cloudy water

[sealmeister]

I have been having a problem with my water in my 12G nanocube being cloudy. If you look at my pictures you can see the one picture that is clear that was taken about a month ago and my water has slowly started to get cloudy as you can see in the picture before it. All of my parameters are with in range and I do water changes every two weeks and I even added another bag of activated charcoal and nothing, I have a lot of pod growth. I really do not like the water being cloudy.

[footballdude2k3]

Sounds like a bacterial bloom, I had one in my 125, do you have a skimmer?

[sealmeister]

No not for my 12G I will have to look into getting one that will fit in it :(

[Zack]

Have you tried dumping something like a bacteria in a bottle? I used that to help me when I had a bloom in my tank and it worked great.

[sealmeister]

I us a quick start bacteria when I make up my water changes but nothing more than that.

[sealmeister]

I just dont have any room in the back chambers of the nanocube for a skimmer or a homemade one :/

[footballdude2k3]

Sounds like it is time to add a sump ;)

[sealmeister]

My wife would have a fit lol. Well now I'm home from work and its not as cloudy. Idk I'm trying a homemade skimmer for the night and I will see how things are tomorrow. Oh how I love trouble shooting tanks :) always keeping you on your toes :) got to live it.

[rrasco]

Just some thoughts: A skimmer will help for obvious reasons, but it will also help oxygenate the water (so will an airstone or a powerhead agitating the surface of the water). High levels of co2 in the water means more carbon which leads to more bacteria. Increasing the o2 will reduce the co2. Sometimes people have parties and their tanks get cloudy, because the number of people in the house reduces the oxygen levels thus resulting in poor oxygen exchange into the tank.

[sealmeister]

That makes sense I have a power head in my tank also. I will see if this skimmer does its job tonight and go from there tomorrow. Thanks for the advice guys.

[sealmeister]

after about a couple hours the water had cleared up, but this morning when I went to turn on the lights it was cloudy again.

[Big_Pun]

its easy stop adding quick start to water changes. quick start is bacteria, when you have an excess of bacteria or a bloom the tank goes white/cloudy. do a few water changes without it and see what happens. also a skimmer will help

[Big_Pun]

also if you have fish you may be over feeding so if so cut back on amount of food.

[sealmeister]

Im going to do a water change after work tonight and see if that will clear it up, no fish in it right now so thats not a problem.

[Big_Pun]

do you have rock in the tank? if yes, was it live/from a established tank. have you been testing to see if the tank has fully cycled. also quick start is used to add fish right away and "quick cycle"
a tank, but its hit or miss if fish lives through cycle

[sealmeister]

The tank has been up and running for over two months. I used live sand and ran it for a week then put in live rock from the lfs. I was testing through the cycle and only test once a week now or before I dose calcium. I tested when the cloudiness started and nothing was out of range.

[Big_Pun]

there is no need to dose anything on a new tank. you have nothing consuming calcium.even if you had coral i wouldnt suggest dosing anything on a tank that small. first take any chemicals anything your dosing and put in a box/cabinet.

now do a 20% water change and leave the tank alone for a week. be sure to top off any water evaporation with fresh water to combat salinity swings. test every few days for the big three during a cycle ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, when ammonia appears then goes away and nitrites come and go you can do a water change to remove nitrates. the use of good ro/di water to top off will help keep a clean tank. if your buying from a store then make sure they have quality water. you are trying to develop a biologically sound habitat, this is not a science project so if you let things happen naturally then your system will be more stable. if you want i have some small pieces of rock in my sump and you welcome to them to kick start your system.
http://www.marinedepot.com/cycle-an-aquarium-ap.html

[sealmeister]

I've done all my research. I will stop dosing for now. I use good water and check my salinity. I already cycled. But I will do the water change now and see how it goes in a week. Thanks for the tips :)

[jason081180]

+1 Big_Pun (http://www.maast.org/member.php?9455-Big_Pun)

dont dose anything but maybe ammonia to run your cycle, you need something producing ammonia to keep your bacteria alive.
if you can dose with ammonia to a readable level maybe .5 ppm then see it disappear you know your bacteria are there and working. then you will see it go to nitrites then nitrates. keep dosing something ammonia until you add some fish to do it for you. very little is needed. another on here is doing the same thing and adds about 1ml to his 120gal total water to raise his ammonia about .5 so depending on the total water you would use much less or more.

[Big_Pun]

tank is way to small to do ammonia dosing, i never recommend this to anyone as its just chemical trickery. let tank run a week or so without doing anything to it. get some live rock or sand from a established tank, again let it go a week or so. buy a few hermits and snails, toss in some pellets or food for the hermits to feed on, and then add a damsel or two(dont plan on keeping these guys) then if they live a few weeks remove them(small tank so shouldn't be hard) and buy some hardy fish you like.

[jason081180]

yes Big_Pun (http://www.maast.org/member.php?9455-Big_Pun) that is good advice. i also didn't do the ammonia thing in my tank i just know of it.

[sealmeister]

When I started it up I let it go for about three weeks without doing anything then I put a damsel in it and it died a few days later (my fault hydrometer was faulty) so I let it go a couple more weeks with the two corals I had and some helmets and a snail < (he decided he wanted to live in the back chambers) I put another damsel in and 3 days later he was dead. My corals are doing great. I just can't seem to keep a fish alive so fort he last couple of weeks it's just had the corals and hermits and snails. I had cyano and now the cloudy and I think diatoms now. I have pods and other things alive in it as well.

[jason081180]

well it sounds like your tank is not cycled. are you checking the ammonia before you add your fish and everyday after? you can do this to monitor and make sure its not building up not that you need to do this all the time but in the beginning it will let you know. what water are u using? is it good RO? do you have a tds meter? without that how do you know? ive seen some filtered water places that had a higher tds than the tap water. not that dirty water is going to kill fish. also how old and what kind is your test kit?

[sealmeister]

I will check amonia now I don't have a tds I use ro water from lfs. My test kit is the API one and was just recently bought. I feel like if something was really wrong with my water or it wasn't completely cycled my corals would be showing some sort of stress or have died by now

[sealmeister]

Amonia came back 0

[jason081180]

that's not surprising with no fish you need to watch it once you add the fish. that could be why they live for a few days. it takes awhile for the ammonia to build up to a poisonous level.

[sealmeister]

Alright I will look into getting a damsel tomorrow

[Big_Pun]

stop dosing anything, your salt has all the elements you need for coral in a tank that size.

[jason081180]

lol i don't know if i would say your ready for that. other was to test before possibly killing a fish. if you put extra food in the tank or something dead like a piece of shrinp it will also give off ammonia. another way of ammonia dosing but more natural. get some ammonia in there and see how long it takes to get processed or stabilized.

[sealmeister]

I was using the kent nano reef a and b stuff. But I will stop dosing that.

[sealmeister]

How soon will it spike the amonia? If it really hasn't cycled yet?

[jason081180]

do you have a test for what your dosing? you should never dose anything if you cant test for it and see that it needs dosed. but like he said you tank is so small u should never need to dose anything. 3

how soon it will spike idk that will very depending how much ammonia it is giving off and how fast your bacteria can process it.

[sealmeister]

I have the calcium test and it has always been within the range I need it at

[sealmeister]

Today the tank looks better I am going to take out the air stone and see how it goes. I don't want the salt creep