Weird cloudy water after water change

GR00VY

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I have a 29 tank with only 2 clownfish and CUC. I changed my water last weekend and it started getting cloudy. I use a turkey baster to stir sand when I do water changes. I never had the problem before. The tank sat fishless for just a little over a month until the it completed the cycle. I added two clowns and then CUC shortly after. Nothing new after that. Tank has been doing good until recently.

When the lights are low at moonlight and off over night the water is clearer. After thelights kick on full in the morning, the water starts g eating cloudy. It cycled with the light intensity.

I took two pictures. Both times I turned on the bright cleaning light setting so it is an equal comparison.

Here is a picture of the tank 5 hours after lights were on full intensity.

then the clearer picture is five hours after the moonlight has been on.

It’s been like this for four days now. Not sure why and really confused since the cloudiness follows the lighting.

3BD048D2-0FFA-457D-82AC-8D78F418519A.jpeg EEA78F61-9EF5-4E3B-9C17-E5127D7FDFB5.jpeg
 

Kjtanks

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I was having a similar problem with my tank when I set it up what kind of filter do you have it it??
 

bobssecrtsn

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It may be a bacteria bloom, what’s your pH at? Be careful since it will suck all the oxygen out the water. If your fish starts going to the surface for air then....
 

lavoisier

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Are you running carbon at all? If not, I would try that. If you do not have a reactor, it is easy enough to put a media bag full in a high flow area of your sump. (An old nylon works just as well if you have one handy).
 
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GR00VY

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ph is 8.0

it is an aquaclear with a sponge filter and some of the biomax pellets. I also run carbon. Every month my filter gets cleaned. I take it out of the tank and give the filter media and sponge a rinse in tank water. I swish it back and forth and give a light squeeze to try and get the big particles off. The same sponge and biomax have been used since the tank was set up. Carbon gets replaced every week.
 
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GR00VY

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Should I do a water change or turn down the lights a bit since the lights seem to make it worse?
 

Bramzor

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Should I do a water change or turn down the lights a bit since the lights seem to make it worse?
If water change is the trigger it is most likely bacteria bloom because it gets something during a water change that allows it to grow so doing another one is not the best idea.
Nothing wrong with a bacteria bloom, will go away on its own.
 
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GR00VY

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So how long do these blooms last? My tank looks like the top picture 24/7 now. It’s been 12 days.
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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you have some options:

running carbon in a simple hob filter is likely to clear it

if not, a full 100% water change isn't impossible at 29 gallons thats likely to cure it. not a harm to the system we do them lots of times in our work threads

if that's indeed a bac bloom simple uv can fix it and prevent future issues, along with invaders like cyano etc
 
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GR00VY

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Would Puritan help? I run carbon but it doesn’t seem to do much. I don’t have a sump or anything for a in sterilizer. I thought about getting an Aqua UV hob but it comes with a half inch barb which is really hard to find a good pump for. Plus, I can’t run a submersible pump in my tank and in-line pump would be to noisy. Tank is in my bedroom five feet from my bed.

im trying to get it where no food goes uneaten so nothing is left but that is a little tricky at times.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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What about a complete water change with sandbed rinse

Keep trying other options but in the end I've never seen a bacterial bloom remain after a rinse cleaning.

It's not a harmful action, we have a thirty page thread of them never losing a single tank. It's called the official sand rinse thread if you ever want to see it. Rinsing sand correctly harms nothing, and that hasn't been ruled out yet here as a cause either (silt component being kicked up somehow maybe, not sure)

A perfectly rinsed sandbed and all new water doesn't leave sandbed silting nor bacteria in the water to come back...I would run no phosphate or special adsorption media after the rinse cleaning as it won't be needed, those items are for offsetting dirty or high bioload conditions, you'll be all cleaned up.
People have to eventually move reefs of all sizes, we made that sand rinse thread to show how rinsing is done without losing tanks, whether you are actually moving or just cheat cleaning a ? condition it doesn't matter, we work full sps reefs in sand rinse examples your tank would not be hard since we are catching it before it's all locked in place.

If conventional methods won't work, you'd be the first example in the sand rinse thread to show a suspected bac bloom couldn't be beaten. We are used to getting all out cyano invasion work, this looks easy above. You can also see if a simple 50% light intensity reduction helps, if nothing after a few days reduced light a rip clean isn't hard for a 29 g nice open scape.
 
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GR00VY

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Funny you bring that up because I was just reading up on a thread where this was mentioned. I will look up the post and rip it out if push comes to shove. Just want to see if it will clear first. If not I will likely take a weekend day and take everything out.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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It's neat to see whatever the least amnt of work required will be to beat it
I'm not sure what it is, but not any threads I know of failed to find some way to get back to clear water from that cloudy type. Minor annoyance only so far
 
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GR00VY

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So I cheated a bit. I don’t have a proper setup for a good quality up sterilizer so I bought a little 9watt green killing machine. I had a gift card to Petco that I was never really gonna use so bought it for 20 bucks out of pocket. I plugged it in this morning and my rank already looks clearer. I think I will run it a few days and then just run it overnight after that. If water gets cloudy again I will probably take apart the system and clean everything like was talked about. Here is what the rank looks like just a half day after install. This looking length wise through it.

BE421F0D-220E-4B2A-8467-51A0FA6DA8A4.jpeg
 

MichaelReefer

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So I cheated a bit. I don’t have a proper setup for a good quality up sterilizer so I bought a little 9watt green killing machine. I had a gift card to Petco that I was never really gonna use so bought it for 20 bucks out of pocket. I plugged it in this morning and my rank already looks clearer. I think I will run it a few days and then just run it overnight after that. If water gets cloudy again I will probably take apart the system and clean everything like was talked about. Here is what the rank looks like just a half day after install. This looking length wise through it.

BE421F0D-220E-4B2A-8467-51A0FA6DA8A4.jpeg

Those UV sterilizers are amazing. I have a that same one, and run it in my planted fresh water tank.
 

MERKEY

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This is just my 2 cents and it looks like you have a direction which is good!

Your tank is new like really new. We have all been there. We want it set up and clear as fast as possible! So we add things to our media basket and we add things to our water then we adjust what we did without giving our tank time to adjust. This is a vicious cycle that we do to ourselves.

I AM THE WORST WITH THIS!

My advice is let your tank sit and get ugly and grow what it needs to. Add a bunch of snails and let them clean the algea and die. Let your tank build the blocks for life within its self.

UV is great and I almost started using one myself. There is a great debate on UV usage and when to use it or if at all. But that's another thread :)

What you are doing now is setting up a tank that will need all of the things you are buying to keep it stable. This isn't a bad thing but your tank will need you to keep up on all of these things.

There are many ways to get a tank successful. Once you pick your direction stick that course for the tanks benefit. The worst thing you can do is start switching things and then switching them again.

Brandon429 has a really good suggestion if the little UV you added doesn't keep the water clear.

Good luck and dont get discouraged your tank is looking good for how young it is!!
 

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