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new2scrub
09-25-2010, 07:35 PM
my scrubber has been up and running for a few weeks now,,this week is the first week that i get a good amount of the real green hair algae on the screen but as time goes by my water gets more and more cloudy. is this normal? will it clear as time goes by? do i need some kind of mechanical filter? i have never had cloudy water before.

piratefish
09-25-2010, 09:00 PM
Is it cloudy or does it look dusty? mine looks a little dusty from all of the pods, the fish and corals love them. got any pix?

SantaMonica
09-25-2010, 09:55 PM
Yes you need to define cloudy. What you should have (in SW) are millions of little white specs that look like dust; they are baby copepods. You should not have "murky" (as if you poured milk in), and you should not have colored (as if you added food coloring.)

iggy
09-26-2010, 05:39 AM
Interesting info. What kind of filtration does your tank have otherwise?

My scrubber has only been running for a day and I still am uneasy with turning of skimmer.

new2scrub
09-26-2010, 06:22 AM
no, it's milky,,,not bad just enough to annoy me when i look tru the tank the long way. there is no other filtration.

iggy
09-26-2010, 08:19 AM
could it be a bacteria bloom from a new system?

sklywag
09-26-2010, 10:46 AM
What kind of mesh are you using? Is it being baked by your lights and then maybe flaking off into water? Post pictures of your scrubber so we can see it.

Iggy. If you're uneasy about shutting down skimmer. Just start to run it for half a day for a week or so.
My skimmer sat idle in my sump for about a month before I even built my skimmer. Not hearing that monster growling was a pleasant sound.

SantaMonica
09-26-2010, 10:50 AM
First thing to check is normally the cleaning... if you don't clean it every 7 days the bottom layers will die and cloud the water. Remember I have not seen pics, however.

But I think in your case, your bulb is too big for your screen, putting too much light into the sump, and the stuff growing in the sump (which of course you don't clean out) is dying and causing the cloudyness. So switch to a 23W CFL "floodlight", or get a 23W spiral and put a reflector on it. Either method will focus most of the light onto the screen, and therefore you should get no growth in the sump.

Take pics before and after the bulb change.

new2scrub
09-26-2010, 04:53 PM
think your right AGAIN (lol) santa.....I made a special reflector that focuses the light on the screen and only the screen a day or 2 ago ,,and just after my post the sump started to look cleaner and my water seems to be clearing some. right now my tank is covered for some lights out time,,but when i uncover it on wednesday i will post pics.