I need help with water quality

[Saltwater_hobbiest]

I made my own 10 gallons of saltwater with RO water and I mixed salt in the water and let it dissolve over night with a heater in the bucket and also a power head. It has now been a couple days and the water is a little cloudy and my corals are not looking too healthy. I have only soft corals and most of them are all shriveled up. It is a 30 gallon tank. Did I do something wrong?
Here is the salt mix I used

 

[Saltyreef]

Whats the salinity? What are you using to measure it?
The water got cloudy in the bucket or now your tank is cloudy?

 

[NonstopSoda]

Do you have any water test kits or salinity tester that would tell you exactly what is going wrong

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Need a timeline, water was in the bucket overnight then a few days later the water is cloudy. When did you do the water change, when did the water get cloudy? IT got cloudy in the bucket or in your tank? How old is your tank? Pictures of the tank might help.

 

[Saltwater_hobbiest]

Whats the salinity? What are you using to measure it?
The water got cloudy in the bucket or now your tank is cloudy?

The salinity is 1.025. I checked with my salinity refractometer. The water got cloudy in the tank. All my soft corals were all open and now they have been closed for 5 days.

 

[Saltwater_hobbiest]

Need a timeline, water was in the bucket overnight then a few days later the water is cloudy. When did you do the water change, when did the water get cloudy? IT got cloudy in the bucket or in your tank? How old is your tank? Pictures of the tank might help.

Water was in the bucket over night and then the next day I did the 10 gallon water change. The water got cloudy when I put the new water in the tank. Do you think I shocked the corals?

 

[Saltyreef]

The salinity is 1.025. I checked with my salinity refractometer. The water got cloudy in the tank. All my soft corals were all open and now they have been closed for 5 days.

Has the refracto been calibrated recently?
Was your tank at 1.025 too? Something is causing precipitation or you are having a bacterial bloom.

Have you tested other parameters?
Tank parameters before water change and salt water after mixing?

 

[BryanM]

Tank size, water change size, filtration setup?

If you just dump water in the tank without "blocking" it (either pour it over your hand, or better a plate), this often stirs up sand and makes the water cloudy for an hour or so...

But if its been a day or two then we start thinking more of a bacteria bloom issue... This will cause the issues youre seeing as well. If bacteria, point a wavemaker towards the surface to increase surface agitation, toss in an airstone if you have one, and if you have a skimmer turn that guy up.

 

[MichaelReefer]

If the water was too hot it could have precipitated? When I did my tank swap a few weeks ago one of my buckets got over 90 in the garage (I'm in California Central Valley). When I mixed it, it turned super cloudy. Went away after a few days.

 

[PolypPocket]

This happened to me and it turned out the refractometer was not calibrated correctly and the salinity was actually way higher and killed my corals. I had calibrated with distilled water and set to 0. You want to get the calibration liquid instead, and set to 1.026.

 

[BryanM]

calibrating refractometers (and failing) is why I have a tropic marin hydrometer now. Extremely accurate and easy to use.

 

[Saltyreef]

calibrating refractometers (and failing) is why I have a tropic marin hydrometer now. Extremely accurate and easy to use.

Same. I use the Tropic Marin hydrometer and mixed a perfect batch of target water @ 77 degrees then used my cheap coralife deep six hydrometer and placed a sharpie mark on it.
Never have to use the Tropic Marin again until my coralife one breaks and its now as accurate as the TM.

 

[MC Blowfish]

What are your other parameters?
Have you calibrated your refractometer? Can you take your water into a LFS and have them test it?

 

[Kooma]

This happened to me and it turned out the refractometer was not calibrated correctly and the salinity was actually way higher and killed my corals. I had calibrated with distilled water and set to 0. You want to get the calibration liquid instead, and set to 1.026.

Best practice is to measure the tank and then measure the bucket. Even out of calibration both will read the same for water changes to be ready.

 

[PolypPocket]

This happened to me and it turned out the refractometer was not calibrated correctly and the salinity was actually way higher and killed my corals. I had calibrated with distilled water and set to 0. You want to get the calibration liquid instead, and set to 1.026.

Best practice is to measure the tank and then measure the bucket. Even out of calibration both will read the same for water changes to be ready.

It was a brand new tank so I had nothing to compare it to

 

[Kooma]

It was a brand new tank so I had nothing to compare it to

What I’m saying is, measure your running tank, match your mixed water to the same level. Even if the meter is off, if they are the same you won’t have a shock to the system.

You can make calibration fluid with rodi water and table salt as well. There’s a how to on the forum here.