Cloudy Water/ Sick Tank

Sounds more like a bacteria bloom to me than anything else. I would not do water changes, however, I would put an airstone in the tank. The water will clear up on its own eventually but if you are experiencing a bacteria bloom, you can bet that your water is severly depleted of oxygen at the moment so get that air stone in there asap.

 

My next meter is an ORP. I'll drop an airstone in.

I do have 2 koralias (#1 & #2) and a Maxijet 1200. The koralia are low in the tank angled up and at each other from opposite ends. The maxi is about 8" below water angled up to break the water surface. Additionally I have the bioweel and HOB remora pro breaking the water surface and introducing oxygen. Is that not sufficient?

I have a koralia nano I have been meaning to put below and behind my rockwork to ensure I dont have dead zones. I was afraid to have too much flow. My two small fish look like they are on a water treadmill set to max. Swimming thier tails off.:-/

 

A water change is about the single worse thing you can do there is a bacterial imbalance something has died or over loaded the system . Just let it go My wife just the other night topped off the Nano about 8:00 PM 9:30 I looked it was totally milky looking had been crystal clear for months , I put an air stone in it let it go the next Morin it was sparkling again as it is now. We added a damn clown fish and a Purple Monti Digita and I think that just overloaded it .. But a water change was the furthest thing from my mind as It will just upset it more..

 

Hey I was typing this when you cheated ! You fast typer you LOL Huum but I must admit it sounds like good advice who's your source lady LOL

 

I beat you by over an hour so you must type REEEAAAALLLLY slow

 

Dang, wish I would have held of now. Well the plus of the changes is my nitrate is now nearly undetectable. So I should expect it maybe go milky again until it reaches equalibrium again? If so I will try the airstone

 

You probably did have precipation going on. If you were having trouble with raising your calcium I believe you had a pretty bad out of balance situation going on. Calc normally raises very easily and quickly. I have found that your alk or Ph is the problem if the calc doesnt want to go up after adding it. Continue doing water changes to correct it. By the way you stated that your alk dropped 2 points, be carefull of any more sudden changes in that or you will start to lose corals and inverts. Alk changes need to be slowly done.

With a 3 month old system you are going to go through a couple of algae blooms probably of different colors and types within tthe next couple of months. Then as the system becomes more established they will stop coming back.

I dont see that you have many hard corals in your listing such as acropora or montipora. If you do not have any of these you should not have to even dose with the 2 part system. Water changes only should keep you very close to the desired specs. Your tank is a little to new to add hard corals with much sucess.

Someone else mentioned running carbon, that is a good idea if you are not doing it.

 

Not to change the subject but i don't know how many of you caught this line "We added a damn clown fish and a Purple Monti Digita and I think that just overloaded it" LOL man after the clam died I can't belive he let you put that clown in there Amcarrig! he reall must love you, either that or you really got someting on him! LOL....

 

Actually the tank that had the bloom was the nano tank, not the 180 and the clown that was added to the nano was the female from the 180 that killed the dang clam. Talk about karma!

 

The above posts may be true, but I do not think it explains why you had trouble raising your calc. Your mag reading was not that low that it should have caused it to be hard to get a raise in calcium level. It makes me think you had an alk - calc imbalance situation going on.