cloudy tank

ok this has gotten me confused. my tank has been running very good for the last couple months. ever since my cycle my water has always looked good and every time i do a test it comes out great. now although my test still show good my tank is cloudy. this just happened today i woke up this morning and it was so cloudy you could not see through the tank. it has gotten better since i have gotten home from work but still very cloudy. what in the world is happening? what do i need to do? please help. my numbers are phos 0, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, cal 460, ph 8.2.

 

forgot but dkh 9

 

probably a bacteria or algea bloom going on,mabey someone more experienced than me will chime in.

 

Yeap that is what it sounds like to me. Doing a water change and running some carbon will help. Bacterial bloom: make sure nothing died, no over feeding or if your dosing something you may want to cut back until you figure it out. Algae: Cut back on the lighting for a day or two, carbon and water changes and test for phosphates. JM2C

 

i dont have any fish or inverts yet so nothing has died. i do have some snails that will be here friday is this going to be ok? i thought i had some chromis ordered but turns out i didnt complete the order so i guess thats good. i did a 50% water change 3 days ago to get ready to add fish. i use di water from my own filter system that has a tds meter on it that reads 0 so i dont have to worry about the lfs's water quality. are there any other test that i need to conduct on my tank?

 

I would do the basics: Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia. Ammonia may give you an indication of weather it is a bacterial bloom. Does it appear as a milky cloudy or a cloudy with a greenish ting.

opps sorry I saw the parameters.

 

milky. my ammonia test 0. it almost looks like the water and salt were just mixed. nitrates are 0. i dont have nitrite test so guess i need to get one.

 

Do you have liverock??Die off could be coming from something in the rock.

 

Ok

1. Tank has been running for a few months so it should be fully cycled, with no new die off from live rock if you used that.

2. You have added no livestock to the tank as of yet.

3. The salt was throughly mixed 3 days ago and the water is just now cloudy.

4. If ammonia is 0 and nitrates are 0, I would not bother with nitrites.

5. I am going to assume you have added nothing to the tank that would have caused the calcium to precipiated out.

Does that all sound about right?

If the water has a bad odor I am going to also have to go with some hitch hicker died after the water change and caused a bacterial bloom. I would just keep an eye on parameters and run carbon.

 

this is my idea.