Sorry about this..but I need yet more advice

[Doan]

After you guys told me to chill out yesterday I decided I would do just that. I bought some beer rented a few movies and was gonna just let the tank rock out and do it's own thing as per you guys.. Well I open my door and OMG the tank is soup.. Literraly if you look from one side to the other you can see almost half way.. It is so cloudy and white my crab is going nuts running from one end to the other (he had never done that before) and it Is so bad I can just barley see the heater light in the back when looking in the front.. I am not gonna panic in fact I am getting very frustrated with this whole thing.. It has been one mess after another.. But what can I do about this.. Thank God again I listened to you guys and didnt' buy fish...The water is just white if you sit in front of it and look up to the light you can see that there is a film on the top of the water cause you can see a tiny break in it where the water hits it from the filter.. I did a 10% waterchange I only had 5 gallons of RO on hand.. What can I should I do?? I can't just leave it like that can I It looks real bad..should I change the water more should I put in something that will clear it if so what.. If I can get this cleared up I promise not to touch it for a few weeks.. I need break and I am really frustrtated as I said before..But I have to address this problem any suggestions would be great..

Thank you

Doan

 

[biotoxin]

first thing you need to learn in this hobby is patience=good reef. You cant hurry a reef tank and its best to just keep an eye on it and monitor whats going on but dont panic when things get a little off. Im guessing your tank is cloudy from substrate since i didnt know your last post. What are you exactly tryin to do?

 

[Doan]

No I was trying to bring up the calcium so I could save my LR and get a cleaner shrimp.. I dunno It just seems to have gone horriably wrong.. The tank has cycled and was doing ok other than a little live rock bleaching.. The great people in here told me not to sweat it and just let it kinda go and it will be ok which is what I had decided to do .. I added some calcium from red sea and some seachem reef plus and some sea chem reef advantage B..But that was like 2 days ago I put that stuff in and last night I came home to the soup..

Doan

 

[BillyZ]

hmm... I don't dose calc etc all that much so wait till you hear something from others that does those chemicals more often. But my guess would be that those chemicals have finaly dispersed through the tank and you're starting to get precipitated Calcium. does the water look literaly cloudy, or if you concentrate real hard and look real close do you see actualy small white flecks floating around?

While we wait for some others, test your water for us so we know what we're working with. I would imagine a Ph, Calc, Alk and SG would be helpful for them.

Hang in there mun, we'll get you through

 

[Doan]

No I stared real close till I had a headache it is a solid grey.. the ph is 8 ammonia is o nitrate o nitrite 0 cal still at 300 which is the problem I was having.. LoL the harder i try the more the tank laughs at me lets see ohh uhhh sg 1.023 and I don't have an alk test I will try and get one soon though..

Thanks for being so patient with me guys

doan

 

[biotoxin]

sounds like your calc precipitated. id do some water changes if thats the case, you might see white crusty stuff on your heater if it has precipitated. Youve basically turned the calcium into an unusable form (calcium carbonate) and its fallen out into a solid form. Funny thing about calc is that it wont overdose like other additives it will just harden up. You wana keep your alk/ph high and the ca levels will stablize when all other levels are stable also.

 

[Doan]

What would you guys think of like a 20% water change then turning off everything for like 2 days filter powerheads and all and just letting it settle? I am thinking that hopefully the "gooK" will kinda settle to the bottom of the tank. What do you guys think??"

doan

 

[biotoxin]

im dealing with high calc right too. I did some water changes and its better now. I would definitely not add ANY calc at all for a while until its not cloudy in there anymore. As far as shutting off the tank i dont think you need to do that. Just water change then test. Also dont change your water out with new salt because a lot of salts have calc added in and youre putting calc right back in the tank. Do about 50% mix / 50% freshwater changes.

 

[HoopsGuru]

If it is precipitation, you should find a white crust on the heater, powerheads, etc. as mentioned....is this happening? If not, perhaps something has been disrupted in your tank and caused a large bacterial bloom.

How much of the products did you add?

 

[steve-s]

How much of the products did you add?

And what kind?

From your previous posts, I am highly doubtful this is from precipitation unless you added a generous dose of CaCl or kalk. Unless so, there is no way the Ca can fall out of solution at 300 ppm. Also, kalk additions will not cause "future" precip events, it would be evident very quickly or as the kalk was being dosed. If added as a slurry, the kalk could cause a nucleate precipitation from the addition of lime solids... In any event, something would need be added for this to happen and not days later.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Doan]

I found out what happened.. I got the tank so my wife got a new bathroom...Well unbenounst to me when the plumber (my wifes dad) was working on that he shut down the power for about 5 hours while I was at work to move a light and add a circut.. well needless to say Pittsburgh is cold... by the time I got home the temp was back up but he even said well the house was an icebox for most of the day..casue he also had all our doors open bringing in the new tubs toilet and such.. While this didnt have an instant impact it was the next day the tank got cloudy.. mind you it has been snowing here and the tank is by our front door right in the living room the showcase of the house if you will. I don't know why or how or really what happened but I am attributing the drastic temp change to my problem.. Today the tank is already starting to clear up at a rate that makes me feel happy in way I havent' in a long time..(literally when I came home you could make out the yellow stripe on the powerhead on the other side now 5hrs later I can see it clearly) I have to appologize to all of you especially steve-s and billyz who have helped me from "problem" to "problem" If I was you guys I would have written me off as a TOOL long ago and probably looked on me as the chicken who thought the sky was falling.. I am sorry.. What is happening with me and this tank is SOOOO far from my personality it is scary... I am in sales for a living and am the king of relax life of the party drink a beer it is not that bad..But this tank has utterly consumed me it just fascinates me in a way that I cannot understand the problem is because of that I worry like I never have about anything before (Thank God I dont' have kids) You guys have all been so cool about helping me through my dive into reefing I just wanna say thanks..The tank which just brought me from utter frustration to total fascination just tonight in how it was able to correct itself has just reminded me why I made the dive into it agian... It's just amazing I went to the bar with my buddies to relax it did the dirty work.. I know I may seem like I am alwyas jumping the gun trying to get the CA up early when I shouldn't be worring about it yet and all but that is just me.. I am competitive..I have to have the best tank.. I know that there is NO chance of it EVER (I see your galleries and am very envious) but I have to try hence me laying out $1400 dollars and still no fish Thanky you for putting up with me but I think the tank will fix itself this time and probably is better off without me Ohhhh by the way Steve and billyz somehow through all this the Ca is 400 and even the rock looks a little better, there is green where teh white was LOL what a totally frustrating and rewarding hobby I have started thank you all for your help sorry I am such a worry wart about this..


Doan

 

[sumphead]

I would have to agree with the latter two posts. Can you see actual particles floating/falling in the water or is it just milky? I am thinking possible bacterial bloom. ...waiting for more info.

R

 

[loganj]

Sounds more like a bacterial bloom to me. It will likely go away in a few days if that's what it is. Calcium precip looks like tiny snowflakes floating around in the tank. FWIW, I have found that the Kent Super dKH buffer along with Kent Turbo Calcium works quite well to correct cal/alk problems. You'll need test kits for both calcium and alk before using it or any other remedy though. I like the Kent Tech CB additives to maintain cal/alk levels. I don't have any tanks that are heavy calcium users though. If the bacterial bloom doesn't go away, assuming that's what it is, a UV sterilizer will take care of it. You might want to run some GAC as well for a little while.

 

[captivereefs]

Are you running fine sand? My tank totally clouded up one day after my wife used love my carpet deoderizer. My tank looked liike milk. Have you done any house cleaning lately? Any chemicals used around the tank at all in the past few days? I would do some water changes and not add anything for a few weeks. The fresh saltwater will help replace whatever minerals are lost. Sit back and relax everything will be fine. you have'nt even hit the algae stage yet!

 

[steve-s]

have to appologize to all of you especially steve-s and billyz who have helped me from "problem" to "problem" If I was you guys I would have written me off as a TOOL long ago and probably looked on me as the chicken who thought the sky was falling.. I am sorry..

You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. We are all here to help and I am just glad you finally have some resolution to move forward and enjoy the tank now. FWIW, I do agree on the bacterial bloom but as said, it will go away on it's own. Keep tabs on the water quality as far as NH3, NO2 and such. If you get any bad readings they will be short lived and nothing to be concerned about.

Good Luck!!
Cheers
Steve

 

[BillyZ]

Gonna agree yet again with steve. I'm glad we could help and there's no reason to apologize. Most all of us have been right where you are and know how stressful and frightening it is the first time through.

that said...

even the rock looks a little better, there is green where teh white was

Get ready for your first algae bloom, it's gonna happen, just let it happen )

 

[HoopsGuru]

My first thread on Aqualink a few years ago was well over 100 posts....with most of them from asking questions, silly questions (but not to me ), and repeating those silly questions. The hardest part of starting a tank IMO is not researching, purchasing, nor setting it up...it is that time right after where all your knowledge (and no experience!) has to come together. That's where you are at. Keep up the patience and things will start falling into place and making sense over the upcoming MONTHS (just so you don't think it should be this week ).

With the information provided, it is probably a bacterial bloom or maybe indeed some of the sand got kicked up when the power suddently came back on....no worries either way!

 

[Porksound]

I didn't see your previous post... so I'm a bit ignorant on the particulars.

But from what I've read here, it doesn't sound much like precipitation. You can usualy see bits of matter in the water column when calcium precipitates. Plus as mentioned above you get what looks like salt creep all over everything "inside" the water... sort of like the dead sea, but with calcium instead of salt.

unfortunately what it is is very difficult to say. The most likely culprit is a bacterial bloom. Were any of the additives chilled (or as cold as chilled for some reason)? It would indeed help to know how much you added.

p

 

[Porksound]

Whoops...



Sorry, didn't realize there was a whole page more to this story when I posted. Glad to hear it worked itself out!!!

p

 

[Doan]

No worries pork.. But thank you for trying to help although yes I do the calcium in the fridge with the reef complete.. The reef complete said to refridgerate after opening and so I also threw the calcium in there... Is that bad??

Thanks again

Doan