300GallonReef
New Member
Hi all, back in the hobby after taking some time off - set up a 300g bare bottom with liferock Dry Live Rock almost 30 days ago. Since there was nothing live in the system, it was filled with conditioned tap water / instant ocean, and left to do its thing. A week later, I added about 12lbs of live rock from an established system, dosed Fritz TurboStart, added MarinePure Brick to the sump - and overnight, the entire tank was partially cloudy. I left the protein skimmer off for the first 5 days after dosing TurboStart, and when I turned it back on - it started pulling out some waste from the tank as I would expect.
I carefully monitored water parameters while I waited for the tank to do go through its cycle, tested every few days, and almost a month later - Ammonia is finally 0, Nitrite is 0, and Nitrate is 3ppm. But my tank is still cloudy, almost like there's a white haze while the lights are turned on. I was under the impression that this would be a typical bacterial bloom, last a week while it ate up nutrients, and then begin to clear up - but, I'm at the 3 week mark of cloudy water and it's looking no better over time.
I'm currently growing what appears to be diatoms + small patches of hair algae around the bottom of the tank and on the rocks, running the skimmer 24/7, running filter floss / filter socks, and lighting the tank about 2 hours per day. Currently have 2 Firefish in the tank which were recently added a few days ago, I've kept feeding light, and they seem to be doing okay - but I can't help but be concerned that the cloudy water hasn't gotten better. All top offs are done with 4-Stage RO/DI. Also showing 0 Phosphate, 8.1 pH, 1.026 salt, 11.5 ALK, 446 CA, 1238 MG, and 192 ORP from APEX. Any thoughts? I'm inclined to hope this just clears up on its own, but I'm worried that a bacterial bloom lasting over 3 weeks is a bit unusual without any signs of getting better.
The attached picture is looking down the entire length of the tank - front to back, it's hard to get an accurate picture.
Thanks!
I carefully monitored water parameters while I waited for the tank to do go through its cycle, tested every few days, and almost a month later - Ammonia is finally 0, Nitrite is 0, and Nitrate is 3ppm. But my tank is still cloudy, almost like there's a white haze while the lights are turned on. I was under the impression that this would be a typical bacterial bloom, last a week while it ate up nutrients, and then begin to clear up - but, I'm at the 3 week mark of cloudy water and it's looking no better over time.
I'm currently growing what appears to be diatoms + small patches of hair algae around the bottom of the tank and on the rocks, running the skimmer 24/7, running filter floss / filter socks, and lighting the tank about 2 hours per day. Currently have 2 Firefish in the tank which were recently added a few days ago, I've kept feeding light, and they seem to be doing okay - but I can't help but be concerned that the cloudy water hasn't gotten better. All top offs are done with 4-Stage RO/DI. Also showing 0 Phosphate, 8.1 pH, 1.026 salt, 11.5 ALK, 446 CA, 1238 MG, and 192 ORP from APEX. Any thoughts? I'm inclined to hope this just clears up on its own, but I'm worried that a bacterial bloom lasting over 3 weeks is a bit unusual without any signs of getting better.
The attached picture is looking down the entire length of the tank - front to back, it's hard to get an accurate picture.
Thanks!
