Now cloudy water - don't know why. (Long)

[newsalt]

I've had my 50g up and running since June. I have to tell you, I originally had a 15g and everyone told me the bigger the tank the easier it is to keep. I'm starting to think that's bull.

Since I started the 50g, I've had nothing but problems. I've got an out break of ich that I can't seem to shake. Saturday morning I lost one of my two clowns. I had it since Dec. 03. Today, I found that my royal gramma "jumped ship ". I found it on the carpet this morning. I had two cleaner shrimp...both disapeared. I have feather duster worms all over the back wall of my tank. I found out that they're a good thing, but it still looks like crap. I can't get my pH or Ca up and I'm spending tons of cash trying to correct that. I started dripping kalk last night for the first time. Today I checked my Ca, it actually went down, go figure. Now I have cloudy water. I spent more money and bought the Vortex diatom filter. The day I use it, the water looks alright, not great. The following day, cloudy again. I feed three times a day, three times a week. I don't think I'm feeding too much. Folks I'm at the end of my rope....I need help. The only thing that looks good about my tank is the stand and canopy.

When I had my 15g, fish were great water was clear, no skimmer just an Aquaclear filter. Now I have this DIY skimmer that supposed to help and it doesn't seem to. I'm actually toying with the idea of spending even more money to get a UV sterilizer to see if it will clear the ich and the water.

Again folks, I need help! Please answer.

[hunterd_67]

Well u might want to think about a better skimmer and the cloudy water id say something is out of wack, did u check ur water par. ? maybe some water changes over the next week.. i might b wrong, im sure some 1 else will chime in, Good Luck

[newsalt]

Thanks for your response. I was thinking of a better skimmer, but because of the money I've been dumping into this hobby, money is a bit tight right now. As far as my water params, I did testing today. Here are the results:

Ammonia: <0.5 ppm (that's how the Salifert Amm. Kits reads)
Nitrite: .2ppm
Mitrate: 10ppm
Ca: 290 ppm
Alk: 12.2 dKH
Mg: 1110
S.G.: 1.026
pH: 8.0
Temp: 80 deg. F

[Spooda420]

patience my son, everything takes time. the more water volume the longer bad things take to happen.

a wise man once told me 'Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank, bad things always happen fast.'

your parameters seem a beem off, there should be 0 ammonia in the tank the n02/n03 is not a worry now, strive for 0/0/0. your CA is a bit low if you have corals and the alk is a wee bit high IMO.

Is there a DSB? is that being stirred up by the PH? The ammonia will cause the tank to be off color. if you see particles in the water column then my guess its dietritus being stired up. if not it might be due to the off color from the AM.

Run carbon in the system for a few days see if that doesnot polish the water fo ya... let us know what you do and the order you do it in and if you see any results.

[newsalt]

I use the Salifert Ammonia test kit. The color chart that comes with that kit indicates that a white color is <0.5. When I do my test, the color I get in my vial is a milky white color, not any shade of brown at all, jut the milky white. That is whay I listed ammonia in my params as <0.5 because that is as low as the Salifert color chart goes. It could be 0 for all I know.

The is probably 2-3 inches of Caib-Sea Arogonite sand. It is not being stirred up by a PH.

I'm runnning carbon now. I run it 24/7. I've been using HBH Aqua-Pure High Density Carbon. I put it in a mesh bag and drop it into my Aquaclear HOB Filter. I use IO salt and I a 10% water change every 2 weeks.

[fidojoe]

Keep dosing kalk, it might take a little while to balance out. As far as water changes, it might not hurt to throw and extra one in there, due to the state of things. Your tank is still settling probably, seeing as how it never truely cycled, beyond the 15g, and the seperate QT used to cure your rock, if I remember correctly. Try and find any and all missing bodies to make sure there's no pollution going on, and hold off on any new additions. About a month after things settle back down, if you really want to rid yourself of dusters, get a copperband For feeding, cut back a little (I know the tang requires almost constant feeding, so feed smaller portions). When doing your water changes, you might also try to vaccuum the surface of the sand to make sure theres nothing there that is releasing nasties into the water. Another thing too, as hard as it is, once you get the water changes done and everything, try and stay out of the tank, to avoid any unneccesary stress on the critters in your tank. Just my 2 cents, HTH

[Brucey]

NS . . . . good advice from all above and the key to this hobby really is patients. My tanks took 7-8 months to truely settle down. Yours is still in it's infancy stage at the moment and I'm sorry to say there is no quick and effective solution. Just DON'T buy any new fish, corals, inverts etc until your tank has settled down and another month has passed by after that. Invest in a Q system (I set mine up for £30 . . . ebay tank, filter and heater)
Keep up the Kalk dosing and make sure your only dosing the clear solution and your not mixing the kalk with SW . . . only RO water. Take care
Brucey

[newsalt]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Last night was the second night of adding kalk. My dosing bottle is small, only a quart. I got the design from http://reefkeeping.com/issues/skip/agu/kalkdripper.htm.
Since my last response last night, the only thing I've done was unplug my skimmer. Perhaps that's the problem, I don't know. It's a DIY skimmer and maybe it's not designed correctly. Maybe I should just buy a one. Maybe a Prizm. As I said, I didn't have one on my 15g.

Of the two fish I lost, the only one I can't find is the clown, but I think the hermits and snails got a great meal. The royal gramma jumped out.

I don't plan on buying anything as far as livestock for the tank. Unfortunately, I do have a couple of frags that I ordered online that are probably coming this week.

[Cougra]

Newsalt: You have a period at the end of the hyperlink that is preventing the link from working properly.

For those wanting to check out the link here is a working version:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/skip/agu/kalkdripper.htm

BTW, thanks for the link to that article. I think it's a good idea for a drip station.

[patteto]

Newsalt,

I am going to agree with all that is being said and want to reinforce the concept of patience.

I am always amazed at how good my tank looks when I get back from a 5 day vacation and the only thing that has been done to my tank is feed the fish and make sure the top off water container is full. Once I start farting around in the tank on a regular basis or everyday, it starts looking worse and worse.

My suggestion is water changes (seem to solve tons of problems) and then turning on the TV and watching the olympics. It sounds like you are tweaking too many variables too often to truly understand what is happening in the tank.

[newsalt]

Well, I was home for lunch..not good news. My Hippo is gone. I suspect my Coral Beauty is the next to go. Ich all over it and the eyes are quite foggy. If there's a silver lining, I was able to get out the remaining clown and put into a Q tank. Don't know if it'll make it, but at least it is out of "the tank from hell". If I could only catch the angel fish, maybe it would have a chance. I'm about to order a UV sterilizer from Web Aquatics. Funny thing are the green chromis, they've been fine through this whole ordeal. If the coral beauty goes the way of the other fish, I've decided to start from scratch, like I have a choice. I'll do a 50%-75% water change and see what happens.

[hunterd_67]

get ur angels fav food and a clear container and try to trick him into it, when i put food in there my angel will follow my hand and try to g et ur chromis too and qt all of them for min of 6 weeks or longer..Good luck

[Dakota]

May I suggest a good book from the by a book from reef sanctuary. I don't know if you have any , but have noticed your having quite a ruff time lately. A good book that is read a couple of times can really help you understand things happening in your tank alot better. Like I said in one of your other post and many others here, patience has alot to due with success

[Curtswearing]

patteto,

Welcome to Reef Sanctuary!!!

[BoomerD]

Do yourself a big favor, and DO NOT buy the Prizm. They aren't very good skimmers, and will continue to give you problems. Spend a bit more money and buy a Remora or Remora Pro...about 10X the skimmer...Much more reliable. Just do NOT get one with the Rio pump. They still are just to unreliable to trust.