Never ending bacterial bloom that returns once UV is removed

[Druinz]

Well now with the lights on again, I see the tank is starting to cloud up again. From the side I can literally just barely make out the heater on the other end..
@brandon429

 

[brandon429]

Great pic. That looks like any other new tank, since you're in person the changes stand out to you better, noticing that + preparing for action is the change being made vs mass allowance.

The change is that action X, you choose, prevents amassing.

The reason it's happening vs other tanks, you have a consistent feed source somewhere clearly. This will require extra work compared to tanks that use 100% matured surfaces

I believe your rock is just basically curing inside the tank and it's going to take export work the option is swap it out with 100% coralline covered rock and not anything will go wrong. Since switching out all the rock isn't very practical this is the work involved with hand guiding white surfaces into purple ones.

Many alternate inputs exist, how verified is your source water

 

[Druinz]

It's 100% dry macro rock.. It's not supposed to be leeching anything that I would have to export.. And if it was leeching wouldn't my phosphates and nitrates be detectable? I'm having to dose those two just to balance out the tank..

 

[Druinz]

I'm using 0 tds RODI water with IO salt (not reef crystals).. There should be plenty of BB in the tank since the tank has been cycled for months ALONG with me adding a bottle of Nitrobacter when I was originally having the cloudiness issue.. (I stopped that since it was believed to be a carbon source to feed this bloom)

 

[brandon429]

if asked ahead of time, marco rock is the #1 I would have mentioned for curing invasions based on logged work from the nano-reef.com peroxide thread its prob term searchable in there/truly

but that's no big deal, the source does not matter.

the species, doesn't matter.

any params that may be shifting slightly upward in favor of that organism due to curing are part of the work involved by not using purple rock. you didn't rob the environ though, we have in the past by using mined rock looking so awesome and bringing in diversity that controls bacterial vs supports it in some manner.

the best part is, look how far you just got off one rip clean, a year on UV, we expect dandelions to sometimes grow back in the pristine garden, rework is expected.

it would be diff if this was 24 hours after your work. we just reversed the biology of your tank notably, after mos, and it still looks this great yep.

ok work time. do what it takes. the correct size to select for any aquarium is whatever the max size may be where we are still able to access 100% of the tank, if needed.

as soon as we get into tank so large that full access is precluded, have the worlds largest UV plumbed in line vs a normal one, use purple rock, inaccessibility just isn't worth the time and $ loss potential.

if anyone can ID the invader off slide pics/cell pics that's awesome but there's not a lot of precedence for this clouding being ID due to people not really having access to oil immersion microscopy vs amazon stuff.

 

[landlubber]

my tank was pretty dismal for almost 2 years in dealing with dinoflagellates and after using nearly every trick in the book to fight them the simple answer was an issue with my rock... it was not mature enough to consistently host the bacteria the system needed to get ahead of the issue. I've briefly discussed this problem and learned from experienced reefers like Mike Paletta who also endorses the use of seasoned rock.
if you've tried nearly everything then I suggest adding a piece of rock from a mature (3+ year old) tank that isn't experiencing any pest issues. it honestly was a matter of months before things changed dramatically to the sps dominant tank it is today.

 

[brandon429]

LL that's such a simple solution/did not think of that. can stack some mighty dense, might fine purple in the sump or anywhere in circ

 

[Druinz]

I had the same issue with a tank I had before (that i literally tore down for this reason) where I started with ALL live rock..
I'm actually to the point of pulling out my hair, I just cant anymore

 

[brandon429]

live rock has its own hand guiding though this is rarely practiced/we're pushing hard to get it that way though. unguided live rock can be a headache agreed but when ran in its unique way it squelches water-borne bac issues if that's the case here, really well. LR needs hand guiding for GHA usually up front, miss it and its a headache bc it retains detritus much better than white rock above. lr has more surface area. = catch points people rarely clean.

well your tank above looks great I don't see much more than a directed siphon and 50 % water change not a rip clean. that'll last. you've done well here.

 

[Druinz]

Waterchanges in the past didn't correct the issue before, and in pictures maybe it doesn't look bad but not being able to see across a tank that is only 24" wide is horrible. I spend most of my time looking at the tank from my bed which makes me look at the tank through the side, and just seeing a cloudy mess isn't great..

I want to address the issue, not the symptoms, and a large 50% water change is only putting a band-aid on it for a few days. I'm absolutely tired of dealing with this.. If you count the time of the previous tank before this one, I've had this issue for almost 2 years at this point and I'm just going crazy with frustration at this point..

I've spent all this time, money and effort researching this for SO long and none of the common "fixes" work for this.
I just really want to at least appreciate a coral in a decent looking tank, but this.. this is just too much. I'm at my tipping point here

 

[brandon429]

put the uv back too yep/lil cheat never hurt.

mass removal is not a bandaid, dandelions grow if we let them, and if we stab them out with a butter knife they do not

this is just one rip clean, don't let 1 or 2 more make you think its eternal.

these organisms get robbed of communal support during a ripping or removal, it specifically interrupts benefit conveyance from crowd to individual.

GHA tufts are wicks that catch detritus, then self feed using params you cant test for because the half rotten proteins degrade on site in the plant fronds and direct feed. ergo, GHA mass begets more gha. and killing it, actually does remove a primary food source.

Your bac are self-compounding when some is allowed, it really helps to just generally remove.

this is why bandages must be changed in wound care, true export, before amassing I can find lots of patterns in nature for your early hand guiding needs, why not just buy one level higher cheap UV from amazon. a pond one, zap it into compliance. A mere $150 additional expenditure dangit but based on history and cleaning response its strongly indicated imo.

 

[Druinz]

I could add UV again (ignoring I can't afford one at the moment), but as with my previous one, the problem simply resurfaced as soon as I take it away. That is treating a symptom, not the problem.. I'd rather spend money on a fix for the issue that is clouding my tank and could also be affecting my corals..

And when I said I restarted before, I had this issue with a completely different system. Different powerhead, filter, sand, rocks (all live), and UV didn't fix the issue either.

Not to mention this new system went through this rip clean and the cloudiness is already back in a few days.. A rip-clean isn't going to do me any good here (at least in the long run). This issue has and will just keep coming back until I address the actual cause.

I refuse to tear down my tank AGAIN for the same issue, if I'm tearing this tank down that's it, I'm done with saltwater, that's the end. I'm fixing the root cause or I'm fixing nothing at all.

And I don't mean to come off as rude or abrasive, sorry. I'm just extremely tired of dealing with this **** with just my saltwater tank, and then reading online "patience, it goes away in a week or two" just to be patient for months with no progress. Then I see people just neglect their tank, salinity drops to 1.020 and yet their livestock and tank somehow are fine after? It just feels like i've been dealt a really bad hand and I don't want to keep repeating the steps that got me nowhere.

 

[brandon429]

This thread should be updated if possible. You are link #2 on our sand rinse thread as work examples. Lots of study on the microbiome differences between live and dry rock systems are currently underway, curious how this one is maturing/curing out

 

[Druinz]

Really late update:
I've change the system around a bit, drilled the tank, added a custom sump, plumbed it, etc. Basically a new tank, once again :/. I also now have a somatic skimmer I got on sale. I'm running a felt filter sock as well as some more rock in the sump for more filtration.

The cloudiness persists. I don't understand. At this point I think it's an external thing, I read someone had a similar issue until they cleaned their AC coils or something? I really don't know. I've re-started a tank 4 times already and I always end up with this never-ending cloudiness.

I can post a pic once lights come on, but at this point I'm beat. I feel like I've tried everything, I upped the system to one with a sump and added all this extra cost. In the end, I'm at the same spot. Then I simply look online and see people put nothing but a powerhead into a tank and it flourishes. :/

The livestock I had for a while now passed. No ammonia, no nitrite, temps are good, salinity was kept stable. I don't know guys, any ideas would be appreciated.

Some extra info:

• I'm running carbon
• I'm running a fine felt filter sock
• I'm running a skimmer
• No livestock in the tank atm, not until I can figure this out. I just keep losing stuff and it makes me feel more inclined to leave the hobby
• Tank is heated to 78f
• Only coral that seems to really survive is GSP, but the polyps are extremely short and lack color at this point
• UV stopped helping, when running UV nothing changes.
• There has been a day or two out of all this time where the tank cleared up almost completely, but then returned back. I didn't do anything different in this time, so I'm not sure what the heck is going on.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you use scented candles? I've heard of them causing bacterial blooms.

 

[Druinz]

I don't, I stopped using any air freshener or scents for this reason

 

[Dan_P]

Really late update:
I've change the system around a bit, drilled the tank, added a custom sump, plumbed it, etc. Basically a new tank, once again :/. I also now have a somatic skimmer I got on sale. I'm running a felt filter sock as well as some more rock in the sump for more filtration.

The cloudiness persists. I don't understand. At this point I think it's an external thing, I read someone had a similar issue until they cleaned their AC coils or something? I really don't know. I've re-started a tank 4 times already and I always end up with this never-ending cloudiness.

I can post a pic once lights come on, but at this point I'm beat. I feel like I've tried everything, I upped the system to one with a sump and added all this extra cost. In the end, I'm at the same spot. Then I simply look online and see people put nothing but a powerhead into a tank and it flourishes. :/

The livestock I had for a while now passed. No ammonia, no nitrite, temps are good, salinity was kept stable. I don't know guys, any ideas would be appreciated.

Some extra info:

• I'm running carbon
• I'm running a fine felt filter sock
• I'm running a skimmer
• No livestock in the tank atm, not until I can figure this out. I just keep losing stuff and it makes me feel more inclined to leave the hobby
• Tank is heated to 78f
• Only coral that seems to really survive is GSP, but the polyps are extremely short and lack color at this point
• UV stopped helping, when running UV nothing changes.
• There has been a day or two out of all this time where the tank cleared up almost completely, but then returned back. I didn't do anything different in this time, so I'm not sure what the heck is going on.

I read your entire post. You are not easily frustrated!

At this point, I cannot be sure that we know whether the cloudiness is biotic or abiotic. At one point, UV cleared the water and that seemed to indicate a biotic cause. For purpose of score keeping, that is one point biotic, 0 points abiotic cause. At another point, rip cleaning clarified the water for awhile. I will give 0.5 points to each, making the score 1.5 biotic to 1.0 abiotic cause. A slight edge to a biotic cause. When I study photographs of your aquarium, your system “looks” sterile. Nothing growing. I am going to add half a point to biotic cause for this, now 2.0 to 1.0 biotic versus abiotic. UV now does not seem to work, so a tie, biotic 2, abiotic 2. Nuts!

For this to be a persistent biotic caused problem, I would say that it has to be fed to keep it going and I would go further, saying that the system is being carbon dosed. There seems to be plenty of nitrogen and phosphorous to keep enough bacteria alive to make the water cloudy. Notice. I just jumped to blaming bacteria, but other organisms are probably in the water as well contributing to the haze, like, ciliates feeding on the bacteria and if the lights are on, phytoplankton which are both assimilating the nitrogen and phosphorous exuding carbon which is also be feeding the bacteria. You would have to centrifuge a large sample of the water to concentrate the organisms enough to test this idea with a microscope. To investigate further, you might shut off the lights and wrap the tank in black plastic for a couple weeks to see if light is playing a role in the cloudiness. And yes, it could take a couple weeks or more to starve the system and for particulates to settle.

If light is not playing a role, your system might be carbon dosed in other ways. You are convinced that none of the common vapor sources exist, e.g., sprays and scents. What about particulate matter, e.g., dust, baking flour, mites, baby powder (corn starch), etc. For this line of investigation, the aquarium top must be completely and thoroughly sealed with plastic. The air that enters has to be supplied dust and vapor free. Dust free is easy. An aquarium pump air passed through a syringe filter before entering the aquarium. You will need a pin hole in the plastiv to let the air out. This investigation will also last weeks as the system is slowly starved.

You could try a Triton N-DOC test to see if you have a whopping amount of organic carbon in the system, a long shot. You might consult with @AquaBiomics to see if they have had experience with finding certain bacteria causing cloudy water.

As for abiotic causes, the dry rock you are using is the same used in all your restart attempts, right? Remove it from the aquarium for a several weeks and see what happens.

Dan

 

[Druinz]

Very detailed response. Thank you, Dan.

Following your suggestion, I'm going to try sealing the top of the tank and filtering the air intake of the skimmer. I'll also cover the sump as much as I reasonably can.

After some weeks of trying this, I will then try the "blackout".

The dryrock I'm using this time is the same as one previous attempt, but the first two had completely different rock. After the second restart I decided to have nothing from the first system brought into the new one, thinking that'd resolve the issue. At this point, after the things you brought up, I feel like it is either light or something in the air that is consistently getting in the tank from every restart.

Updating some further info: The tank has some algae. I believe it is either cyano or diatoms, it's hard to tell. There's also some hair algae? I think growing on the one snail in the tank that has managed to stay with me this far.

 

[Druinz]

Covering the tank for just 3 days has already made the tank notably clear. I'm waiting to make sure it's not just really odd timing, then I'll remove the plastic covering and see if it returns.

If it does in fact turn out to be the case that it's dust or some other thing in the air, what can I do to fix the issue? I was thinking maybe an air vent filter for the room specifically, but I'm not sure that would help much since our AC already has filters.

 

[K7BMG]

You will just have to play Sherlock Holmes and find the thing thats causing the problem.

Could be just one thing or multiple things working together.
If its airborn it may not anything you can control.
Meaning there could be a factory or something a block away thats emits something. Yes that is probably unlikely but still possible.
Could be a neighbor using something.