Water clarity issue

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Frank220

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
May 4, 2013
Messages
21
For reason, my tanks water is very cloudy. The ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite, are all all at 0. I have a filter that is rated higher than my tank and I have live rock in it as well. Why is it so cloudy and how do I fix it?
 
If it's a newly set up tank, a lot of the time it will take a while for the very small particulates to settle out. If you used crushed coral, it can take a longer time as well.
 
It has 1 mantis shrimp and 1 damsel fish. It's Been stocked for almost 4 weeks now and I haven't had any clarity problems until just within the last couple of days. I have the live rock and an aqueon quiet flow HOB filter, and a heater. Here is a picture if it helps. Thanks for the help
 

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That looks like a sandstorm! The only time I've seen it that bad is from just having added sand, moving a tank, or dropping a powerhead into the sandbed. I guess your mantis could be digging as well.
 
I know it's bad isnt it! It's weird because I haven't changed anything an it just got really cloudy like this. I haven't messed with sand since about five weeks ago and after the sand got stirred, it cleared up after it settled in about 1 day. I haven't seen the mantis digging or throwing sand, he stays under the sand bed is his burrow almost all the time.
 
How close is the filter intake tube to the sand? Could your filter be sucking up the sand?
 
It's somewhat close to the sand and my filter always picks up some sand but It never puts out sand an never has caused a clarity problem. For some reason the water had almost completely cleared up over the past couple of days.
 
Glad to hear its clearing up, I had a similar problem one time where my tank got really cloudy over night. I bought these drops for $5 that cause all tiny particles to clump together so they will get caught in the filter instead of passing through. Not talking about sand though, since you said your filter doesn't spit out any sand but you might want to give that a try.
 
Glad to hear its clearing up, I had a similar problem one time where my tank got really cloudy over night. I bought these drops for $5 that cause all tiny particles to clump together so they will get caught in the filter instead of passing through. Not talking about sand though, since you said your filter doesn't spit out any sand but you might want to give that a try.

What drops did you use?
 
what size tank is it and what size power heads are you using ?
are they pointed to much at the sand bed ?
how long has tank been set up ?
did you do any recent work on tank water change or maybe rearrange
there are many reasons your sand could be stirred up
you don't need additives to correct this
you need to figure out what is causing it
and than your 1/2 way there
 
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