advice needed --> advice taken -->update July 27

[christyf5]

So I just moved my tank yesterday to a new house. It was basically pretty much a cluster. A friend and I packed up all the livestock and moved it to the new house. My husband was in charge of the heavy lifting and driving the truck and trailer to move the tank. He got delayed by 3.5 hours with a "shaw cable" issue and all my livestock basically sat on a cold concrete floor (about 18C, we haven't quite figured out the heat pump yet) for that time. Eventually he managed finally arrive with the truck, we moved the tank and I started to put it back together. By the time I was moving the livestock, the water was pretty cold. Because of my hurry to get everything back into the tank, some stuff was left behind including my chiller which, I'm figured out later, is pretty much an integral part of my sump return (hoses and junk are cut to that length).

Of course, the invariability with moving rock around (at least in my case) is less real estate. This happens every bloody time and I'm not quite sure how it happens. Anyway, most of the corals went into the main tank with the "leftovers" in the sump. I have a heater and circulation going in both the main and the sump.

Today, both the sump and tank are cloudy. Stuff from the sump is pretty much heading south. Couple RTN'ed pieces, some look ok but... well, you know how it is. Things in the main tank look ok but everyone is pretty stressed out looking, including me.

Anyway, the cloudiness. I can't remember if this is normal, we're talking pretty cloudy, about 6" viewable depth then fog. I can see most of the corals clearly enough to identify shape and color but not polyp extension.

I'm running carbon, a wavebox and a 6060. I'm scrambling to get the sump online, but now I'm sort of wondering if I should bother with everything going to crap down there its probly pretty toxic. There are lazy brittle stars everywhere (and you know how fast those guys usually are). Maybe I should just change out the water.

Any other suggestions?

[Borderjumper]

If the main tank looks ok and the problem is in the sump, I would leave the sump off line for a while as to not contaminate the main tank. I would do a 100% water change in the sump before I started it back up.

Thats sheety Christy..Im getting worried about my tank swap. I think Im going to set up the new tank and let it run ( as best as it can run with cobbled up parts and pieces and borrowed rock from my other tanks) for a while before I switch the contents.

[banditpowdercoat]

Took 3 days before my tank cleared up when I put all the sand and rock in

[PoonTang]

if your sump and tank are still separated from each other how about taking a bit of rock out of the tank and putting it in the sump. Replace the rock with corals in the main tank. What did you do with the sand bed?

[marie]

Unless you have sand (which I know you don't) then cloudy isn't normal. I would change out the water...even better get the 180g set up and transfer everything over

[Navarchus]

Pleas check ammonia levels….a.s.a.p.

[christyf5]

Shelley, I don't think it was the swap that was the problem, I"ve done it many times before. I think it was the sitting around in rubbermaid totes at 18C that did the job. The corals just got too cold and reacclimating them to normal temperatures just didn't go all that well.

Marie, sadly the 180 isn't going to be ready for quite some time. Apprently we need a sub panel and part of our heat pump whatevery system has to be moved. I'm away for 2 weeks this month and my husband is gone next month. I think we're looking at almost october before it even sees water

I'm brewing up some water right now for a water change. Oddly enough, I have every test kit but an ammonia one, how stupid is that.

My tank doesn't have any sand and hasn't for some time. There was a lot of "detritus" on the bottom of the tank when I took out the rock so I wouldn't doubt that some of the cloudiness might be it getting stirred up but I suspect its the corals that are making the water cloudy. The water was pretty cold yesterday and I'm sure they weren't happy.

[christyf5]

Bleh, I just took a hard look at the tank. Some wicked RTN goin on in there. God I hate this hobby sometimes

[Myka]

Oh Christy...this sucks!!!

I would be doing a 50-75% water change, and checking all the levels. Ammonia would be my biggest suspect right now. Have you checked temp and salinity (sometimes we over look the simple things).

I'm so glad my tank move went to smoothly...I thank my lucky stars every time I look into my 90.

[naesco]

I had a similar problem
Get an additional powerhead in the tank (place it just below the water line) that will stop a natural decline in the oxygen levels ASAP