The Puffer Forum

IDK what's going on but since I added (dead)sand in my tank and some dead lace rock my tank will not clear up. It looks clears looking thru the front but when you look thru the side its cloudy. The glass is really clean and I just did a WC and all water parameters are within acceptable range. Although about a week ago I let a lil more than the usual amount of water evaporate and it cause the tanks SG to raise a lil. But not higher than .002 it was at 1.014 and got up to 1.016 after the evaporation. So I did a WC and kept it at 1.016 for the last 3 WC there was a small but hardly noticeable nitrite/ ammonia spike but it was gone in 48 Hours. Since these few things happened the tank just has a cloudiness to it. The dead rock and sand was washed alot over and over too! Any ideas or suggestion are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for you response.

Possibly a bad water mix? Did you add the salt to the water or the water to the salt? Believe it or not it does make a difference. Water should be brought to roughly tank temp and then the salt added. If the water was warmer than the tank you may have precipitate/crystals from the temperature change, but that would have to be a pretty extreme temp difference.

I am currently having a similar problem. The water just doesn't look as clear as it could & as you say SammyDee, it looks worse from the end of the tank. I have not changed anything in my routine maintenance & as always my ammonia/nitrite are zero & my nitrate is around 10. My fish are fine & there does not appear to be any ill effects on them - its just doesn't look good!
Let us know if you work out what it is & a way to fix it!

Tell us about your filtration and how you do the upkeep.

But for what it is worth, density changes can affect the micoflora and microfauna enough to caue the same sort of transient cloudiness that you see in newish tanks. You can wait it out - it does pass, or you can boost fine mechanical filtration temporarily along with the upkeep on it.

I Fill my 30g tub with 79-80 degree water add my dechlorinater. Mix well and then add the salt. I tried adding a bubbler while mixing and got similar result. One thing I haven't been doing is mixing the new water with salt 24 hours before the actual WC. But before I never had this problem. It seem to start as I got into MId BW and added sand and lace rock IDK.

And I refuse to use Liquid particle clearers BC I tried Half the recommended does and the few bits if sand kicked up into my HOB filter last Wc and tena week later for my next WC I turn the filter off as usual then back on with the tank filled and all a sudden I got like jello balls of sand came out all over my new smooth sand so I had to vac all these little balls off the sand. I was assuming the gelatin effect of the water clarifier caused this.

i notice when i do a change on my SG it does cloud up every now and then, i have never had it stay for more then a day though, and only when i make the first change up, from like 1.012 to 1.014 etc...... after the first shot of "new" water the rest of the WC's are fine.

did you switch salt or soemthing???

I am a firm believer in aging any water - tap, or modified by salt, or anything else. Aged water - even only 24 hours aging - just does not handle the same.

But I suspect that the issue is the slightly larger jump upset the microbes a bit and it takes to time to restabilize.

The so-called particle clumpers are hazardous. They are best avoided. You are smart to avoid them. They are most likely to exchange one problem for another,as happened to you. Take credit, you did learn from that one.

One word.

Purigen.

I shouldnt have to use purigen. if I do itlll clumps the top layer of sand

Yea Im hoping Itll pass thx. Inever had that prob B4 but considering the few variables it probably all contributed to the prob. Ill update if continues

HUH?> Why would Purigen clump your sand? I have it in all my SW reef tanks. They all have very fine sand.

Ya np with sand here, never heard anything about that...

I was mistaking purigen for a liquid additive like Tetra clear water. Ive never used purigen how does it work????

It's a synthetic resin that absorbs many kinds of organic waste, while the flow through the very fine mass of TINY balls that make up the purigen polish the water by collecting debris much smaller than most filter media will. It can also slightly cushion the nitrate load on the tank, but should not be considered a bulk denitrifier or substitute for large water changes.