Crud in my water

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Gauge

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jul 15, 2003
Messages
507
Location
Dallas, TX, USA
My water has been having a lot of junk in it lately. It's not cloudy, and it's not too bad, but it annoys me. They are very fine particles (most of them, anyway), and when I look very closely, I can't really tell what they are. However, some of them appear to microbubbles. Clearly some of them are not, though. I've been staring at my tank for about 15 minutes just crossing my eyes looking at the particles, and they appear to be about 50% microbubbles and 50% something else. Here is the information that seems relevant:

1) 50% micro bubbles, 50% some other particles.

2) There is junk accumulated on the bottom of my sump. I have 3 prefilters on it, and yet, it manages to get through. I can stir up the junk so that it gets pumped into the tank, but it will return in a couple of days.

3) Tank inhabitants - 5 astrea snails, 5 cerith snails, 5 nassarius snails, 10 scarlet leg hermits, 15 blue leg hermits, 7 emerald crabs, 1 arrow crab, 1 anemone crab, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 red bali star, 2 sand-sifting sea stars, 1 bubble anemone, 1 sebae clown, 1 purple firefish goby, 1 longhorn cowfish (my fav), 1 bi-color blenny.

4) 42 gallon hexagonal tank, 45ish pounds of LR, 30ish pounds of LS, 75 gal sump, CAP 1800 return pump, 9 watt UV sterilizer w/ 200 gph pump attached, Jebo protein skimmer w/ 500 gph pump attached, and 350 watt heater... all equipment except heater is in the sump.

5) There is a cylindrical prefilter in the overflow cup, a blue cottony filtering material in the water diffusion plate in the sump, and a large sponge between the intake and return portions of the sump.


Anyone have any suggestions for me? Need any more info?
 
Aye, it's similar. I can tell for certain that some (about half) of them are microbubbles. However, the others aren't.

Did you find a solution for your issue?
 
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