# Water Quality Question



## fishlady (Jan 30, 2007)

I am new here, this is my first post and despite my research I am hoping someone here has an answer.

I have a 265 gal saltwater tank in our living room. I have various other smaller salt tanks but this is the 'issue tank'. I took a sample of our water to the lady at the local petstore and she told me that my results were the same as hers. From salinity to ammonia all levels are where they should be. The problem? the water is milky white. Its an established aquarium that I do monthly partial water changes to. Never had this problem before. Heres the tank details, any advice would be appreciated.

265 gal saltwater tank
rock- crushed coral
several areas of lace rock

7 penquin 350 filters with biowheels

livestock
one large lionfish 
one very large batfish
one yellow sailfin tang 
one small domino

and until yesterday one gorgeous Nasso Tang ( he died, not sure why)
Currenlty filtering water with a diotype side hanging filter, the petstore lady told me it would remove the smaller particles that were making the water milky... we are 24 hours into that and there has been no change.

thanks-


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## usmc121581 (Jul 31, 2006)

fishlady said:


> I am new here, this is my first post and despite my research I am hoping someone here has an answer.
> 
> I have a 265 gal saltwater tank in our living room. I have various other smaller salt tanks but this is the 'issue tank'. I took a sample of our water to the lady at the local petstore and she told me that my results were the same as hers. From salinity to ammonia all levels are where they should be. The problem? the water is milky white. Its an established aquarium that I do monthly partial water changes to. Never had this problem before. Heres the tank details, any advice would be appreciated.
> 
> ...


What are your water parameters still? Have you added anything to the tank lately? How long has it been setup? Has for the naso sorry for the luck but those fish are notorius for just up and dying. How much water did you change last time, and did you notice if it got cloudy after the change or before the water change. I will suggest 3 things I think it is: 1) when you did the water change you could have took to much out and the bacterial colonies are tring to catch back up to what they used to be, 2) algea bloom. This is when the algea is free floating in the water, this is why your getting the milky look. A UV sterilizer will take care of this. if you already dont have one. 3) I noticed you stated you had cruched coral that stuff can be really bad. When distrubed will cloud the water and it will look like a mily kind of water (like your stating). It will do this for a life time. Did you notice any of your fish kicking up the coral lately.


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## fishlady (Jan 30, 2007)

did a 20 percent change about 2 wks before it got cloudy, it wasn't cloudy then. It got cloudy a few days later. I was mistaken about the crushed coral that is in our 20 gal system, the 265 has just gravel. The Naso got way distressed, turned brown and got cloudy eyes. then he died. Then his color returned to normal. 

recent update the yellow sailfin is fading to a very pale yellow almost white, the lionfish isn't eating and the batfish is just roaming around like alls well. thinking about using Algone or clairity any suggestions?


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Can you post water params for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, Calcium, phosphate & carbonate levels in dkh? Telling us that your water params are the same as hers doesn't give us much to work with. If possible, could you also get results for magnesium levels? What is the temp in the tank? Is there any "live rock" in the tank? Is there macro algae in the tank? The more information and more detail you can give the faster we can help you.

This could be a lot of things, as was already pointed out... and there are other possibilities on the list as well as those already mentioned. Without water params and more info, we don't have enough information to help you.


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## usmc121581 (Jul 31, 2006)

Like BB said we do need to know what the parameters are that you are getting on your test kits.


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## fishlady (Jan 30, 2007)

If only I had thought to include them when this started. live rock? no, lace rock only. Temp? 78 degrees, Params- 
Ammonia 0
salinity 1.020
nitrate 20
nitrite 0
ppm 80
ph 8.0
unexplainable milky water...

that was 4 days ago
since then the Nasso died, the sailfin died, and the lionfish has died.
the params are way off now and I am going to do a total tear down and redo of the tank seeing as how this happened all of the sudden. I do not know what caused it. And I hope someone does so it never happens again.

current params - awful I know and requiring immediate action
nitrate 200
nitrite 3.0
ppm 240
ph 7.8
salinity 1.020
so a complete water change is in order.... I just wish I knew what could make this happen....


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

There are a lot of things that could have caused this, which is why we asked for more information... without enough information, we may never know what caused it, which means little hope of preventing it in the future.

If this were my tank I would continue to try to find out what happened rather than doing a complete tear down.


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## fishlady (Jan 30, 2007)

BB-
I appreciate your help, and my quest is not over believe me, I never want to go through this again, and i have to know what happened. I just got back from the petstore, they are housing the batfish there and they are gonna sell him to whoever wants him, I am happy he survived. I will start slow when I start over, invertabrates, shrimp etc. and let the system slowly progress before I invest any more major money in livestock. Meanwhile its, clean clean clean. 

Also discussed switching back to the sump system on our tank instead of running the current back mounted filters. That would allow us to utilize our UV, which at the moment is sitting idle and useless.


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

I wish you the best of luck, and agree with the idea of the sump and UV. Please just keep in mind as you're getting a fresh start, the filtration may not have had anything to do with what happened.

Did you have any kind of macro algaes in the tank?


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