Another cloudy water thread

[Waters]

I swore to myself I wouldn't post a thread regarding cloudy water but here I go lol. I am assuming this is just related to the tank being new (slightly under 3 months old) but I wanted to verify. It is a 60 gallon reef tank with a 20 gallon sump. My water parameters are:

Temp - 79
SG - 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 2.5
Alk - 143.2
PH - 8.2
Calcium - 420

The tank has about 70 lbs. of live rock with roughly 45 lbs. of Aragonite Reef Sand. Tank currently has two Chromis and one Eibl's Dwarf Angel. Clean up crew consists of 6 Turbo snails, 3 scarlet hermits, and 1 cleaner shrimp. I am running a GFO reactor and Chemi-Pure Elite. I have been doing 10% water changes every 2 days since it became cloudy. The tank went through its' first Diatom bloom on 12/18 which lasted about 5 days. The tank has been cloudy ever since. It is milky white so I assumed it was a bacteria bloom?? If so, will it go away on its own? Another thing that I thought was strange is the filter sock is turning brown the day I change it. I thought maybe it was the GFO so I turned it down but it was barely tumbling to begin with. Is it normal for the socks to get dirty so fast? The skimmer is pulling some skimate but nothing excessive.

 

[TrialandError]

Try a filter sock type thing over where the water drains into the sump. The cloudy water may be super fine sand particles maybe that just isn't settling.

 

[NanaReefer]

You don't want your GFO tumbling at all. It only grinds it up into powder. Probably why your sock is turning brown.

 

[Waters]

When I say tumbling, I mean the very top layer is slightly moving. Are you saying there shouldn't be any movement at all?

 

[NC2WA]

First, what test kit are you using to get a result of 143.2 ? should be around 8-12 dKH or 304 meg/l..

second, you want the pellets to barely tumble in the reactor otherwise they will break down quickly...

it does sound like new tank syndrome is causing the cloudiness, but keep up with water changes with carbon and let "time" work for you.

 

[gobeach]

+1 on the gfo - the movement should just barely be visible on the surface

for your Alkalinity, if you're using the Hanna - multiply by 0.056 to get into dKH which is what most folks recognize

Agree with NC2WA - give the tank some time. If you're impatient (like me) you could try to use something like Brightwell's MicroBacter7, I've used it in the past to help with a bloom. You might also want to put an airstone in to make sure the fish have enough oxygen.

 

[Waters]

Sorry, the 143.2 is ppm KH. It would be 8 dKH. I actually have the MicroBacter7 and was using it for a while (recommended by the LFS). I stopped using it a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for the replies....I guess I will give it some more time.