John and co -

About a month ago i introduced a bunch of macro algae from you guys (5 red mangrove seedlings, 1 green gracilia, 1 red gracilia and 1 ball of chaeto. These macros promptly devoured my nitrate levels which have been 0 since. (They had been over 60 and killed a shrimp) They sit in a section of my sump partitioned off with some egg crate and filled with some LR rubble.

A couple weeks after that I put in 2 Ocellaris Clowns who joined up with 2 green chromis. (one of those chromis does nothing but hide, but i don't think that's relevant as he's been doing that since day one)

Anyway, over the past 2 weeks or so my tank water has gotten very, very cloudy. It's at the point now where I can't see the back of my tank and can barely see my fish and rocks. Now one of my clowns is looking ... not well. He sits at the bottom 99% of the time and doesn't look active at all. I don't see him eating. I also am starting to think he's losing coloration, but that could also be the clouds in the water.

My question is... could the macro being causing some kind of bloom of something in my tank? I see a ton of copepods running around, so that's good, I assume... but could it also be a bad thing? Or could the macro have released something into the stream? I realize this is unlikely with these species, right? I'm just trying to cover all bases here.

I had been running a reactor with GFO and carbon, removed it for a week which had no positive effect, then restarted it again 4 days ago with carbon only. It's still getting worse.

The clouds look particulate...but it's hard to tell for sure because the particles are SMALL. I had been using a 200 micron mesh sock which i recently switched out for a 200 felt - which promptly turned brown. Still, the white cloudy-ness remains.

I'm replacing an underpowered skimmer tomorrow (tunze 9002) with a beefier one (Reef Octopus 110). I assume that's going to help, but... I dunno. I'm just trying to cover all my bases here. Not pointing the finger at the macro algae at all, just gathering all the info I can. Been all over the internet trying to find out what the answer is.

Chemistry is all spot on. Nitrates are 0 or close to it. pH is spot on, SG is good. Temp is 77. I even pulled out the ammonia and nitrite tests that have gone unused since the cycle completed... 0 of course.

Thanks in advance

-Joe

Sounds like a bacterial bloom, white cloudiness usually is. I would do a major water change and then make sure you are running new carbon. I think you have the right general maintenance going on, it is just the bloom that needs to be dealt with. I think one 60-70% water change would break up enough of the bacteria to beat the cloud. Those macros dont cloud the water, even when they go sexual so I dont think it is it. If you had caulerpa that would be different.

Thanks John. This is about what I expected, I just wanted to get it from the expert's mouth.

I think I'm going to change roughly 25g tonight which is probably more than half my volume. Hopefully that does it. I don't like seeing sick fish.

Good luck with it, it never hurts to siphon the rocks as much as you can with a thin nylon tube as you perform the water change. Might get the source of it, wherever it is.