Need some serious help guys please. I've had my reef tank set up for a little over a month now. Right now the water is still cloudy. Below my 90 gallon reef I have a refugium. I have yet to set up a protein skimmer. Could this be the problem? How can I cure this problem of cloudy water? I've also got a small brown film algae coating on the substrate? Please help any ideas would be appreciated
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Cloudy water help
- Thread starter 90galReefer
- Start date
It sounds like you have a bacterial bloom. This can last for one to two months and is common in new tanks. The fact you aren't running a skimmer would mean it takes longer for the water to clear (skimmers are effective bacteria skimmers). Let the tank do its things for a few more weeks and it should clear up. The brown film is either dinoflagellates or bacteria.
The skimmer not being in the loop is more likely to be manifested in Pi$$ed off fish and
algae blooms. Cloudy water, if it has been cloudy since the start, could easily be something like
un-washed, or partially-washed aragonite sand staying in suspension. Only time can fix that, as
the smaller particles bond with larger particles or dissolve out. And when you turn on your power
heads, it just swirls right back up. How do you think I FEEL, I decided to be a smart guy this
time and NOT WASH my sand. But you can take a hang-on or canister filter and run a bunch of
floss and maybe a little carbon and filter it out. If you also have a funny smell, it could actually be death-related.
To get rid of my sand dust, I filled a milk jug with filter floss and ran my overflow tube into the jug
and cut slits in the bottom of the jug on 4 sides. If you do any filtering, don't mess around and drain
your filter into the water when you pull the filtration, it will just backwash right back in.
I quickly moved the milk jug into a bucket this morning in one smooth, sexy move.
The brown film is called a diatom bloom and is a natural, rarely-avoided part of the natural sequence.
It can be short or last a week and a half or more. If you run your water through a 100 micron
bag you may get rid of some of it, proivided you keep the water stirred. If it's just aragonite making
your water cloudy, you will kill two birds with one filter.
algae blooms. Cloudy water, if it has been cloudy since the start, could easily be something like
un-washed, or partially-washed aragonite sand staying in suspension. Only time can fix that, as
the smaller particles bond with larger particles or dissolve out. And when you turn on your power
heads, it just swirls right back up. How do you think I FEEL, I decided to be a smart guy this
time and NOT WASH my sand. But you can take a hang-on or canister filter and run a bunch of
floss and maybe a little carbon and filter it out. If you also have a funny smell, it could actually be death-related.
To get rid of my sand dust, I filled a milk jug with filter floss and ran my overflow tube into the jug
and cut slits in the bottom of the jug on 4 sides. If you do any filtering, don't mess around and drain
your filter into the water when you pull the filtration, it will just backwash right back in.
I quickly moved the milk jug into a bucket this morning in one smooth, sexy move.
The brown film is called a diatom bloom and is a natural, rarely-avoided part of the natural sequence.
It can be short or last a week and a half or more. If you run your water through a 100 micron
bag you may get rid of some of it, proivided you keep the water stirred. If it's just aragonite making
your water cloudy, you will kill two birds with one filter.
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