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Cloudy water and brownish/green film on glass in 40B.


Hdale85

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So for about 4-5 days now I've had cloudy water, basically I clean the glass with the magnet cleaner and eventually over the day with my light on the water clears up a bit (mostly looks like the brown/green stuff settles on the sand). Then after going to bed and waking up in the morning everything that was on the sand appears to be in the water again and it looks super murky and then the process repeats. 

 

It hasn't cleared up at all thus far, when it's in the water it's sort of white looking. When it sticks to the glass and collects on the ground its brownish/green colored. I can clean the glass and within an hour it's built back up on there. Last Monday I did my normal water change, then by wed or so I noticed the issue. Thursday I did a 50% water change and changed out filter floss, the next morning it was even worse so I pulled the filter floss out of my HOB and changed it again. I do have quite a bit of carbon in the HOB that runs 24/7 as well. As far as I can tell it's not really getting better. The water is not green colored though at all so I think it's a bacterial bloom. Currently I'm not sure what I should do. When I did the 50% water change I tried to vacuum the sand best I could. 

 

Far as I can tell all my snails are alive and accounted for (although I think I'm going to dig them all up to make sure), I only have 2 zoanthids and 4 clown fish currently. The tank has been up about 3 months now with live stock in there for the past 1.5 months or so. The last things I added were the snails and zoa's which were about 3 weeks ago now? If it is a bacterial bloom I think it's from me over feeding. It just doesn't seem to be getting better currently. I know an air bubbler is recommended to keep the fish healthy, but does the bubbler also help make the bacteria go away? It's been about a week now with cloudy water and honestly it doesn't seem like it's going away. Every night before bed it starts to look a lot better and I get my hopes up but then in the morning it's just as bad as it was the day before and the cycle starts all over again. 

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Well I've just secured a Ehiem Compact 1000 pump for $10 bucks locally that I'm picking up later. With this I'm going to make a little filter contraption with my vacuum. I'll vacuum into a bucket with the end feeding into a filter sock or some sort of strainer with filter floss in it to trap the junk, then going to use the return pump to pump the water back into the tank. This way I can really clean the sand continuously cause trying to do it with water changes the bucket fills up with water really fast and then I don't get through the sand that well. So this is my first solution to at least try and get all the junk out of the sand if its' there. 

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Forgot to mention that my water parameters have all been in the normal range. 0 Ammonia as far as I can tell, nitrite/nitrates something like .01 and 2. I don't have tests for phosphates and all that yet though. 

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Why don't you try adding bottled bacteria, like you do for the cycle. 

@Mariaface has dealt with a really bad case of this, mebbe she'll come in here and give you some tips. 

She had it in her contest tank most recently. 

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Something like Biro Spira? Or the Seachem stability? I did start the tank with Stability, but I was curious if adding one of those would help it at all? 

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Hi there! Thanks for mentioning me, @Weetabix7

 

Can you check your phosphate/nitrate readings in this tank? It sounds like a bacteria is taking advantage of excess nutrients and carbon in the water column. A bubbler will help them use those nutrients up faster, but the bacterial population will grow stronger. It may be worth it just to keep your wanted inhabitants alive, though.

 

I've found that the way to beat this kind of bacteria it to outcompete it, and stay on top of nutrients.

 

I most recently used Phosphate-E (Brightwell Aquatics) to minimize phosphates (my issue was the live rock coming in with stuff dying on it, and the air in my house carrying an odd bacteria to begin with), purigen and chemi-pure nano to bind organics, and a mix of bacterial supplements (to continuously add a competing bacterial population that I actually wanted).

 

The principle applies to your similar situation, but this is what my issue looked like (it's four images, starting at the day the tank cleared up and ending with the initial bacterial issue).

 

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Here are some pics of what my tank looks like right now. 

 

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I'm not sure if this is the same thing you had or not?

Also my tank was started with dry rock, dry sand, etc. I just added a big bottle of stability and dosed ammonia. 

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Wow, this really doesn't look bad at all :P

 

I can't quite tell if I'm looking at diatoms (good unless they really take over) or cyano (less good, not awful) or dinos (pretty bad, still no reason to outright panic).

 

Either way - lowering nutrients and/or outcompeting it will help :) 

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I didn't really think it was algae because overnight it moves from the sand to the water. When I wake up in the morning there's almost no debris on the sand at all and the water is way more foggy. 

 

When you say outcompete it does that mean additives regularly? Or do I just need to get Bio-Spira or something and add it to the tank and see what happens? 

 

I'm going to take inventory of my snails here in a bit and make sure they are all still alive. And then later when I pick up the pump I'm going to seriously clean the sand just to be safe, as well as grabbing a turkey baster tonight to spray the rocks off. 

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5 minutes ago, Hdale85 said:

I didn't really think it was algae because overnight it moves from the sand to the water. When I wake up in the morning there's almost no debris on the sand at all and the water is way more foggy. 

 

When you say outcompete it does that mean additives regularly? Or do I just need to get Bio-Spira or something and add it to the tank and see what happens? 

 

I'm going to take inventory of my snails here in a bit and make sure they are all still alive. And then later when I pick up the pump I'm going to seriously clean the sand just to be safe, as well as grabbing a turkey baster tonight to spray the rocks off. 

 

It sounds like a bacterial issue trying to resolve itself. Might be overfeeding, might be something sprayed near the tank, etc. I still think testing the water would be wise, in addition to testing your source water to make sure water changes won't exacerbate the issue.

 

I mean regularly, even daily or more than once a day. One addition might solve your problem, but it may take more. I used Microbacter 7, Microbacter Clean, and Prodibio ampoules, over the course of weeks.

 

You can also just wait it out - it took my contest tank a while to get over its bacterial issues. Though to be fair, that was a lot more intense than what your photos are showing.

 

Good luck! :)  

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Ok, well Friday I'll try and order a phosphate test kit if I can't find one today locally. I'll probably try and wait it out for now. I really was hoping not to have to do a regular schedule of additives just yet. I'm planning on adding a refugium and using the triton system soon so was hoping to wait for that. 

 

I guess I should try and get an air pump in there just in case though. So far my fish seem to be fine, and the coral. The snails seem to mostly be ok as well. Maybe a bit less active though? 

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Just now, Hdale85 said:

Ok, well Friday I'll try and order a phosphate test kit if I can't find one today locally. I'll probably try and wait it out for now. I really was hoping not to have to do a regular schedule of additives just yet. I'm planning on adding a refugium and using the triton system soon so was hoping to wait for that. 

 

I guess I should try and get an air pump in there just in case though. So far my fish seem to be fine, and the coral. The snails seem to mostly be ok as well. Maybe a bit less active though? 

 

I don't think of bacterial additives the same way I think of dosing two part, amino acids, etc. I generally only dose them when I notice something's up, after new additions to the bioload, or when I haven't dosed any in the past month or two. Even then, I don't stick to a rule of mL/day. A few mL go in once or twice a day :) 

 

I'm not sure your issue is quite bad enough to warrant an air stone, especially if everything looks okay. Is the water cloudy enough to be opaque? That is when I'd certainly get additional oxygen into the tank - the bacteria will eat up oxygen pretty quickly.

 

 

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In the morning it's pretty hard to see through. Currently it's not THAT bad. Most of it has settled on the rock/sand now. In the mornings though it is cloudy enough that the water actually looks a bit brown colored. 

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Well...i can't find one of my astraes snails. I moved rocks around and sifted through the sand and everything and can't find it. I'm 99% sure I got 5 of them yet can only find 4 lol. I have no idea where it went. I even took the HOB completely off the tank and wiped it out (filter floss smelled horrible already). I don't know if that snail crawled out and I just can't find it or what but if it's in the tank it's very well hidden. 

 

I vacuumed the sand for about an hour with my new contraption. The tank looks a lot clearer now, although cloudy from messing with the sand and moving stuff around plus the pump made a bunch of micro bubbles which also fogged up the water a bit. I can say the water is well oxygenated now though! I got the HOB running again with new floss so we'll see what happens. 

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Well so far the cloudiness this morning wasn't as bad. It's still there and there is still the brown buildup on the glass but the other days it was much worse in the morning than this. Could be that I sucked a lot of it out and it'll have to repopulate again. Although from what I understand the bacteria's repopulate extremely fast so? We will see what happens today/tomorrow. 

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Looks like diatoms to me which appear worse as the lighting period progresses.

 

Diatoms are normal in New tanks and go away once their food source is gone. 

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Hmm, well the water is looking MUCH clear tonight but there is still stuff accumulating on the glass. Has me hopeful at least.

 

I didn't think diatoms make the water cloudy?

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2 hours ago, Hdale85 said:

Hmm, well the water is looking MUCH clear tonight but there is still stuff accumulating on the glass. Has me hopeful at least.

 

I didn't think diatoms make the water cloudy?

You may have had 2 things occurring at once

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Well I still have cloudy water, it's kind of interesting cause it's super cloudy in the morning and then by about 8pm at night it's pretty nice looking lol. Like right now it's definitely a bit cloudy still but it's way better looking than it has been lol. I'm sure by morning it'll be cloudy again though. 

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Well grabbed a bottle of Biospira today and dropped it in. It was a lot better than last week but still not quite right. Hoping this boosts the bacteria enough to catch up though. Purchased a 20L tank today at the petco sale to start piecing together my refugium. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So a bit of an update, I swapped out the carbon last week and pretty soon after that it seems like the diatoms came back. Guessing the carbon is giving enough nutrients to grow the algae or something? Can I use too much carbon? I'm working on piecing my refugium together and going to be using a reactor canister for carbon when that gets plumbed in. 

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20 minutes ago, Hdale85 said:

So a bit of an update, I swapped out the carbon last week and pretty soon after that it seems like the diatoms came back. Guessing the carbon is giving enough nutrients to grow the algae or something? Can I use too much carbon? I'm working on piecing my refugium together and going to be using a reactor canister for carbon when that gets plumbed in. 

 

Huh, that's odd, I've honestly never heard of that happening before. 

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burtbollinger

Tank so new I hate to see you jump the gun or overreact BUT if this is an ongoing thing what helped me was a small bag of Purigen, passive GFO and evaluating how much and how long my whites were on...one of the three things ceased the uglies.  That said, personally I'd try to ride it out another month or two at least before I messed with GFO or Purigen.

 

also I found out later I was messing with my sandbed too much.  Gentle stir vs being too vigorous.  

 

 

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