What is going on here - cloudy water and green skimmate all of a sudden

Info:

4 months old now
210gal
75gal sump w cheato fuge
Sro3000
180ish lbs marcorock
2in sandbed
7 fish (all small clowns, chromis, goby, coris wrasse - tiny bio load in other words)

Running a very light gfo load for some brown algae concerns that have been around since the tank finished its cycle. I have a two little fishes 150 reactor that is only about 1/4 full of gfo.

I added 2.5 cups of carbon in a media bag to my sump on Tuesday to try to help with the cloudy water and it has only very slightly helped.


1.024 salinity
80f
pH 7.8-8.0 (seems low all of sudden)
Cal 430
Alk 9.2
Mag 1600 (why?!)



Last weekend I did a 40gal water changed and used reef crystals (1st time using it; previously I have always used IO salt). The water has been cloudy ever since... On Monday I added 16oz of brs 2 part cal (tested 350 before and 430 after). So unfortunately I don't know which is to blame for the cloudy water.

I had previously used kalkwasser in the top off to up my poor cal levels from having used IO salt but it never could significantly raise my cal.

Prior to doing the Reef crystals water change my skimmate has always been a thick nasty brown color, but now the wet skim is super bright green instead of brown...? Algae bloom or something happening? I might also add I have never had any type of green algae ever in this tank (aside from the cheato which is green I guess); its just been diatoms and what I think is Dino.

Aside from the cloudy water and green skimmate nothing else seems different in the tank visually (no increase in any algae or anything like that).


Thoughts on what is going on here....


Thanks


Sent by Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Tapatalk 2

 

Lights ? How long, what type etc ?
Near a window or/direct sunlight ?

 

Two reefbreeder Photon32's ramp up and down for a total of 13hrs (been this way for 4 months).

No sunlight at all.

Lights are off completely at the moment to see if it helps....

 

That's a lot of calcium to add all at once. It should be increased slowly over the course of days.

 

I remember someone mentioning on this forum a while ago that reef crystals caused problems in his/her tank. I'm thinking cloudy water was one thing. I could totally be wrong on that......It just sounds like if that's the only thing you've changed, then that may be at fault in addition to the calcium you added. You also mentioned dinos?? how long have you had them and how much do you have?

 

Agree. Seems like a precipitation event to me.

 

I thought you could go as high as increasing 100ppm per day of cal?

 

Would precipitation explain the skimmate change at all?

 

When you mix your make-up water, do you add the salt mix to the full amount of water?
For instance, if you make 5 gals, do you add the salt to the full 5 gals or do you mix the salt into a smaller amount of water to let it "dissolve"?

Mixing the salt into the full amount of water produces much less precipitation than mixing the full amount of salt into a small amount of water. The Ca tends to precipitate out, and never goes back into solution.

Just tossing that out there...

 

Yeah I mix into a large container for the total amount of water to be made up.