bacterial bloom vs DOCs

[venzi]

Hi, my understanding is that bacterial bloom is cloudy/milky/murky water that is not clear and dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) are more like particles of food or waste or other organic material that are suspended in the water column (kind of like specks of dust).  Is this correct?  My water column looks clear enough but I can see specks of dust like particles when the aquarium lights are on.  So I'm guessing it's just DOCs floating around.

[Brenden Mitchell]

It's my understanding that DOCs are microscopic, like the size of molecules. They are the basic compounds that organic materials break down into: "proteins, organic phosphates, and simple sugars" is what I just read. Specks of debris would be particulate organic carbon (POCs). Either way the bacterial bloom does look a lot like milk to me, and it has a sort of structure to it, like a web. 

[Guppysnail]

Any bacterial bloom I’ve seen swirls like smoke. It’s especially noticeable when looking longways through a tank. The swirls some are thicker sort of. If you have ever seen someone blow out cigarette snoke as it disappates that’s how it appears to me. If you can see individual specks it’s particles not bacteria. Hope that helps. 

[Chris]

A bacterial bloom, to me, looks like the water itself is dyed white. It doesn't look like a ton of tiny things floating in the water - it looks like white water. An algae bloom will look the same, but dyed green instead.

DOC are dissolved - and while I'm not scientist, my definition of dissolved is mixed into the liquid and no longer a solid. So these aren't something you can directly see, it's something you have to test for.

Tiny particles of food/waste/mulm in the water would be something along the lines of solid suspended organics or something like that.