Can't get water clear?

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Iceman72

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
165
Hey folks it's me again. I'm just going through a very frustrating noob moment that I can't seem to get out. Every since my tank crashed a month or so ago I have completely drained all water, basically scrubbed down all rocks, sifted sand bed. But nothing I seem to do will get my water clear again. It looks like it's got milk in it all the time. I picked up my BH-2000 and honestly it seems like it's doing nothing. I have no live stock in my tank and I swear you would think I had 50 fish. I have over 100 pounds of live rock and base rock in my 55 gallon and nothing helps. I'm ready to scrap this up as a loss and ditch this as a bad learning experience. I don't want to put another fish in tank like this. Please help.
 
What kind of water are you using? Tap, RO/DI? Is your flow too much and stirring your sand bed? Besides your skimmer, what filtration are you using?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
If you're scrubbing the rocks with regular tap water then that's prolly why it's so cloudy. The chlorine in the Tap will rapidly destroy the beneficial bacteria. No bacteria is usually the reason why tanks are cloudy. It could also be free floating algae. No bacteria or algae would be my guess. Is it next to a window? If not then its probably the bacteria that you lack. The bacteria should also be treated like its a live animal, it needs food. Adding live plants would really help if this is the case... Hope this helps
 
I highly recommend using Jungle Start Zyme. It's like a bacteria supplement and will stabilize the tank very fast. You should keep using it until your tank is clear. I know this from my experience and have no regrets with it
 
you wouldn't happen to have had a refugium working in the tank? and the macroalgae partially/completely died?
 
I scrubbed with regular tap. No refugium yet. Just live rock, sand and BH-2000. I am using distilled water and reef crystal salt.
 
If you're scrubbing the rocks with regular tap water then that's prolly why it's so cloudy. The chlorine in the Tap will rapidly destroy the beneficial bacteria. No bacteria is usually the reason why tanks are cloudy. It could also be free floating algae. No bacteria or algae would be my guess. Is it next to a window? If not then its probably the bacteria that you lack. The bacteria should also be treated like its a live animal, it needs food. Adding live plants would really help if this is the case... Hope this helps

I think this is on the saltwater & reef forum lol... OP what are your nitrates at? Also how longs the tank been setup?
 
If you don't have another form of filtration, you might want to add something for the time being and throw in some purigen.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
If you don't have another form of filtration, you might want to add something for the time being and throw in some purigen.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app


I'll add my hob tonight.
 
0 amonia, 0 nitrites , nitrates are in between the top two colors. I think 0 but my wife disagrees.
 
sorry, I'm using the app and I pushed something, saw this, but I didn't see the forum name till now lol
 
if its something you cant work out, there may be a way to fix it....

Could look into a Reef Octopus Ozone Reactor OR150.

It's designed to make the water crystal clear..... but its quite expensive.... and big lol

I personally never add chemicals into the water... I always believe chemicals only hide the problem, not fix it and can cause problems in the long run.

With you bh-2000 filter..... there wouldn't happen to be anything inside there filtration-wise that's slowly dissolving???
 
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