Shawn C
Active member
I have a 135 gal tank and my water gets cloudy from time to time?What could be causing this??
cloudy water????
- Thread starter Shawn C
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Krish
RF STAFF
How long have you had the tank setup and also, when does it happen? During a water change or just randomly? 
Shawn C
Active member
The tank has been set up for about 6 months.It usually happens about two to three weeks after a water change.I t just gets a little hazy.I use a filter media in my drip tray on my wet dry.
Krish
RF STAFF
How often do you do your water changes then and how much do you change?
Shawn C
Active member
right now im doing them about every 5 weeks and am doing around 20gal.
Krish
RF STAFF
Wow! Every 5 weeks! I don't know very many people that will let there tank go that long without a water change. The most I see these days is every 2 weeks, but myself personally, I do it every week. It's usually 10-15% every week and not 10-15% every 5. That could be part of your problem as a lot of stuff may be accumilating in the tank over so many weeks. It could also be how the makeup water is prepared if you allow it to fully dissolved before tossing it in (which I doubt is the problem seeing it happens 3 weeks after a water change). Then it could possibly be your carbon if you run any. Do you run carbon? If not, then that could be part of the problem as it clears up water clarity by its absorption properties. If you do, then how often do you change it? You may already know this, but the way carbon works is once it has completely exhausted itself and can no longer absorb anything, it will begin to release everything it absorbed back into the water if not changed prior to this happeing. Some people say change your carbon every 3 weeks, but some do it weekly...
Shawn C
Active member
How much carbon should i use for a tank this size??
Krish
RF STAFF
Not sure...I think it was SteveS that posted the other day how much carbon is needed per gal, but I half fill a media bag (the bag is probably about 6 inches by 4 inches) and change it weekly on my cube (38gals) and did the same for my old 75gal. You run some carbon and you'll be surprsed at how clear the water will be after about 24 hours!
Shawn C
Active member
thanks for the help you guys are great!!!
Krish
RF STAFF
No prob! Have fun and let us know how it goes
sytnom
Idaho Reef Adict
It could be the floating algae that live in the water column. They may be replacing the lost numbers that you took out, to bring the system back in balance. I have a different view than most here, but if you have been running a successful tank for six months doing water changes every five weeks, don't let everybody tell you you're doing it wrong. I never change water. I just top it off. Good luck,
Monty
Monty
Krish
RF STAFF
No-one is trying to persuade him Monty. We just offer our our advice and people can decide whether they want to use it or not. 6 months is still a new tank and by all means not long enough to say whether water changes every 5weeks is the right way to go for his system. This isn't about water changes but about cloudy water...Weren't you experiencing the same thing? Cloudy water on another thread? Some people prefer the natural approach, but in a small tank, will never be the same as the real thing. So we have to do as much as we can to help our tanks along the way.
sytnom
Idaho Reef Adict
Right, I did offer my opinion on his cloudy water. I also countered your "WOW!" comment, which was not connected to his cloudy water issue either. I normally don't debat issues, so I won't this either. I was just offering a hopefully positive pat on the back.
Monty
Monty
Krish
RF STAFF
Go back and read why I said "WOW". It was connected to his cloudy water issue, but I guess you scanned over it. Here is the reason again...
I never push my methods on people...I just tell them what works for me and let them use it as they see fit.
sytnom
Idaho Reef Adict
Thumbs up!
I agree- Water changes or not, everybody will find a way to make it work if they really try.
I agree- Water changes or not, everybody will find a way to make it work if they really try.
DonW
R.I.P.
I'm with Krish water changes are necessary. Up a few post a filter tray in a wet dry was mentioned. These two are a nitrate factory. Wet dry filtration systems seem to go through more than their share of ups and downs, one reason most no longer use them. You have to export no matter what system you run. Why is the water cloudy, well your guess is as good as mine. One thing for sure, something is not right so dont wait for mother nature to fix. Run your basic test, if all is in balance then do some water changes and add cabon. Just try to keep it simple as most problems are easily solved.
Don
Don
Last edited:
Scooterman
Well-known member
Shawn C said:
How often are you cleaning this wet-dry? I have a few questions to ask if is ok, then I can try & see If I can help you with your problem. What kind of salt water tank do you have, is it a reef tank, fish only? I think if you could give a little more ideas on your filtration equipment & your normal chorus of husbandry per-say we can get you back into a clean tank. The first thing I can think is your wet-dry, these require cleaning often, more so if your trying to keep a reef, they collect waste & if the waste sits there long enough to decompose you will start getting phosphate problems, algae & even cloudy water if you let it sit there long enough.
Now as far as water change schedule people have many different ideas & opinions on them. Personally I like either or but with guidelines. If you do weekly or bi-weekly you can do smaller percentage changes. If you do monthly or even long water changes you should know that you will have to remove more waste than the smaller changes, siphoning more etc. IMO If you do a large change you actually replace more water with new water than you would if you did 10 smaller changes because with every small change you actually removing some of the other small portions of the last water change. LOL ok no more schooling on that lets get a little more information & see if you can actually help your cloudy water issues. Please feel free to post more information & ask more questions.
Scooty
Krish
RF STAFF
Scooty and Don are right about the wet/dry's...I ran a wet/dry and had to ditch it because of the nitrate issues. Wet/dry's have no way of performing denitrification and they are so good at what they do (converting toxic ammonia into nitrite and then into less toxic nitrate in a short period of time) that the live rock nor a deep sand bed could ever keep up with reducing nitrate levels by denitrification because wet/dry's are just that efficient in this respect. IMO, no water changes on a tank with a wet/dry or even every 3 weeks on a tank with a wet/dry is a disaster waiting to happen because there is basically no denitrification to talk about taking place in a system like this. Dilution (which equals water changes) is basically your only real option and means of keeping the nitrates low which is still sometimes hard to do. If you were to take out a few hand fulls of bio-balls and pop them in a bucket of water and swish them around for a few seconds, you'll be surprised at how dirty and dark that water will be even after just 6 short months. I could never see the bottom of the bucket when I did that and I use to do a 15% water change a week with only 5 clowns in a 90 gal on my first ever saltwater setup! Most of that was just ditritus comming from the live rock and building up in the bio-balls...Just a thought...
Jumpincactus
Well-known member
Julian Sprung tests his carbon by taking a strip of white plastic and dipping it in the tank and looking thru the glass and when the strip looks like it is yellow time to change the carbon. This is the way I do it.
