Waterbox cube 10 cloudy water/parameters

[Dev795]

I have had my waterbox cube 10 set up now for about 6-7 months, everything was doing great and growing. About a month ago the water went cloudy. Ended up losing my clown fish and most of the coral along with all the snails. All hermits survived.
Stocking was small with
1 clown fish,
4 blue leg Hermit crabs,
4 Astria snails,
Green finger leather, 1 acan, candy cane, and couple other corals I’m unsure of there names.
Tank is a waterbox cube 10 with ai prime light, filter sock, carbon, bio cubes, heater and the stock return pump.
Parameters are
Salinity 1.022
PH 8.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1
Phosphate 0
Calcium 290
magnesium 800
Alkalinity 7.5
I top off with RODI water 0 ppm
It has been about a month and it is still cloudy,
Iv been performing 25% water changes with RPM blue box once a week sense the tank started.
I’m not sure what to do now. I don’t want to add anything to the tank tell i get it cleared back up
I have had two other larger tank and never have a had a problem. 100g and 180g

 

[TexanCanuck]

Wow ... I'm sorry you've had to go through that ... sounds like a nightmare.

Sounds like one of two things:
1) Bacteria bloom which is dropping your oxygen levels and killing your livestock,
2) you got some kind of contaminate in the water ... bleach from cleaning? Any copper-containing substances (I note that it killed all of our snails)? Any other biocides?

Either situation could cause the cloudy water and rapid die-off of your livestock.

The rest of your water parameters look OK.

Fixing #1 is easy ... a series of large (50%+) water changes a couple of days apart.

Fixing #2 is hard ... requires a complete overhaul of your tank.

I'm paranoid about this kind of thing so while my response may be overkill, here's what I'd do:

If you have a QT, I'd transfer the remaining livestock to a bare-bottom quarantine tank and completely drain and refill the display tank. Not sure what to do with any live rock/sand/biomaterial from the initial setup. At a minimum I'd try and rinse them very well with fresh salt water (or better yet RODI water) but if the culprit is a chemical contaminant it might have been absorbed by the porous material.

After a rigorous cleaning and complete flush & fill, I'd re-cycle the tank and then send a water sample off for ICP testing to make sure.

Sorry ... but I'm not sure there's an easy answer.

 

[Sesty22]

I have had my waterbox cube 10 set up now for about 6-7 months, everything was doing great and growing. About a month ago the water went cloudy. Ended up losing my clown fish and most of the coral along with all the snails. All hermits survived.
Stocking was small with
1 clown fish,
4 blue leg Hermit crabs,
4 Astria snails,
Green finger leather, 1 acan, candy cane, and couple other corals I’m unsure of there names.
Tank is a waterbox cube 10 with ai prime light, filter sock, carbon, bio cubes, heater and the stock return pump.
Parameters are
Salinity 1.022
PH 8.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1
Phosphate 0
Calcium 290
magnesium 800
Alkalinity 7.5
I top off with RODI water 0 ppm
It has been about a month and it is still cloudy,
Iv been performing 25% water changes with RPM blue box once a week sense the tank started.
I’m not sure what to do now. I don’t want to add anything to the tank tell i get it cleared back up
I have had two other larger tank and never have a had a problem. 100g and 180g

I had my water cloud up on me after my tank was cycled and I added my clown fish, which I was told was a bacteria bloom and it was starving my tank of oxygen by my LFS.

I went ahead and ordered the Innovative Marine 10w UV and stuck it in my middle chamber.

By the next morning my water was crystal clear! After about 2 months solid of cloudy water and tons of watch changes / other fixes suggested by people.

Not staying it will 100% work.. but the unit is on sale and not to expensive. It was well worth the try for me, especially since I was planning on getting a UV later on anyway.

My tank is the Waterbox PM25, not to much different than yours so I think the UV will fit.

 

[TexanCanuck]

That's a great point ... if it IS a bacteria bloom than a UV sterilizer is also another method to help bring it in control.

In my opinion, given the amount of livestock that has already been killed in the tank, I'd still probably start with a series of large water changes at the same time ... simply to bring the O2 levels back up that much quicker and to remove whatever nutrients are in the water column that are feeding the outbreak.

 

[Sesty22]

That's a great point ... if it IS a bacteria bloom than a UV sterilizer is also another method to help bring it in control.

In my opinion, given the amount of livestock that has already been killed in the tank, I'd still probably start with a series of large water changes at the same time ... simply to bring the O2 levels back up that much quicker and to remove whatever nutrients are in the water column that are feeding the outbreak.

Yeah I agree. Hit the tank hard with some good Water changes!

Definitely think about that UV. It was a game changer for me. Even with complete water changes my cloudy water would be back in a few hours. Sometimes I thought I finally beat it. But by the evening it was back!

Almost did a rip clean. Still might, but hopefully I can hold off on that until after I move to Texas.

 

[bigboiireef]

+1 on UV. I never run a tank without one now. It should clear up the water in no time.