White cloudy tank glass

[mrjohnreed]

My office tank is having an issue with a white cloudy glass surface. I've enclosed a picture for reference. All the parameters are within their normal ranges. The tank has been setup for 6 months and was perfectly fine until the last 2 weeks. I've tried scrapping the tank glass but only a little bit of the white substance is removed while other areas are still the same cloudy look. Does anyone know what this could be?

 

[Clownreef]

Bacterial bloom of some sort? Maybe something airborne is falling into the water? How is the tank topped off?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Might be calcium carbonate precipitation. Are you dosing alkalinity?

 

[mrjohnreed]

Might be calcium carbonate precipitation. Are you dosing alkalinity?

I was dosing alkalinity which i have stopped at this point. If this is calcium carbonate precipitation, how do I get rid of the problem?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What product were you dosing?

 

[mrjohnreed]

What product were you dosing?

I am using Seachem Reef Buffer to raise PH to 8.3 which it is now at. Also I have been regularly using Reef Fusion 1&2.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are you tracking alkalinity? One should never add buffers based on pH alone. Alk gets too high and could precipitate calcium carbonate.

 

[mrjohnreed]

During the dosing of the buffer the alkalinity stayed pretty consistent but then there must have been a spike in it. Ill test it again to see where its at to ensure its not out of sync.

 

[mrjohnreed]

Are you tracking alkalinity? One should never add buffers based on pH alone. Alk gets too high and could precipitate calcium carbonate.

I checked my parameters and here is the breakdown of them all at this time:
Nitrate 10ppm
Carb. Hardness 8dkh
Phosphate .25ppm
Calcium 500ppm
Ph 8.3
Alk. 11dkh

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There’s no need to be measuring carbonate hardness and it probably is not accurate if total alk is 11 dKH.

Don’t add any more alkalinity or anything that claims to boost pH (which all must be alkalinity supplements).

To remove the existing deposits, have you tried a razor blade? Acid will dissolve calcium carbonate, but that’s hard to do with water in the tank.

 

[mrjohnreed]

I have not tried with a razor. I will try that to see if I can get it off the tank. Worse case scenario is I move the inhabitants in the tank out and clean the tank out completely. Would a larger water change help with lowering the Alk?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The alk is ok now. I recommend 7-11 dKH. :)