Just celebrated my 10 year reefing anniversary. Unfortunately my present tank is proving to be one of the most problematic. I apologize for the long post up front as this has been driving me nuts!
The current issue is that I constantly have hazy or cloudy water. After trying to google it seems I must be the only person on the planet that actually has a UV sterilizer yet still has cloudy water. After many attempts to remedy the situation I think I may be on to the cause of the issue. My final theory is that I do not have enough biological filtration media. I am about 90% sure this is the issue and will update this thread through the weeks if my theory pans out. If this is the case it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to figure the obvious
. Has anyone ever witnessed having cloudy water due to not enough surface area for the bacteria to populate regardless of UV sterilization and high end filtration equipment??
Tank details - 80G display with a 40 breeder diy sump. Bare bottom (might have been the beginning of this issue in plain sight). Running kalkwasser with kalk reactor on dosing pump. Ph roughly 8.25 day / 8.05 night. Temperature ~77F. 8 dkh, 400 calcium, 1350 mag. Nitrate stays between 5-10ppm and sometimes I have to dose to maintain nitrate. Po4 creeps higher and has been running more than I like at 0.15. I run rowaphos occasionally to bring it down. It has almost been 8 months since I cycled it and used IO biospira. I think I should have been past the time for it to have cleared up.
Live stock - 4 anthias, 2 small clowns, 1 mimic tang, 1 tomini tang, 1 hawk fish, 3 dart fish, 4 turbo snails, 1 Colorado sunburst anemone.
Coral - Mostly LPS which is doing great thank goodness but the few pieces of SPS I have are struggling regardless of stability.
Current Filtration -
Aquamaxx FC-280 skimmer
Red Sea Reef Mat 500
IceCap 40w UV sterilizer (the light is on and functioning)
2kg maxspect biospheres for bacterial surface area plus about 5 pounds of rubble rock including one piece of live rock from a local LFS. All this in the sump.
Display has about 40 pounds of rock scape.
Monthly 25g water changes.
Here are the previous actions I have taken to try and remedy the cloudy water.
- Red Sea Reef Mat 500
-18w uv sterilizer, then 25w, and now I am on to 40w with almost no dent in the haze. I have also tried low flow / high flow.
-Reduce feeding
-Rowaphos
-Carbon in bags and a reactor
-Lowering my lights
-Replaced all RODI filters and actually now have an 8 stage system lol
-ICP tested with no real major issues present
-Upgraded my protein skimmer from a bubble magus curve 5 to a aquamaxx FC-280 monster.
-Tried higher flow through the sump and also lower. It did not seem to matter.
At one point I started regularly dosing microbacter7 and over a few days it did appear to finally clear up more. I tested my po4 during this time and they were sky high. The hannah checker was maxxing out. I stopped the microbacter7 dosing and slowly brought my po4 down to readable levels. This was very unexpected and leads me to believe I have had a serious bacterial warfare issue going on at the time or something. Possibly re-cycled the tank? This was roughly about 4 months ago. Since then parameters have been stable.
It's insane. There may be some things I missed mentioning. The first sign of problems was a monstrous diatom bloom of the likes I have never seen before. Once that was cleared up the cloudiness turned from a brownish tint to a milky tint so I am suspecting bacterial issues.
So this brings us to my final attempt to remedy the cloudiness. I have added about 1.5 liters of seachem matrix (soaked in microbacter7 and no po4 spikes this time) about 2 days ago and tonight I have 4kg more of maxspect biospheres to add tonight. I have the biospheres soaking in a bucket of water change water and I dosed about 100ml of microbacter7 to the bucket. Giving them several hours and throwing them in the sump. If this doesn't do it then I don't know what will.
Again, I will post here the results of adding more surface area for the bacteria. The photo below shows it at its best and most days it flares up worse than others. I am hoping this is it because I need to get my acro game rolling lol. If anyone has any other theories in the meantime let me know pleeeeez. HAPPY REEFING!
The current issue is that I constantly have hazy or cloudy water. After trying to google it seems I must be the only person on the planet that actually has a UV sterilizer yet still has cloudy water. After many attempts to remedy the situation I think I may be on to the cause of the issue. My final theory is that I do not have enough biological filtration media. I am about 90% sure this is the issue and will update this thread through the weeks if my theory pans out. If this is the case it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to figure the obvious
. Has anyone ever witnessed having cloudy water due to not enough surface area for the bacteria to populate regardless of UV sterilization and high end filtration equipment??Tank details - 80G display with a 40 breeder diy sump. Bare bottom (might have been the beginning of this issue in plain sight). Running kalkwasser with kalk reactor on dosing pump. Ph roughly 8.25 day / 8.05 night. Temperature ~77F. 8 dkh, 400 calcium, 1350 mag. Nitrate stays between 5-10ppm and sometimes I have to dose to maintain nitrate. Po4 creeps higher and has been running more than I like at 0.15. I run rowaphos occasionally to bring it down. It has almost been 8 months since I cycled it and used IO biospira. I think I should have been past the time for it to have cleared up.
Live stock - 4 anthias, 2 small clowns, 1 mimic tang, 1 tomini tang, 1 hawk fish, 3 dart fish, 4 turbo snails, 1 Colorado sunburst anemone.
Coral - Mostly LPS which is doing great thank goodness but the few pieces of SPS I have are struggling regardless of stability.
Current Filtration -
Aquamaxx FC-280 skimmer
Red Sea Reef Mat 500
IceCap 40w UV sterilizer (the light is on and functioning)
2kg maxspect biospheres for bacterial surface area plus about 5 pounds of rubble rock including one piece of live rock from a local LFS. All this in the sump.
Display has about 40 pounds of rock scape.
Monthly 25g water changes.
Here are the previous actions I have taken to try and remedy the cloudy water.
- Red Sea Reef Mat 500
-18w uv sterilizer, then 25w, and now I am on to 40w with almost no dent in the haze. I have also tried low flow / high flow.
-Reduce feeding
-Rowaphos
-Carbon in bags and a reactor
-Lowering my lights
-Replaced all RODI filters and actually now have an 8 stage system lol
-ICP tested with no real major issues present
-Upgraded my protein skimmer from a bubble magus curve 5 to a aquamaxx FC-280 monster.
-Tried higher flow through the sump and also lower. It did not seem to matter.
At one point I started regularly dosing microbacter7 and over a few days it did appear to finally clear up more. I tested my po4 during this time and they were sky high. The hannah checker was maxxing out. I stopped the microbacter7 dosing and slowly brought my po4 down to readable levels. This was very unexpected and leads me to believe I have had a serious bacterial warfare issue going on at the time or something. Possibly re-cycled the tank? This was roughly about 4 months ago. Since then parameters have been stable.
It's insane. There may be some things I missed mentioning. The first sign of problems was a monstrous diatom bloom of the likes I have never seen before. Once that was cleared up the cloudiness turned from a brownish tint to a milky tint so I am suspecting bacterial issues.
So this brings us to my final attempt to remedy the cloudiness. I have added about 1.5 liters of seachem matrix (soaked in microbacter7 and no po4 spikes this time) about 2 days ago and tonight I have 4kg more of maxspect biospheres to add tonight. I have the biospheres soaking in a bucket of water change water and I dosed about 100ml of microbacter7 to the bucket. Giving them several hours and throwing them in the sump. If this doesn't do it then I don't know what will.
Again, I will post here the results of adding more surface area for the bacteria. The photo below shows it at its best and most days it flares up worse than others. I am hoping this is it because I need to get my acro game rolling lol. If anyone has any other theories in the meantime let me know pleeeeez. HAPPY REEFING!
