water a little cloudy. . . what is the deal?

so my water has been perfect since setting up my tank (only 3 months) but i'm seeing about 10ppm nitrate around the time of my weekly water change... i think i'm just over feeding a little. that's not a dangerous level right?

also, my water seems a little "cloudy".... it's like a dust storm almost in there. i se little particles floating around. like really tiny ones. i actually have to "look" for them to see them, if im not looking for them, it just looks a little cloudy...

is it just a bunch of pods? idk if any of the fish i have gotten eat any pods..

i've got 80 lbs of live sand, and 65lbs of dry rock(i assume it's begun to be colonized), a pair of black ice clowns, 1 blue damsel, 2 fire shrimp, and a whole crap ton of snails(15margarita, 15 nassarius, 6 nerite, and i ordered 40 dwarf cerith from reef cleaners, it looked like way more than 40 but i jsut added them, i counted what i could see the other day when alot of em were out n about and counted about 100! i don't think they counted at all, haha!)

 

What size tank do you have? That's overkill on snails. Not enough food in the tank and the snails will start dying and fouling your water up. 10 ppm nitrates isn't that bad. It sounds like you have really fine sand and that could be causing cloudiness.

 

yeah, i know it's overkill on snails, i didn't realize that there were over 100 of those snails when i put them in, i figured i ordered 40, i'd get 40. didn't bother counting.

and no my sand is not superfine. it's like medium.

 

Picture please.

 

Also what size tank? I'm not convinced that snails are the root issue.

 

it's only a 55.

i emailed jon from reef cleaners, and he recommended about the amount of larger snails i have(36) and 40 dwarf ceriths(which is what i ordered, but got over 100)

 

i can't find my camera, so the only cam i have is on my phone, and the pic would be small, plus, like i said, u really have to look at the water for it to not just look a little bit cloudy to see the particles. i doubt they'd show up in a pic.

i can try though.

 

Oh, do you have a sump?
Are your powerheads stirring the pot?
Are you running any Carbon?
....

 

Your snail order is fine for a 55, so I wouldn't worry. 10ppm Nitrates is not too high; don't stress too much about getting it lower unless you are looking to keep SPS. Any chance you are seeing microbubbles? Otherwise, you may want to run carbon if you aren't already, not knowing what the dust storm would be.

 

Not saying snails are an issue, just pointing out that if not enough for them to eat then there will be an issue. I've got 2 ceriths and 2 turbos in my 75 and they wipe out the algae in my tank. Could be micro bubbles, also maybe a bacteria bloom?