Cloudy Water

Albert Terego

Albert Terego

Joined
19 May 2008
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Location
Randburg, Johannesburg
On Saturday evening we had a power failure for 5 hours.

The next morning the water in my tank was quite turbid/cloudy. It has slowly started clearing up but even today it is still a little murky. This is not the first time this has happened.

Any ideas on what causes this to happen (when power goes off)? It seems like a bacterial bloom but why?

I am only dosing Red Sea Phos-X/NO3-X at the moment (5ml/day for a 350l system).

Live stock: 15 zoa frags, 3 x ocellaris clowns, 3 x chromis, 1x banggai cardinal, 1x scooter blenny, 1 x cleaner wrasse and 1 x bicolor dottyback, 2 x brittle stars, sand sifitng star and a few snails/hermits.

Live rock - 6kg and also 20kg Caribsea Primo Reef Rock.

Filtration - Bubble Magus NAC 7 skimmer,
Small DSB (about 15cmx25cm) - still maturing

Running - FE-oxide based phos remover in a reactor

Flow 2 x Sun Sun pumps (about 5000lph each)
RO Return pump 5000lph
 
I'm thinking die-off and then it results in a bacterial bloom. Remember, you are adding a lot of bacteria into the system on a daily basis and with the 5 hours failure it could have resulted in some die-off due to reduced oxygen levels or the heat loss.
 
mariusmeyer said:
I'm thinking die-off and then it results in a bacterial bloom. Remember, you are adding a lot of bacteria into the system on a daily basis and with the 5 hours failure it could have resulted in some die-off due to reduced oxygen levels or the heat loss.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% with marius meyer, i experienced exactly the same in my previous tank. (I dosed vodka for a while...)
It is actually the aerobic bacteria that dies off due to less oxygen/flow in the tank & then, the bacteria that requires less oxygen has more favorable circumstances to thrive in, & with the abundance of food available (carbon & dead bacteria) they multiply at a rate that is scary...

It usually takes a about a week for the bacteria to reach a balance point in your system...
Its nothing to worry about, but if i were you, i would reduce your red sea po4-no3x dosing for a couple of days & do a nice big waterchange...
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

To add (which was why I suspected a bacterial bloom) a few months ago I raised my dosage amount of the Redsea Phos X to 8ml/350l form 4 mll to 350 litres. A day later I had extremely cloudy water. Stopped dosing the Redsea for a couple of days, ran some filter flow in the overflow and it cleared up in a few days.

Was just struggling to understand why I would get a bacterial bloom if the power went off. Did not think that die-off would occur so quickly.

On the bright side I suspect any nitrates and phosphates will now be undetectable.
 
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