[fishlady]

I am new here, this is my first post and despite my research I am hoping someone here has an answer.

I have a 265 gal saltwater tank in our living room. I have various other smaller salt tanks but this is the 'issue tank'. I took a sample of our water to the lady at the local petstore and she told me that my results were the same as hers. From salinity to ammonia all levels are where they should be. The problem? the water is milky white. Its an established aquarium that I do monthly partial water changes to. Never had this problem before. Heres the tank details, any advice would be appreciated.

265 gal saltwater tank
rock- crushed coral
several areas of lace rock

7 penquin 350 filters with biowheels

livestock
one large lionfish
one very large batfish
one yellow sailfin tang
one small domino

and until yesterday one gorgeous Nasso Tang ( he died, not sure why)
Currenlty filtering water with a diotype side hanging filter, the petstore lady told me it would remove the smaller particles that were making the water milky... we are 24 hours into that and there has been no change.

thanks-

 

[fishlady]

did a 20 percent change about 2 wks before it got cloudy, it wasn't cloudy then. It got cloudy a few days later. I was mistaken about the crushed coral that is in our 20 gal system, the 265 has just gravel. The Naso got way distressed, turned brown and got cloudy eyes. then he died. Then his color returned to normal.

recent update the yellow sailfin is fading to a very pale yellow almost white, the lionfish isn't eating and the batfish is just roaming around like alls well. thinking about using Algone or clairity any suggestions?

 

[fishlady]

If only I had thought to include them when this started. live rock? no, lace rock only. Temp? 78 degrees, Params-
Ammonia 0
salinity 1.020
nitrate 20
nitrite 0
ppm 80
ph 8.0
unexplainable milky water...

that was 4 days ago
since then the Nasso died, the sailfin died, and the lionfish has died.
the params are way off now and I am going to do a total tear down and redo of the tank seeing as how this happened all of the sudden. I do not know what caused it. And I hope someone does so it never happens again.

current params - awful I know and requiring immediate action
nitrate 200
nitrite 3.0
ppm 240
ph 7.8
salinity 1.020
so a complete water change is in order.... I just wish I knew what could make this happen....

 

[fishlady]

BB-
I appreciate your help, and my quest is not over believe me, I never want to go through this again, and i have to know what happened. I just got back from the petstore, they are housing the batfish there and they are gonna sell him to whoever wants him, I am happy he survived. I will start slow when I start over, invertabrates, shrimp etc. and let the system slowly progress before I invest any more major money in livestock. Meanwhile its, clean clean clean.

Also discussed switching back to the sump system on our tank instead of running the current back mounted filters. That would allow us to utilize our UV, which at the moment is sitting idle and useless.