Hazy water due to filter?

[Bertsch]

k I tried to use the new search but googles results were all over the place. Anyway -
I have been fighting hazy water for about a month now possibly a month and a half. At one point the water turned crystal clear, then I tried to remove a damsel from the tank which stirred up the tank to all holly heck. The tank never returned to being 100% clear.
thanks to a power failure in the house today I noticed that when the power was restored and powerstrip was turned back on that stuff was blowing out of the filter return. I noticed the same sort of material being ejected when I last cleaned the filter just over a week ago. At the time I figured it was due to cleaning the filter.

I am wondering if this fine haze is due to the filter ejecting particles back into the tank. If this is the case what is the best method to resolve this? Currently the filter has 2 trays with the white cubes in there (not certain what they are but they came with the filter), and 2 Charcole media. Just curious if this could be the cause of my tank noy being clear.

[icereefer]

if you can get a foam block in your canister that might help ,or if you know any one that has a h.o.t mag there good for polishing water.
ammonia will cloud your water too.

[Whiskey]

What kind of substrate do you use? Mine will cloud the tank when I stur it up too. Some of the particles are too small to get trapped buy the cartrage and you need to wait till it just settles. Older cartrages that already have a build up on them trap things better for odvious reasons however when your power goes off it does tend to shoot this stuff back in. Test your water, if it is ok then either polish it or just wait.

Whiskey

[MikeS]

well, you still have ammonia and nitrite, so your tank is cycling....also 40ppm nitrate is pretty high, it needs to be 10ppm or less.

I'd imagine these things have something to do with your hazy water...

what and how often do you feed your tank?

Mike

[Bertsch]

I originally put crushed coral in the tank, and about a month in to it I put 10 pounds of live sand on top of it. Since introducing the live sand it has since settled within the coral.

The feeding schedule is two times a day, once around 7 AM and the other around 5 PM. We feed 1 block each time from the saltwater multi-pack set, and every other day specificlly for the yellow tang but all the fish eat it 1 block of Formula two., typically in the PM.

From what I could tell the filter appeared to be ejecting built up food, but I would have thought that should have been captured in the filter. There is never anything left over in the tank all the fish appear to eat everything. Anything that falls to the bottom is taken care of by the two shrimp, and crabs.

I believed the return hose was too long since it dipped below the connector at the top of the filter, almost touching the ground. So I shortened that by a good 15 inches so it goes directly from the filter into the tank. Once I turned the fiilter back on, more stuff was ejected from the filter, but it appeared to stop after 30 seconds. Could there be buildup in the hoses that is causing fine particles to be returned into the tank causing the haze? I would have thought the filter should have removed any of the additional food from the water and not allowed it to pass back into the tank.

[SaltyDawg]

With you tank still cycling you will have days like this. Do you have a power head close to the bottom of the tank? In many instances that is the culpret and people just don't realize it. a PH will stir up the sand and fine particle and keep them moving around.
Wayne

[Bertsch]

I have the powerhead in the middle of the tank. Yesterday I removed the return hose from the filter. As I put a container under the hose to catch all of the water still in there i noticed alot of junk came out of the hose, appeared to be old food. I cleaned out the hose and put it back in to the tank. Once the filter was primed and ready to go I turned it on. Only water came out this time, compaired to in the past where there was stuff coming out of the return once turned on. I then used the syphon to clean the crushed coral and live sand which ended up being around a 15% water change. That stirred up the water some what, but was expected. I have not looked at the tank today to see if the water had cleared up since I am not the one turning the light on, since i leave the house at 5:30, my girlfriend turns on the light around 7 AM. When I talk to her this morning I am currious to see if the clarrity has improved any or is there something else going on.

[SaltyDawg]

As a side note you might want to look into getting a timer to turn your lights on and off. This will allow you to regulate the amount of time the lights are on and it also helps the fish out to be on a set schedule. No matter how dilagent you are you can never be exact on turning the lights on and off and this messes up the normal cycle of the fish. Kind of like turning your clock back, it takes a while to get adjusted to it, now do that 4 or 5 times a month and see how you feel. Your fish will love you for it. :-)
Wayne