Grrrr.. Stupid cloudy water!

[Speedy]

This is really starting to tick me off.
The tank is just really cloudy. I mean really really cloudy. And it's not like rain cloudy, sand particles floating amist in the water, NO. It is durty, toilet [glow=brown,2,300]brown[/glow] murky, post hurricane diving water. The algae on the glass is the same color. Brown. this is wierd to me because I'm used to green algae on the glass. And I know that all tanks go through a brown algae phase as part of their cycle. But this is an established tank that was upgraded to a 20 gal.

I've tested the water and everything tests out fine. I used to have high phospates. So I added Phosguard in a nylon bag inside my filter. ( Which by the way I am really pissed off about the bag opened and now I have filter media all over my sand. > ) Phosguard brought my phosphates back down to normal. Everything else checks out just fine in the water.

Could it be bacteria bloom, algae bloom, diatoms? At this point I'm just guessing.

The fish look fine, but my snails, and sun polyps are all dead. My green star polyps won't open, neither will my colony polyps. I'm getting irritated. Stupid murky water. Stupid hurricane. Grrrrr.

Help.

Please.

[amcarrig]

Sorry to hear about your frustration and about the loss of your snails/sun coral.

I've never seen a diatom algae bloom in the water column but that's not to say that it doesn't happen. If you just upgraded to a larger tank, a mini cycle and small diatom bloom certainly wouldn't be unheard of but it sounds like you've got a full bloom on your hands. How long ago did you add the Phosguard?

If it is bacterial, it will settle down in a few days.

Add some carbon for the time being and hopefully, we'll get this all figured out soon.

[Matt Rogers]

I agree with amcarrig. I just upgraded to a 20 with a sump from my old hex and I got a little diatom bloom.

I wonder if it has something to do with the phosguard bag opening and spilling in the tank? Perhaps there was some debris in it as well?

Sorry for your loss!

[Speedy]

Thanks for the reply guys. I added the phosguard like a week ago. The tank was clear then but it was full of red slime algae. The Phosguard took care of the high phosphates. But now that you mention it, the tank got cloudy just days after that, but it was before I spilled the media, matter of fact the reason I spilled the media is that I was cleaning out the carbon cartridge thinking it might be that.

Seriously getting annoyed though. I just changed the cartridge on the filter. And I also lowered the amount of lighting, down to like 5 hours. Lets hope it gets better now.

Hey Matt. I sent you an email, did you recieve it?

[reiple]

that is strange. I get white cloudy water in my FW tank of predators due to overfeeding and failure to remove un-eaten food. I also got a cloudy reef tank when I did my "vodka" test (bad idea i guess). This time it was bacteria and it killed a 2 year old coral banded shrimp (great loss for me!) and damaged a colt coral (another misfortune but still salvaged).

maybe the phosguard also produced much too much bacterial growth?

[Speedy]

Hmm. Good point never thought of that.

[Speedy]

Wooo-hooo! I can SEEEE I can SEEEE!

I took my friends advice and I attached my Millenium 1000 filter to it. It was just sitting there so I just put it. Now my tank is clear as glass, and by glass I mean Swaroski and not budweiser bottle.

[hoodoo]

that's great

and how are the corals doing that survived?

[Craig Manoukian]

The nitrates and phosphates released from the Phosguard could have definitely caused your cloudy situation.

Glad it has cleared up!

[reiple]

good it worked!