Milkiness/haziness during photoperiod

[ibnozn]

Hi Tom,

What would case my water to become more milky/hazy during my photoperiod? The water starts out very clear in the morning but as the day progresses the tank gets hazy before the plants begin pearling. It's a 20G with 25-30 ppm of pressurized CO2 running on a timer so it turns on 1hr before the light which is a 70W HQI. 8 hour photoperiod. NO3 is 15-20ppm, PO4 around 1.0 ppm. I use a slightly modified PPS Pro macro mix with added PO4 to keep it in the right range and CSM+B for the trace. Substrate is flourite in the planted portion that covers around 80% of the bottom and a mix of aragonite and onyx sand in the other 20% of the tank. It gets 30% weekly RO/DI water changes and has a UV sterilizer.
It's home to Lamprologus Meleagris if anyone is curious.
Any thoughts? At first I thought it was the CO2 dissolving the aragonite but I'm reading in other threads here it has to do with iron levels? Should I switch to a different trace mix? (If you're looking for beta-testers... )

Thanks for the help.

 

[Tom Barr]

Seems like you are not getting good plant growth production.

Tanks should start cloudy and end up clearer if the plants are growing well and the filter is well cycled and cleaned routinely. You likely are running out of something later in the day, CO2 would be the one thing that pops out.

You also have insane amount of light...........so the rest is pretty easy to figure from there. More light, more ferts, more CO2 etc. Use something other than nothing but RO. Add GH booster and some tap.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[ibnozn]

Would there be any problem using just tap treated with Prime? It's my office tank and the RO comes from home. I'll bump up the ferts and CO2.

I'm using a DIY reactor but was going to try making one of these. I have the tubing already. Did these venturis work for him?
http://www.barrreport.com/swedish/2267-swedish-diy-venturi.html

 

[Tom Barr]

You do not want a venturi for such a small tank, go with a CAL Aqua Labs in line diffuser, add a small diffuser in the tank, or go with a venturi internal version I design(see here on this site).

Any of those tree will suit, one cost a lot, but out of the tank(you could DIY that type also), one 2-3$, the other is 10-20$ or so for a stone type ADA like diffuser.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[ibnozn]

It was the CO2. Bumped up the ferts and it stayed hazy. Turned up the CO2 and the haziness cleared. When I rechecked it the CO2 was only around 15-20 ppm. Also added Seachem Equilibrium and my Crypts seem to be doing better. The leaf yellowing that I had is subsiding as well.

I'm going to move this tank over to a rimless this weekend. I put a post out in your main forum looking for info on how to enrich the flourite black substrate:
http://www.barrreport.com/general-plant-topics/4958-add-substrate-ferts-rescape.html
There've been no responses so far, but I could use a little quick help— Mostly I'd like to give the carpet plants an initial boost. Not sure whether to use a soil layer or dry ferts, etc. Can you give me a sense of how best to enrich the substrate? Any articles you can point me to would be excellent too.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Tom Barr]

I genenrally do not enrich Flourite.
Osmocoat, sat 5 grams per sq ft is plenty.
Adding some peat + mulm from the old tank etc will help also.

Regards,
Tom Barr