Cloudy Water Ideas

[ruslicus]

Thx guys. I started Bio Pellets to get low nutrient tank mainly for SPS. Don't have many yet. Have couple bue and one creme and one green frags. I removed all caulepra from refugium. Changed water and cleaned my overflow. I found lots of debris - not sure if it was due to feeding?! But that might be a cause of some phosphate. I ran Carbon and GFO as well, might change GFO. Ive notice in my sump lots of small flower type things exactly the same as flowers on my caulepra, so i can think it is the problem. does SPS gets upset due to caulepra sexing?

[kien]

If it is in fact the caulerpa goin sexual then the turbid water could potentially make sensitive corals like SPS unhappy. It could also be the tipping point if the corals were already stressed but still doing OK. Adding one more stress factor could have done them in. Again, suggesting that potentially a series of events causing this rather than just one.

On another note, do you light your fuge 24/7? I recall this being a suggestion to help keep caulerpa from going sexual. Although I suppose you've ditched them now so it doesn't really matter going forward.

[ruslicus]

I was going lights 8pm to 8am only. But I have removed and just left chaeto. I changed water about 10% second time. I will check Alk, CA and PH today and see if it clears out. Should I keep feeding fish or better to have 2 days diet just to reestablish the tank?

[Proteus]

What's your total livestock.
I ask because 2 years ago I watched a urchin spawn making the water cloudy.

[ruslicus]

I have
2 Anthias Bartletts
2 Clowns (coupe of months old)
1 Poweder Blue Tand (still baby)
1 Firefish
1 Yellowtail Damsel
2 Herliquin Shrimps (man they growing so fast eating my CC star fish)
2 Pepermint shrimps
1 Blue leg crab
1 Emerlad Crab
Turbo snails few, I've notice recently lots of small snails in DT and sump
As of coral I have:
4 frags of SPS
Hummer, Frogspawn, Torch
Eegance
Zoas, 2 frags of acans
2 frags of Blasto
Open brain
Riccordea
mushrooms
Gorgonia

Pretty much this list in 70g DT with 20-25g sump

[Proteus]

Running three nutrient export systems could be fighting each other.
Pellets being a carbon source will remove both no3 and po4. Along with gfo you could starve your macro cause it to deteriorate adding back to the system. Though I have no experience with pellets I believe to much to fast strips the water to quick.
I would pick one or the other for nutrient export either macro and gfo or carbon

If you choose to go the Biopellets Route. Consider this

I run prodibio a form of carbon dosing. While I also ran gfo I was never happy with tank. I was cleaning tank more than I would have liked. I stopped running gfo. One week after stopping gfo. I had a algae bloom I cleaned it all up and from there on after the system balanced out and I have no nutrients. I clean my glass weekly. I also filled my reactor with hydroton since I no longer use gfo.
Just so you know I run a sps and clam garden

Good luck

[ruslicus]

Thank you Titus. As far as I know BioPellets is removing NO3 and not PO4. GFO removes PO4. I am running refugium and BioBellets for short time, as I was witing for Pellets to kick off. These 2 are overlaping - agree, but I plan to remove Refugium from my system and have just Pellets and GFO with Carbon, Pellets are skimmed. Kein can chime on this as he is more professional.