What is "Clarifier" and is it a good or a bad thing?

[Hiesman84]

Waiting for my TF100 to arrive, may or may not have algae...water is cloudy but not "horrible"...have been up to what I think is shock level.

Is adding clarifier a good or bad idea? Useful product or does proper shock level & FC do all the clarifying?

I can't seem to find a post on clarifier anywhere, sorry if this is a redundant topic.

 

[JohnT]

Clarifier is a tool, but it is seldom needed. Unless you know that you have little CC and pass the OCLT, and you know you have no filter problems, using clarifier just masks other problems.

 

[march2012]

Waiting for my TF100 to arrive, may or may not have algae...water is cloudy but not "horrible"...have been up to what I think is shock level.

Is adding clarifier a good or bad idea? Useful product or does proper shock level & FC do all the clarifying?

I can't seem to find a post on clarifier anywhere, sorry if this is a redundant topic.

clarifier causes very small particles to clump. This could be useful if you have a filter that isnt very high quality, but only after all the algae is dead. If your water is cloudy you are probably right about to have an algae bloom. If the algae is growing though, clarifier is probably pointless because whatever dead algae clumps just gets replaced by the next crop of algae.