by AZDesertRat - they specialize in this stuff.

 

Not weird - it's possible other parameters were out of skew (nitrates, ammonia) before the water change. Even with lowered alk/calcium from the precipitation, the water's 'cleaner'.

 

It's totally possible that the mixing procedure was the issue. Try putting a high-contrast object at the bottom of the bucket (I use my black mixing pump in a blue/white bucket), and make sure you've got the water in first. Mix a third or fourth of your needed salt in at a time, and wait for it to completely dissolve before adding more. If fifteen minutes have passed by and you can't see the pump at the bottom, you've got some precipitation issues. It should mix clear, blur up a bit when you add more salt, then mix clear again.

 

But yes, test magnesium in the tank and in newly-mixed saltwater.

 

If it sat there for too long, the high concentration of salt means a much higher chance of precipitation. I won't lie, I still get a light layer of salt that sits in a corner until about thirty seconds in - but that doesn't cause an issue in my case.

[Kristal]

The shipping to this country would be crazytown... whenever I ask anyone in any of the Saltwater stores here about RO/DI stuff they hand me a RO filter and have no idea what I mean when I ask for DI as well. (Hardware stores also don't really have much here either.. You have no idea how hard it was to buy a freakin' BUCKET) If I go to look for a DI filter (By which I mean emailing places), what I'm asking for is a silica filter, with a .5micron sediment/carbon range??

 

 

Definitely going to test for magnesium, then if that comes out clear buy a better pump or a powerhead or something!! Is leaving it to mix overnight with the pump on the right move, btw???

 

 

 

Seriously.. i emailed every salt-water fish store in the country to try and cobble together a CUC... Only one store even had Nassarius snails @_@

[brandon429]

yes me too, sometimes ill add salt to already salted warmed water (precip event minor) and I decant the water I use....meaning just don't pour in the bottom part lol. yes

[Kristal]

decant the water???

 

I filled the bucket entirely, then slowly added half the salt... then after 20 minutes slowly added the rest. But there was deefffoooo salt sitting on the bottom. Booooo.

[Mariaface]

What country is this?

 

I'm not sure how else to refer to it in a hardware store. I mean, they should know. Are you abbreviating when you say it to them? Or actually explaining that it's 'reverse osmosis and deionization'? I've never heard of them being referred to as silica filters, either.

 

Buying a bucket was hard here, too, until I realized Amazon sold them xD

 

Is the pump pointed at the bottom/side of the bucket, too? I agree; you'll need a stronger one. Mine even causes a good rippling effect on the surface, which helps with gas exchange during mixing.

 

Leaving it overnight depends on you, and on the salt. They have mixing instructions. I think RSCP isn't supposed to be mixed for longer than a couple of hours, actually? I'm using Aquavitro Salinity by Seachem and it's ready almost immediately. Lower alk/cal salts may be more lenient towards being left mixing overnight, though.

Oh, geez. Before I forget. What are you using to test salinity?

[Kristal]

The Netherlands... They vaguely know what Deionization is, but then they send me to like, distributors for warehouses that I cant even legally buy stuff from. @_@ What country are you in, and what have you tried asking for??

 

So, came home from work. The water is Perfectly. Clear. No stuff has settled on the surface of anything.... gonna do a magnesium test after dinner and report back!!

 

Maybe its the over mixing? Youre totally right, it says to NOT MIX for more than 4 hours. Maybe thats what did it. : / Its funny, I had vaguely remembered reading that, and then when I went to go check I googled everywhere and it always said 'mix overnight' so I just did that...

 

 

 

A refractometer! : )

 

 

next steps:

 

1. Test magnesium

2. Buy a more hardcore pump tomorrow morning

3. Only mix it for 2-3 hours, as per instructions

 

4. Find a freaking DI filter

[Mariaface]

I'm in the US, so my troubles don't apply xD Hmmm. You sure you've done the research on shipping prices and aren't up for them? It's possible some places ship internationally for a nominal fee, right? Not that I know what customs is like. Hmm.. This place seems to have entire systems and DI filters?

 

Hooray for clear water! Totally possible that the stuff stayed in suspension long enough to be filtered out; can you see anything in your mechanical filtration?

 

Let us know how the test goes!

[Kristal]

Oooh! That website seems great actually!! IDK how I never found it before lol

 

I think this one seems good??? https://www.osmoseapparaat.nl/di-filters/di-kit-2-5-inch.htmlIt doesn't seem to say aaannyything about the .5 micron stuff though... Might give this a try!! Thanks so much!!

 

Mechanical filter doesn't seem particularly salty... Doing test now!

[Mariaface]

I now see why you called it a silica filter xD

 

Before investing in a separate DI filter, make sure your other components are working correctly. I opted for the big filters with 10" housings for sediment, carbon, and DI, because it makes replacing the filters super easy (and the standard replacements are much cheaper). This or something similar might look like overkill, but in the long run it'll be more cost-effective than something with non-standard housing that can charge a premium for the same thing. You can probably shop around and look for something with less fancy gadgets, though? For example, in-line TDS meters fall out of calibration or don't get accurate readings sometimes, so you can opt for a system without them and manually test once in a while. If you actually know your pressure is high enough, you may get away without the gauge, but it's useful for knowing when your sediment/carbon may need to be replaced. Flush kits are nice, but usually added at a mark-up, etc.

 

Make sure your sediment filter isn't too old/clogged, make sure your carbon is drastically reducing TDS compared with what comes out of the sediment filter, make sure the RO membrane is working at the right efficiency (compare the output to what comes out of the carbon filter before it; it should've removed 98-99% of the TDS number). You want what's coming out of the membrane to be around 3-4TDS max, so you don't run through DI resin super quickly (it's not cheap).