White water?

[LittleFoxx]

I have a problem with my tank.
It seems the water seems to be white. I'm pretty sure it's calcium carbonate in the water but how do I get rid of it?! It makes my tank look cloudy.

Tank is a 65 Hex tank. Theres a 15 gallon sump with bioballs but no fuge.
It has a 3"livesand bed. About 100lbs+ and about 100lbs of rock which only maybe 20lbs of it was live.
0 amonia,0 nitrites and nitrates. 8.3 ph and alkalinity Kh is about 400+ ( I don't know the exact number because I use test strips for that and it doesn't go above 400) temp 76-78,
4 10,000k T5's and 4 460 blue T5's (14w each) Current lights.

Basically I had a 10 gal mini tank set up for 3 yrs with 45lbs of live sand and 20lbs of live rock.
It have ton of spegetti worms and bristol worms which I later found out were fireworms!! ( Ya they hurt pretty bad!) one 3 stripe damsel, cleaner shrimp and a fairly large blue leg hermit crab. and millions of those tiny feather dusters lol.
About a month ago I moved everything to the 65hex.
I bought an extra 60lbs of live sand and about 80lbs of base rock figuring my live rock would seed it pretty fast.

I bought some petco salt because it was on sale. When I filled the tank with water /mixed in the salt completely the water was still very white so I let it sit for a few days with the powerhead and sump running.

It did clear up some so I added the new sand and rocks and a day later transfer the entire 10gal over to the 65. I waited 2 wks and it never really "cycled" even with the crab damsel and shrimp. I added 2 false clowns and a 6line wrasse as well as about 30 mini blue leg crabs, 2 anemone crabs, 2 green crabs a turbo snail and a few other snails. This time it did kinda mini cycle with the nitrates never going above 40 and the nitrites about 1.0 max. I got a lovely diatom film to cover my sand and tank for about 2 weeks but it's all gone for the most part now.

It's been about a month and the tank still has the annoying white haze... I even put in a halimedia plant in hopes that it would absorb some of the calcium.

I've done a 20 gal water change (with a different brand salt this time) but I still can't make the water crystal clear!

I have a few gorgonians, a few sponges and 4 fish (2 banner butterflys, a mandarin and another wrasse) being delivered this week. So do you think the gorgonians will absorb more of the calcium? Should I invest in some other corals?
Is it not the calcium that is causing this? Because from what I read I'm 99% sure it's calcium. ( I know it is not a bacteria bloom)

Any ideas? Please help!!

[mr_brix]

i'm not a pro but when i started my tank i had that situation to but i dont have a sump.. after i run the canister filter after a day my water is clear... this is what i think the water is not circulating...

like last night i few more rocks on my tank and i rearange the rocks the water got clowdy and after an hour it turn crytal.. by the way i use the FX5 filter and 305 filter

if i'm wrong correct me pls.. need to learn more

[IxLr8]

If its a white cloudy substance, and you don't think it's calcium percipitation then it's probably a bacteria bloom. Filtration will not remove a bacteria bloom in your tank. You need to determine what is feeding the bloom.

Test strips are not very good at all. My suggestion is get better kits. I have personally used Salifert and Elos test kits and by far they are very good and accurate.

A sure fire way of getting rid of bacterial bloom in your water is either dosing ozone or using a UV sterilizer in your system.

Make sure you clean all your mechanical filters like your pre-filter sponge or filter sock. This could harbor things that feed the bacteria bloom.

Your KH is completely off. For your application with the livestock you have in there, your KH should be between 8-12 dKH. How are you getting 400+? Are you sure your not using a fresh water GH test instead of a salt water dKH test?

When you say you moved everything to your 65 gal, that is including the sand? If that's the case, there could be the cause of your bloom. Typically, when moving stuff from one tank to the other, one would not move the sand since disturbing the sandbed would release stuff that would pontentially cause the situation that you are seeing now. The sand bend, especially if it's a deep one and hasn't been cleaned regularly is like a battery that soaks up stuff. Disturbing it will cause the stuff it's holding to be released in the tank and one of the things that may happen is a bacterial bloom that will not go away very easily.

For now, my suggestion to you is to clean your prefilters as indicated above and siphon your sand bed and try to get it as clean as possible. If what i'm thinking is right and it is your sandbed that caused the problem, 20% waterchange on weekly basis at minimum and siphon cleaning your sandbed should aleviate the problem over a short period of time. You need to ride this out if you don't have UV or Ozone. I personally don't like treating my tank with chemicals if I don't have to. The goal is to get the bad stuff out and keep the good stuff in. It's just going to need patience and persistance to good husbandy.

If you do think it's a calcium percipitation, what did you dose to get the calcium so high that it percipitated? It would take a significant amount of calcium to get this to happen although I have seen it happen. Are you dosing calcium suppliments and did you accidentally dump a lot into the tank?

p.s. The sand that you moved from your small tank to the 65 gallons has been there for 3 years. Typically, it's suggested that after 3 years or so, sand will become saturated and it's a good idea to remove all the sand and put a new bed in. This again is a significant suspect in what you are experiencing today.

Also, check your phospate levels. If your sand is releasing the phosphate that it soaked up, that phosphate will feed the bacterial bloom in your tank.