Cloudy Water

Hi,

I had my new 230 litre tank all set up 10 days ago, and have been struggling with cloudy water...most probably it is a bacterial bloom.... I also did a partial change yesterday and got a bit better that instant.. when I returned back from work in the eve it was the same cloudy.

My filter is an Eheim Bio Power 240 should i consider fill one of the canisters with active carbon instead of the substrate media it came with and leave the 2 other with the media it came with?

or

Consider buying a UV Sterilizer?

Thanks

Johann

Hi Col1948,

Thanks for the reply, yes i can assure you that i cleaned the gravel good before adding to the new tank, in fact the cloudiness came out after a couple of days.

I will take your advice not to get any UV yet, but shall I add some active carbon or?

Carbon doesn't usually remove cloudiness. I'd leave the filter alone.

Bacterial blooms are very common in new tanks. Unfortunately, the bacteria are not the ones we want to grow in the filter. Bloom bacteria feed on organic (ie carbon based) matter rather than nitrogenous matter that the filter bacteria feed on. The bloom bacteria live free floating in the water and multiply very quickly. Once they've eaten all their food they die off.
Organic matter could be fish food (if you have fish in the tank) or plasticiser in everything plastic in the tank, or from the sealant holding the tank together.


Do you have any fish in the tank yet or are you doing a fishless cycle?

The tank would only smell of ammonia if the reading was extremely high, but ammonia can do harm as low as 0.25ppm. You wouldn't be able to smell that at all. That's why daily measurements for both ammonia and nitrite (also toxic) are needed when you are doing a fish-in cycle. Both of them must be kept below 0.25 by doing water changes whenever they show above zero.

With those few fish in a 230 litre tank, the filter shouldn't need cleaning yet unless you've also got a lot of live plants that are not doing well, in which case the filter would be full of dead plants. If you are worried about the filter, just clean the bottom sponge very gently in water you take from the tank. Then next week, do the top sponge. The sustrat pro baskets won't need cleaning for months. I usually clean the sponges once a month, and the SP baskets a lot less than that. And I have a fully stocked tank.

Can I just check you are not overfeeding the fish - any uneaten food would be a good source of food for the bloom bacteria (and would also decompose to make ammonia, adding to the amount you need to keep under control)

And also just to check - you know that clown loaches need to be kept as a group of at least six, and will need a bigger tank in a few months? They need a tank of over 400 litres with a footprint of at least 180 x 60 cm. And cories need to be in a group of at least 6 of the same species.

Keep an eye on the rams. They are very delicate species. They need soft acid water and a temperature in the high 20's - and the loaches and coreis can't take it that high (except maybe sterbai cories). Many rams die within a couple of months unless these conditions are met.

I would not bother with carbon. As far as I'm aware, it wouldn't do anyhting to a bacterial bloom. I haven't used carbon for years, not since I discovered it is an unnecessary hangover from decades ago. The only time I use it now is to remove medication if ever I have sick fish (eg not quarantining new fish and ending up with whitespot  )
Filter wool might help if you can squeeze a bit on top of each basket of substrat pro or under the top sponge (not on top of it or bits could get into the impeller well). I wouldn't remove any substrat pro as that is the main biological medium.

I know what you mean about not getting the full shoal of loaches and cories at once, I just thought I'd better make sure you knew you needed more after the filter has cycled. You'd be surprised how many people think you only need one or two of them   

I'm glad Sue agrees with me about the carbon, that made me feel better lol.

As for the feeding you can always a miss a day, it won't harm the fish, in fact some people only feed every other day but again it's your choice.

What a lot of people also do is think of human terms, like a pinch of food doesn't look much so they add a bit more, the same with adding chemicals, if it says add 5 drops to the amount of water in your tank then add 5 drops, not a couple more thinking it will speed things up.

Yes, leave everything as it is, but do partial water changes whenever you see a reading above zero for ammonia, nitrite or both. I can't tell you do do them every 2-3 days as you need to be guided by the readings not by the number of days.
That's the thing with fish-in cycling. You can't go by a timetable. You have to be guided by the ammonia and nitrite readings. Water changes have to be as big and as often as needed to keep both of them from ever getting as high as 0.25.


If the cloudiness is a bacterial bloom, it will go away once all the carbon based chemicals in the tank have been consumed. Again, it's a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string type of question. If it's dust from the substrate, it will go away. The only thing that will not go away by itself is an algae bloom, but that causes green cloudiness not white.


Though looking back through the thread, you haven't actually said the bloom is white.

Is the bloom white or green?

So it's not an algae bloom, that's the tricky one to get rid of.

It's a question of waiting till it goes away, I'm afraid.

Hi all,

A little update from my tank, yesterday I did some test to the water and all was fine all PH, NItrate, Nitrite and also Ammonia are with in range of the parameters, I also did a water change what I noticed was some Brown Algae which is slimy and sticky!!!!

Any suggestions how to clear it!!!

Thanks

Hi Sue,

Thanks again for your reply you are so help full, yesterday I noticed that the brown algae has diminished a bit and the water is getting clearer as well I am so glad hope it will continue to do so as I would truly like to see it all cleared up, I will test it again tom morning and do another partial water change as that helps a lot!!!

Thanks again

Johann