Cloudy water ....

[reefandfish]

After sunday when my water was cloudy and smelled like dead fish, most of my mushroom died, my brain coral died, and some other things were pretty stressed too. I did about 15G water change, plus added about 8 G refugium (after sunday). My water cleared up, but now is cloudy again ... my skimmer is skimming like never before. Should I do another water change ? or put in Carbon ?

[Loverotties]

I would do both!

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by reefandfish

After sunday when my water was cloudy and smelled like dead fish, most of my mushroom died, my brain coral died, and some other things were pretty stressed too. I did about 15G water change, plus added about 8 G refugium (after sunday). My water cleared up, but now is cloudy again ... my skimmer is skimming like never before. Should I do another water change ? or put in Carbon ?

Yes to all the above, do a 100% water change, and look for what might be feeding this bacterial bloom. It could be accidental overfeeding (carefully question your S.O. and kids and/or roommates), a dead specimen not yet found, starting an alcohol regimen with too much EtOH, too much CO2 or --HCO3; If you have a sand bed, it could even be stirring up the sand and releasing trapped nutrients in the sand. There is a remote chance that the issue might be too much calcium in the presence of high alk as well (precipitory snowstorm, 'though this seldom if ever causes fish or coral kills), or that there is fresh aragonite sand in the tank that has been disturbed (but this usually will do nothing to affect your tank's specimens, either).

Have you added anything new to the tank besides the refugium? Was there new sand in the refugium? Have you tested for NH3/NH4+ in the tank?

What are your tank's full parameters currently? (NH3, NO3--, PO4--, Ca++, alk, pH every 4 hours for 48 hours day and night, temp, salinity or SG, photoperiod, type and intensity of lighting, chemical filtration, age of system?) How often do you do water changes, and what %? Was the material (sand and/or rock) reused from another system? Was it cycled?

What source of water do you use for making ASW and topoff? Do yu use kalkwasser? How long do you make ASW and circulate and match it to tank parameters before using it with the system?

How do you feed the tank, and what comprises your bioload?

[reefandfish]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

Yes to all the above, do a 100% water change, and look for what might be feeding this bacterial bloom. It could be accidental overfeeding (carefully question your S.O. and kids and/or roommates), a dead specimen not yet found, starting an alcohol regimen with too much EtOH, too much CO2 or --HCO3; If you have a sand bed, it could even be stirring up the sand and releasing trapped nutrients in the sand. There is a remote chance that the issue might be too much calcium in the presence of high alk as well (precipitory snowstorm, 'though this seldom if ever causes fish or coral kills), or that there is fresh aragonite sand in the tank that has been disturbed (but this usually will do nothing to affect your tank's specimens, either).

Have you added anything new to the tank besides the refugium? Was there new sand in the refugium? Have you tested for NH3/NH4+ in the tank?

What are your tank's full parameters currently? (NH3, NO3--, PO4--, Ca++, alk, pH every 4 hours for 48 hours day and night, temp, salinity or SG, photoperiod, type and intensity of lighting, chemical filtration, age of system?) How often do you do water changes, and what %? Was the material (sand and/or rock) reused from another system? Was it cycled?

What source of water do you use for making ASW and topoff? Do yu use kalkwasser? How long do you make ASW and circulate and match it to tank parameters before using it with the system?

How do you feed the tank, and what comprises your bioload?

I have added sand but there was everything settled before I run it trough the display tank.


Water is

Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphates 0 (at least what test kit shows)
CA I had it really high 660 but with water changes its down to 560 now ( over couple weeks)
Alk 7-8

PH usually stays around 7.9 - 8.0/ day and 7.7 - 7.8 /night

Temp: 79-80 /day 78-79/night
Salinity: 1.025

Lights are on for 9 hours/day
Lighting: T5 4x 54w with IceCap Ballast , 420nm, 460nm, 75/25, 10K
Filtration: no chemical

The tank has been running since May 2008

water changes are done every week, sometimes 10% and sometimes 20%

Nothing else was added to the system.
Have done Interceptor treatment for red bugs couple weeks back followed by 25% water change. Everything was fine after that.

I think I actually added copods and those other bugs about 2 days prior to this incident.

for water changes I use RO/DI from my house. and usually match salinity and temp before adding to the tank.

feeding about every 3 days or more...

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by reefandfish

...Have done Interceptor treatment for red bugs couple weeks back followed by 25% water change. Everything was fine after that.

I think I actually added copods and those other bugs about 2 days prior to this incident...

I don't really see any problems, but If I were to guess at this pint, I'd say that adding copepodse at this point might have bee the issue, prticularily after an inteceptor treatment.

There have been a number of posts at RC and other sites posting that Inteceptor (milbimycin) may still kill crustaceans for extended periods after high dosing, and the recommendation now is to do at least 2 large percentage WCs and to run a few changes of GAC after treatments (there are also suggestions to go with 3 treatments to assure RB eradication, but that is anther story). If you added copepods 2 days prior to the clouding, the bacterial bloom would be consistent with a copepod die-off and subsequent nutrient peak from their decomposition that may have lead to the bloom. I really do not see any other potential problems, maybe others may have differing POVs.

The only other possibility i can see might be that the 'pods were dead due to high shipping temps, and pouring their carcasses into your system had the same effect on the water column as them being killed by Interceptor at their introduction to the tank. Sorry to see this regardleess of the cause.


HTH

[aquawolf]

Very sorry to hear about the losses.

[reefandfish]

Thanks all, at least most of the stuff survived ....