Cloudy water..

The water in my 10g nano has gotten pretty cloudy over the past week. 






It has really been noticable since the green (I assume coraline algea) started growing on the rocks.  I did some searching in the forums here and passed on feeding last night and won't feed again tonight.  Anything else that I can do?

Here are the current tank stats:

10g nano
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0

Don't know calcium or alk levels yet..  Went to the store and was shocked at the price of the test kit, so I will take some water in this evening and have them do the test.

2 small to med clown fish
1 small bicolor blenny
8 snails
3 hermit crabs
several small coral frags including zoas, mushrooms, and 1 larger hammer coral
as you can see in the pics, macroalgae

I've only been feeding 1/4 cube of mysis shrimp once per day, so I didn't think I was overfeeding.  Nothing has died in the tank as far as I can tell.

It's almost 2 months old at this point.   Just using natural filtration, macroalgae etc.

mm..  rotifers didn't seem to help Mark..  Still greener today...  Anyone have a UV sterilizer I could borrow?

I'm in West Jordan.. 

Would doing a very large water change help? Or will it just bloom again?

Adam, If I haven't found one in Utah or SL county by tomorrow afternoon, I'll drive up the centerville and pick one up tomorrow..   Is there anyone further south with a UV filter that I can borrow?

Am I in danger of losing any of the fish?


Edited by Shad - March 25 2011 at 12:27am

I know this may seem a little crazy but this phyto bloom is actually very healthy for the tank and if left to itself may reach a point where it starves itself and crashes leaving everything better off.
The fish will be fine and leaving the lights off would definitely help. In fact leaving the lights off and covering the tank in complete darkness for a couple days would help the phyto die and could give the rotifers a chance to eat it up.

Water changes feed algae, but a UV Sterilizer is a sure thing and works very quickly. 

Filters generate nitrates. They don't harbor the bacteria that convert nitrate into free nitrogen which are anaerobic. They simply convert nitrite into nitrate which then in turn grows algae and cyano.  I would try and get some oolitic sand from someone on the board and put pockets of it at the bottom of your sandbed. This will give anaerobes a place to grow and metabolize nitrates.

Edited by CapnMorgan - April 05 2011 at 12:21am

I agree with Steve. A big NO to that filter.

I often use a temporary HOB filter in my small tanks. The best thing a HOB (hang on the back) filter does is mechanical filtration. That is, it removes particles of food and waste before the biofiltration has to deal with it. Secondly it is a good place run AC for 2 weeks/month.

Also note that this is a new tank and that there is the tendancy to move too fast to fill up a tank with fish that overload the biofiltration that is still in it's infancy. There is still a lot of maturation needed. Cyano is not bad but I suspect that it and the cloudiness may be due to overfeeding. Are there more fish than the Clowns and Bicolor Blenny? To gage the feeding by parts of a cube is how we sometimes describe it, but in actual practice feeding should be based on how much we feed the fish and still maintain clean water with no algae problems. I would stop all feeding for 4 days and feed half as much after that. This allows the biofiltration to catch up and is not bad for the fish either.

With six females I don't suppose there is too much mothering going on in that house, is there? Mothers love to be sure we get enough to eat. No offense intended, but women tend to overfeed an aquarium. Gotta love 'em.

Then I would stop feeding immediately. I'm sorry but buying frags tonight is also something I would not do. The addition of organisms will not help and will probably hurt the situation.

Though my thread of initial suggestions to hobbyists is that they can have a reef tank up and running in a week, what it looks like I'm failing to say is at that point the new hobbyist should go slow. Once there is a coral or two and a fish or two, we must give the biological filtration the time it needs to mature. The small amount of LS and LR needs to grow to fill the space.  Don't be surprised that I keep moving faster than I advise you to do. My method involves continuous adding of more biological filtration by acquiring and adding more LS and LR, moved submerged to ensure no bumps in the process.

If that new clam is healthy it will eat algae but not bacteria. If it is not healthy, it is adding to the bacterial bloom because some of it's flesh is decomposing even though it may still look okay.

The cloudy water is bacteria blooming because it can. The biological filtration via bacteria in LR and LS is inadequate for the bio-load. Stop the feeding and leave the tank alone for a month. The bloom will die back and the water will clear. After waiting 4 days, feed less than half what you have been feeding. Just for your info, I'd guess that I feed an amount equal to 1/2 cube to all 8 adult fish and 9 baby Clownfish (though the babies get a second feeding of freeze dried Cyclops). That's in about 150 gals of tank capacity with tons of bugs eating up any leftovers. That may help you put feeding into perspective.