Re: [APD] Haze

[David Terrell <Dave at terrellclan_com>]

gbooth at frii_com wrote:

> OK. But it sounds like you are disturbing things more than needed. I've
>
>always thought that the haze that develops in water after some disturbance
>is a bacterial bloom.  We'll see this if we pull up a lot of plants
>(distrubing the substrate).
>  
>
Right, that major disturbance here is rinsing the prefilter...which I 
thought wasn't a large part of the biomedia, but it seems to have a huge 
effect on my overall filter system.

>Also, draining the sump will expose the bacteria on the biomedia to air
>for a time. How long do you leave the pumps off? If they dry out, could
>they die off or become ineffective? When we change water, we turn the
>pumps off and let the sump fill with water from the back flow, mostly
>covering the bioballs.
>  
>
Mine won't work that way, if there is no water flow through the system 
then the balls could get dry, even if the sump is full to the brim!  The 
lower section might stay wet.  I'm considering modifying the setup, now, 
to lower the top bucket which contains the actual bioballs, the bottom 
bucket is simply a stand.

>I noticed you have a ball valve on your sump inlet - I assume you close
>that <snip>
>
No, I just shut off the pump and let the tank water drain down as if a 
power outage had occured so the sump fills up...more comments below...

>I must have been wearing my Carnack turban! 
>
HAHA, I want one!

>I'm guessing the haze is a bacterial bloom following a disruption of some
>kind.
>  
>
My guess, too, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  I 
wonder, now, if the bioballs are staying wet when I do my water 
changes.  It normally isn't a problem unless I rinse the prefilter, so I 
suspect they do fine for the hour or so that it takes.  I always drain 
the sump before refilling because I had calculated it as a percentage of 
the total water drained, plus a lot of times I'll get some fine, 
brownish sediment in the sump.  I guess I'll leave it mostly untouched 
from now on.

>Does the haze stay around for a long time?
>
It's been around now for a few weeks, which isn't normal to begin with.  
It seems to be taking an inordinately long time for it to clear.  I can 
normally disturb the plants, vacuum just the top 1-3cm of gravel and 
this will stur things up enough to make it cloudy.  But that normally 
clears within a few hours of the pumps resuming operation _if_ I don't 
rinse the prefilter.  I remain confused why simply rinsing the prefilter 
has effected this system so much!  :-(  I originally thought the way the 
bioballs worked was a flow of oxygen mixed water dripped through the 
media down to the sump, where it would return to the tank via pump.  Now 
it seems the media should be partially submerged constantly?  Maybe 
clarification on this would help me improve my filter that could remedy 
this situation.

Thanks!
-Dave
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