Never ending bacterial bloom that returns once UV is removed

[Victoria M]

I have seen cloudy water/bacterial bloom several times, fresh water and salt. They clear up in their own sweet time. Unfortunately. We once lived with a bacterial bloom, making water cloudy for over a month. I got fed up and ignored it. Then boom, one day crystal clear. Never a problem since. It sucks waiting though.

 

[Druinz]

This tank has been up for almost a year, waiting hasn't helped.. Which is why I made this post. Most times someone has this issue the solution is waiting or UV to speed it up, neither which really fix the issue for me

 

[Druinz]

As I was going to get the UV sterilizer ready to install again, I was reading online about it a bit more.
And yup, as others reported it was leeching black plastic. Running my finger along the plastic piece surrounding the quartz glass I had this black residue all over it.
I might keep it on hand for a bit till I figure out a solution, otherwise the only place it is going is the trash. Seeing as how UV didn't even really fix the issue, I'm not about to spend even more money for that again..

Waiting out isn't helping either since this tank has been cloudy like this for several months.

I'm at a loss though, one day, randomly, it cleared up almost completely and the next day it was back to extremely cloudy, without me changing anything that day. ???

 

[brandon429]

I have a question

we have a 23 page thread on sandbed rinsing/rock rinsing where we take tanks apart (nanos are easy, we're doing 100 gal + commonly) and then put them back together cloudless (rinsed) and nothing ever recycles or dies. and, not once has any nano regained a cloudy water column after applying our method. wanna try?

causatives...who knows. merely reciting data from this thread of massive patterns in outcome. if you rip clean this tank, 100% water change as we do, cloudless sand and rock, and in the same week its cloudy again, it'll be the 1st pattern breaker in 6 years.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

vs debating whether or not it will work, or causatives which are tricky here agreed if you aren't on auto alk or ca dosing, or aren't adding offsets for algae into the water (carbon dosing clouding) the pattern of the thread is simply rip clean and the tank stays clean thereafter. we don't look too much for ID or water testing there, bc the after pics keeping doing the same thing. We have some ten month post work updates, this is a complete option.

whether or not 100% water changes are good or bad, whether sand rinsing is good or bad opinions all doesn't matter. the pages speak with patterns simple as that, and no other links show patterned work so far.

 

[RomoFL]

Druinz sorry for the frustration.. this hobby can do that sometimes. Let me ask you, if this tank is about a year old and most of the time you didn’t have livestock, have you experienced any diatom or algae bloom like most new tanks?

I’m suspecting you haven’t yet, which is an important phase of the new tank cycle. I would get rid of the UV filter, do a large water change, keep a couple of hardy fish in there like clowns and some CUC then just maintain that for another month or so. Do water changes every week - but only abou 10% of the tank volume. I hope that helps.

 

[brandon429]

If this tank was in my home, the simple surgery would have started at 8 after work and it would be clear this morning with no supports.

Slow drain all water, all new water already mixed and ready in a brute, heated, catch fish on way out and house in Home Depot buckets.

Corals and rocks lifted out, sat on my counter. Leaves only cloudy water and the sand helping it

Sandbed removed, tap rinsed as page one shows then last step ro water. A bed that can pass a drop test now goes in the tank...rocks and corals were washed off externally with saltwater to remove any films or hazing or any pore plugging growths if applicable

The tank is reassembled 100% clear and fish back in, tracked for a few days to see if you break a six year streak. I’d have done it just to challenge the six year streak then the clean tank would be just an attitude side benefit

Can we please do surgery on your costly aquarium. I think it was fixable 346 days ago in one pass.

*any use of nonstandard live rock is a skew. We have threads of Walt Smith rocks supporting strange invasions/manmade rocks all subject to X variation

Any reef using rock that is common typical aquarium rock will follow suit after a rip clean.
B

 

[Druinz]

Alright. Looks like I'm going to add some stocking. Given time with stocking, if my issue persists I'll most likely go through with a thorough sand cleaning as brandon suggests, but I'm going to leave that as a sort of last resort because it makes me extremely nervous. I've read through the post about it, and I see it has a good track record, but it still makes me nervous.

As for stocking right now I only have a clown goby. I'm thinking of adding a banggai cardinal and a royal gramma. Thoughts on this? Maybe I could get away with one more, maybe a shrimp goby pair? (Eventually. Not gonna add so many at the same time)
I'll stop by my lfs today and look around for anything interesting. I've really been eyeing royal grammas for a while though, I'd really like to have one.

 

[Tamberav]

I just saw a video on this... which is to say I don't have any firsthand knowledge or experience on this topic, but I did see a video on it . I also stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Seriously though, with that little sand, you're essentially running a bare-bottom tank. If you search youtube for bare-bottom and bulk reef supply, they have a number of videos where they talk about the first YEAR being hell.

My guess, add more sand or... wait for it.. be patient ;0

Interesting, I have tanks with sand and ones with bare bottom and no noticeable difference except the bare bottom is less maintenance. My most recent BB was set up in March and the bottom is getting covered in coralline. The system appears very healthy.

That being said, I try to introduce diversity early. I bought a bag of pods because they were advertised as being in the ocean hours before. I wanted a nice fresh bag of ocean water more than the pods. Potential 'bad things' don't worry me as much as a sterile tank though. I feel people freak out about that too much with their bone white dry rock and sand and trying to kill everything in case there is something potentially 'bad' but taking the good guys out with it.... it can take so long for the tank to finally get some diversity in it.

 

[Tamberav]

@Druinz Sorry if I missed it, but what is your water source?

You said you had this problem on a previous tank so wondering if there is a common connection. Water or air pollutants would be the first thing to think about.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Alright. Looks like I'm going to add some stocking. Given time with stocking, if my issue persists I'll most likely go through with a thorough sand cleaning as brandon suggests, but I'm going to leave that as a sort of last resort because it makes me extremely nervous. I've read through the post about it, and I see it has a good track record, but it still makes me nervous.

As for stocking right now I only have a clown goby. I'm thinking of adding a banggai cardinal and a royal gramma. Thoughts on this? Maybe I could get away with one more, maybe a shrimp goby pair? (Eventually. Not gonna add so many at the same time)
I'll stop by my lfs today and look around for anything interesting. I've really been eyeing royal grammas for a while though, I'd really like to have one.

I read through this and did not see the ask, so I will ask since a friend of mine had this issue and we finally figured it out.

Do you use any air fresheners? Ones that plug into the wall, fabreze, scented candles, anything like that?

His issue was fixed in a week when he removed a glade plug in that was about 20' from the tank.

 

[brandon429]

def hold off on stocking anything extra till fixed

 

[Druinz]

I read through this and did not see the ask, so I will ask since a friend of mine had this issue and we finally figured it out.

Do you use any air fresheners? Ones that plug into the wall, fabreze, scented candles, anything like that?

His issue was fixed in a week when he removed a glade plug in that was about 20' from the tank.

None at all, I have a strict rule that everyone in the house knows to not spray anything in my room. I also don't use any candles or incense or anything of the sort

@Druinz Sorry if I missed it, but what is your water source?

You said you had this problem on a previous tank so wondering if there is a common connection. Water or air pollutants would be the first thing to think about.

I use RODI water I make using the RO Buddy as well as IO salt

def hold off on stocking anything extra till fixed

As it is, there's a clown goby in the tank which seems to be acting fine as far as I can tell.. However my two types of zoa frags haven't been open in a long time and at this point I'm suspecting the undetectable nitrate and phosphates due to lack of stocking..
Also, there hasn't been any algae thus far and I don't honestly remember if I had diatoms yet or not. I kind of let the tank do it's thing for a while before I got fish (I let it cycle out with Dr.Tim's ammonia for a good while).

 

[brandon429]

Need tank pics for true assessment can you update with em

 

[Druinz]

Ah right, sorry. Here you go!

 

[brandon429]

That's how I pictured it, amazing duration for the event. We've been rip cleaning tanks with four grand in coral... no probs with above if you want to, nice and new

 

[Druinz]

Since the tank is fairly bare, and I've only got one fish, I decided it's best to do this rip-clean now rather than later. So I'm preparing all the salt water I'll need. I'm going to put my plan here, correct me if anything is incorrect, @brandon429.
1. Mix up all the salt-water I need (Dont have a lot of buckets or space for a brute-bin so I'm using 2 home depot buckets, a spare 10g tank, and 2 water jugs.
2. Take out rocks and place them into empty bucket
3. Catch fish and place him in container with new water (that I will also use to finish filling tank at the end)
4. Siphon out sand into the second bucket until I have most/all of it
5. Siphon rest of water out into the bucket with the rocks (paranoid about killing BB)
6. Take bucket with sand and give it a REAL thorough wash, the final wash being with RO water
7. Take baster to the bucket with rocks and get them cleaned off nicely, making sure not to have any gunk or slime on them
8. Place rocks first into tank once again, then sand.
9. Start to re-fill tank using all new water
10. Place fish back in

I'm going to track ammonia and nitrates every day following for some time just to make sure I didn't start a cycle again.
Does this all seem correct? It's kind of difficult since I don't have a giant bin to mix all the saltwater so I have to really plan my use of the buckets and jugs..

 

[brandon429]

yes its great

as we plan ideally, brainstorm any side details if applic, see this very recent exact same thing below. it is a first time rip clean, from a very new poster who was very thorough with it all. a flagship run example in my opinion for any size tank.

handy to see it literally being done last week, the after testing, the predictions its so helpful for pre surgery. we will link your work to our sand rinse thread when done.

**up front someone about three pages back from last or eight in the sand rinse thread lost a cleaner goby. after he set up the new tank, skip cycle, he rinsed pretty darn well. the goby died

in other news, in the fish forum, same day, a cleaner goby died from a disease lol and not a sand rinse. Who knows why a fish dies once every 23 pages, Darwin time/ dunno. that's disclosure. 23 pages one rascal goby. all we're doing is making your tank instantly clean like day one. if you aren't dosing liquid carbon, or high magnesium, or precipitation-causing actions, kalk dosing, GFO, suspend any variables but basic clean water, ripped sand, rinsed rock (rocks always in sw only, we care for em) Ive never seen go cloudy again.

**if your rocks need curing, that may be going on. they could be leaching mass chemical or nutrient X in which case it should be testable with phosphate / making bac blooms if anything rock oriented, that's my opinion on it.

regarding aquariums and corals, we have zero losses of tank or coral, zero in the pages and pages include work in other forum as links which is why I'm ok with your tank in prediction.

You will not recycle if you put back a cloudless detritus free tank.

 

[brandon429]

Nuvo 10 Crash?

Hey can we see updated ammonia test Looking for change vs holding of same color after several hours, to check for an increase trend just an update on how the tank handles the suspected single input of ammonia from the water change if applicable

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

I love how the sand rinse thread is on the line. excellent start to weekend and thank you for participating you have such a great tank for it all. it should be just like when you first brought the fish home, only we're using skip cycle biology (keeping things wet while we work/clean) to skip a re cycle, and leaving no detritus which is half rotten protein/ammonia to overwhelm bac that always remain when wet.

 

[MnFish1]

I stopped running UV cause the one I have is an internal one (SunSun JUP I believe?). It's huge and gives off a ton of flow, so I only wanted to run it temporarily to get rid of the bloom which seems to work for 99% of people, except mines keeps coming back. I'd rather fix the solution rather than treat a symptom cause I feel this might cause more issues down the road if I don't correct whatever it is I'm doing wrong.. I just gotta figure it out

As for adding other fish, I've thought of this as well. Can some others give some input on this? I don't want to add anything else since I feel it might be a risk, but if it is actually the fix then I'll go ahead with it.

Like @Shinte122305 alluded to before - bacteria have to have something to 'grow on'. (I am not sure that an air freshener in a room would do it - but possible). That said - what else could it be?

Bacteria will grow until there is no more food - then they will stop multiplying - go into a steady state (hopefully the steady state will be on your rock - and not swimming in your water) - note some bacteria are 'motile' and swim all of their life - if you happen to have an overload of this type of bacteria - your water will be slightly cloudy (not milky cloudy).

Part of the problem may be that you're changing a lot of things - leading to an unstable system. I.e. Turning on the UV - then off - if the food (whatever it Is) is in the water - it will just recur.

I would suggest -

1. unless you want to leave the UV on all the time - just keep it off (BTW when the UV kills bacteria - it will also create food for 'new bacteria').
2. Make a DIY water polisher
3. Before adding the polisher - add some nitrifying bacteria (Like Fritz Turbo 9) per instructions (if I read correctly - you have some fish in the tank right?) and let that circulate for 3-5 days.
4. Then start the polisher - and allow this to clear the water - cleaning the filter floss when needed. This should hopefully change some of the bacteria strains in your tank.
5. Examine where you might be adding 'nutrients' to the tank in excess - or environmental nutrients (though as I said above - the amounts of carbon containing stuff is so small - it seems unlikely)
6. Sorry if you mentioned - are you using GAC (Carbon) - if not I would.
7. Are you using a protein skimmer?

Hope this wasnt overwhelming...