Why is my water so cloudy?

Also, if it's bacteria, it's feeding on something and isn't going to go away until the source is used up or removed. You may want to make sure you have sufficient aeration in the meantime.

 

looks like a bacterial bloom. need parameter and did you do anything differently recently (new livestock, removed or added live rock/sand, etc)?

 

I suspect your anemone had a "stress spawn" and the bacteria are eating that up.

How do you do waterchanges? Do you mix for at least 24 hours and make sure that the temperature, pH, and salinity exactly match? If you don't match all three parameters and you do a large waterchange, that would definitely stress out an anemone.

 

Do you dose anything? I know some of the seachem calcium additives could cause cloudy water. I'm not sure which one though.

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water params
ph seven.six
amonia .twofive
nitrates and nitrites at zero
(sorry my numbers are busted...)

I dont use any water supliments, I have been using my tap water and mixing it with salt, which up until now has been cool. I'm not sure what kind of salt i used, i borrowed some from my uncle and he just gave it to me in a ziplock. I just changed my filter bag and carbon when I did the last water change, about a week ago. I shut the lights off for 24 hrs to see if it was caused by the lights, no luck. The water is just as bad if not getting worse. Anybody have any suggestions? all my livestock is still doing well, but I dont know how much longer my nem can live in these conditions.
Maybe do a water change with some RO water from the LFS?
add some type of water conditioner?

 

no new live stock... i added a few small pieces of LR from my other tank when i did that water change we well.

 

I had similar crush when my drunk buddy spilled 1 shot of Smirnoff into my tank. It might be an aerobic bacteria bloom, if so - most of O2 will be depleted in 12-24 hrs and PH will drop drastically. take the anemone and all your live stock out or it's may be a very big mess in your tank, then just let the tank recycle for a few days, check yr parameters again. when you'll get Amonnia - 0; N02 - 0; N03- 0; PH>8, then you can put everything back. And also most of your live rocks might have major die off, so skimm a lot.

 

ummm look at what i highlighted and thouse prems are horrbal a PH of 6?????? and theirs ammonia

 

I think Inwall is correct, the low pH and ammonia reading suggest that the anemone may have spawned and now this material is decaying causing a mini-cycle and bacteria is feeding on it. Or your tank started cycling causing the spawn. It really dosn't matter now though. With the ammonia reading, it would be safer to transferring the inhabitants, but if you do not have a cycled tank set up for them, i'm not sure where you could put them. It could take a bit for the cycle to complete.

So, for now, you might be best off, running lots of carbon. Do you run a protein skimmer? Wet skimming will help a lot. Water changes will also help until the tank finishes cycling. An ammonia binder like amquel or pime can help. Also, filtering your water with a water polishing pad or diatom filter should help.

 

I just noticed this. That is another very potential cause. Tap water can have all sorts of organic crud in it, as well as toxins and nutrients. Tap water varies greatly, but yours could be very insufficient for a reef. In addition to my other suggestions, I would get some RO/DI water and not use any more tapwater. At least get RO water from wal-mart at the very minimum... Real RO/DI is best though. And what kind of salt are you using?