white cloudiness

ladayen

Maybe try taking a cup or somethig and scooping some water out and letting that set by itself. See if that reveals anything.

George9617

Wow I didn't realize, I guess time will tell

kangy

I just setup my 'new to me' 40g breeder reef tank. I bought it from someone who had it running for 2 years so I took about 80% of the water with the liverock in icechests. Trying to keep the system as intact as possible. I completely underestimated how bad the fine sand would cloud up the water during the "rebuild" and cleaning, was worse than yours. Anyways, I ran my 4 powerheads, protein skimmer, and three biowheels with only the filter medium (carbon removed) and it was crystal clear in 24 hours. I had to rinse the filters about 6 times though as they were getting completely stuffed with dirt. The previous owner only had the skimmer, no other filtration than the live rock/corals but I left one of the medium size biowheel in place with only the cartridge (no carbon) for mechanical filtration and pulled the other two off as they were just hanging out on the front of the tank temporarily.

I'm not sure if removing the carbon helped or not, I just cut a slit at the top and dumped it out, I'm new to reef tanks and have two freshwater planted, from that I know with a "natural" setup you don't want the carbon so I carried that philosophy over with me. Either way, rambling now, that does sound like it's taking too long to clear up, do you have any other filters you could borrow temporarily if only to aid in the mechanical filtration? Possibly you could try a sponge over the intake to further aid in the cleaning. Could just be minute suspended particles that need to settle. If the cup trick posted above works maybe cutting off the powerheads/filter for a short period might help with the settling.

jeffnsa

The amount of rock is alright for now and not the cause along with water flow, it will help but not alot. It looks like you have fine sugar sand and it takes time for it to settle. Try adding a small shot of vodka or a teaspoon of sugar to the tank to help grow extra bacteria that can attach to the sand particals and hold them down. Rinse the filters every hour or so and leave the carbon in the pads for now, there is not enough in it to affect anything. Make sure the power head is not stiring up the sand and don't worry about expensive models, a couple of max-jets will work fine, they made the industry run for years on them.

George9617

Not sure it's the sand I turned off flow for almost a day with only a air pump breaking the surface with no prevail ,it's starting to tuen green so I'm thinking it's algae bloom,but I don't want to waste 50 bucks if it's the wrong solution I've never heard of adding sugar or vodka so a little research is in order thanks for the tip...also is that jeffnsa as in Jeff in San Antonio?

Reefing Madness

You don't want to be Carbon Dosing at this point. That won't help a bit if its algae.
But, now that I've read back through your thread, you didn't see any water parameter numbers, do you have those? There may be an indicator there. Not sure, but worth a shot, all the info we can get is helpful. Could it be a micro bubble issue from your power filter?

George9617

I don't have an ammonia test kit but nites are both under .5 ph is ideal but could stand to be lowered, alkalinity could be lowered a little test kit says ideal

Tazman

With any fish be it freshwater or saltwater, you want ZERO ammonia and Nitrite, 0.5 is too much.

George9617

The strip test square was white with a slight outline of pink so I say less than .5

Tazman

When you do a water change, how do you refill the tank? Using RO/DI water?