cloudy tank

[monotreme_man]

so my newish tank is cloudy. the cloudiness has no colour per se,
just makes for poor visibility. at first i thought it might be a
microbubble thing but that has been fixed.

water parameters are 79-81F, 500 calcium, 8.1pH, 10.8kH,
ammonia, nitrite, nitrates all zero (salifert tests). these parameters
have been stable.

in my freshwater tank, i would take this as a symptom that
the filter is unhappy, and after fixing that, it would clear on its own after
1-5 days. this hasn't after 10 days.

the tank has a pair of ocellaris, and a CUC. i now run my skimmer 24/7
and although nearly all teh rock is 'dead rock', algae is visible in the
substrate.

[abulgin]

Most likely algae suspended in the water. A UV sterilizer will cure this, if so. Did you use tap water to fill your tank? Tap water has a lot of dissolved solids and other bad things on which algae thrives. An ozonizer will go a very long way towards removing dissolved solids and making your tank crystal clear. Do you have any macroalgae in a sump or the tank, such as Caulerpa?

As an aside, I think your calcium is too high, but I don't think this is the problem. Should be no higher than 450 ppm.

[monotreme_man]

algae? huh. will it clear on its own?
i used and use RO/DI water.
and i just added some chaeto and gracillara[sic] to the sump
(but they weren't there before).

is a uv sterilizer the only way to clear this algae?
what eats it normally? (i am rather fonder of bioweapons.)

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15013977#post15013977 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by monotreme_man
algae? huh. will it clear on its own?
i used and use RO/DI water.
and i just added some chaeto and gracillara[sic] to the sump
(but they weren't there before).

is a uv sterilizer the only way to clear this algae?
what eats it normally? (i am rather fonder of bioweapons.)

it also could be a bacterial bloom which can also be cleared up with a uv sterilzer

but first try the age old remedy--- a series of 30 per cent water changes;)

I would also be running carbon 24/7


I also picked up that you are now running your skimmer 24/7
That is a very good idea----they should be run 24/7 or organics can build up very quickly in the tank---this might be one of your problems with the algae or bacterial bloom

[monotreme_man]

water changes?
okey dokey, will do.
(except that my salt water bin is only 30 gals or so so they will be 12% changes).
i guess i need a large saltwater tank?
where do you get 100gal tanks?

[knoxtnreef]

do a water change and add a phosban reactor. added a phosban to mine and a few days later the algae was already going away. cutt back on lighting if it's too high.

[monotreme_man]

i've been experimenting with this.

a modest water change helped a little, but a mild haze
still remained. (side note: i can't do a big water change;
despite all my reading i never understood the need for
for huge holding tanks, which by the way, have either
huge shipping costs or are impossible to get in NJ. all i
have are the brute bins which amount to about 15%.)

i was resistant to the idea of running phosban/carbon
because i didn't see where phosphates were entering
the system and it seemed expensive. can you actually
get enough phosphates from fish food to power an algae
bloom?

nevertheless, i experimented with turning off the lights
(just coming on for 15mins for feeding). this cured the
problem but if i started running teh lights again, it recurs.

this seems to me to strongly indicate algae, so i conclude
that i need to get a phosphate test kit, and then the
BRS dual reactor (powered by a MJ1200) running
phosban and carbon.

have i interpreted this correctly?