Urgent Extremely cloudy tank, fish dying.

Hello. I have a 75 gallon display tank and a 30 gallon refugium. There is good flow through the system and I am currently using an aquac remora skimmer. I have 4 damsel fish, had 5 small hermits (don't know how many left), 2 turbo snails, and an emerald crab. Plenty of live rock and I have oolitic sand for substrate. The tank is about 3 months old.

So here's the problem. Everything is checking out as far as chemicals go. pH = 8.2, ammonia, nitrite = 0, nitrate < 10, salinity = 1.025. I had clear water until I put some algae in the refugium. I bought some red mangroves, chaeto, and gracilaria. The mangroves and chaeto are doing fine but the gracilaria started dying (white/clear spots). At about this time it started getting cloudy, kind of brownish. Checked the levels, everythings fine. Thought it was an algae bloom but water changes aren't helping. Found that the gacilaria was dying so removed it but that didn't do a thing. Now I notice that my skimmer isn't producing any skimmate.

I'm at a loss here. I don't know what's going on or how to fix it. This morning I woke up to find a dead fish so I think this is more serious than just an algae bloom. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

It's possible that your algae went sexual or that you're experiencing a bacteria bloom. For the time being, I would do a water change (to reduce toxins in case your algae went sexual) and start running an airstone (to increase dissolved O2 in your water in case you're having a bacterial bloom).

 

I'll do another water change then. Now, I'm a newbie but from what I've read you don't want an airstone in your display tank, is that correct? It wouldn't bother me though.

 

+1 on algae bloom. I would use a uv sterilizer also. I had a crazy algae bloom and that was the only thing that cleared it up.

 

Air stones aren't necessarily bad and server a purpose in some situations. There are just generally better ways to airate your tank. For now, I think it's good advice.

 

Running an airstone in your display on a temporary basis isn't going to harm anything. If you're concerned, however, you can always run the airstone in your sump.

 

sounds like a bloom to me. bacterial bloom, and not algae bloom. this would suck all of the O2 out of the water and could kill things off

water changes will help. so will doing anything else you can to get oxygen in the water (surface agitation, keep protein skimmer on, etc)

 

I would prob run some carbon also as it couldn't hurt..good luck..

 

+1

I agree with what GitarMan is saying. I keep aireator bars and air pump in a closet, just in case my oxygen level drops (which I don't have a way to tell other than by looking at my fish heavily breathing) and did have to use it at some point when I didn't know any better than to keep a closed lid tank without a sump, but I see from your original post you do have a skimmer plus sump or refugium, so oxygen exchange should be more than good.

Besides the water change, air stone I would also buy a media bag and run active carbon to help detoxify the water. If you have a filter where you can run carbon, I would strongly advice you to do so.

I would also remove the problem causing algae into a smaller, isolated container and watch closely what it does to that freshly prepared salt water. If it turns weird... then get rid of it. It could be sick, could have gone sexual or who knows what else. If you do, in fact have a bacterial bloom, cutting your light schedule to 5 hours would help... keeping it completely off for a few days or a week would be better.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

- Mag.

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try the air stone out this afternoon. Don't have a UV sterilizer so I'll have to wait on that.