Water Problem Since Last Night!!

I've used these gel foods occassionally. The first time it just sat in the water like you describe; after that I squeezed it into a tub of tank water, mixed it up and sucked the food out with a dropper. I do the same with frozen live food (if that's not a contradiction in terms).

The fish should be OK so long as your ammonia & nitrite are zero. But when in doubt, do a water change.




On another tack, an assortment of plastic tubs are useful for fishkeeping. Old margarine tubs, ice cream tubs etc are nice biggish ones with lids. For small ones, I find the tubs that individual cheesecakes come are very useful - that's what I use for defrosting fish food. Before you throw anything away (or recycle it) think 'could this be useful for my fish?'.

ooooh i've never heard of bloodworm gel.....although my fish love frozen bloodworm and the occasional bag of live ones.

Its possible that ,like me, your tetras have never seen it either and will take a few batches to realise that it is food which my explain why quite a lot was left over.

This is very strange, and even a little annoying. I did a 20% water change yesterday.

It helped for a short time. Now what happens is that the water is crystal clear for 5 or 10 minutes then the water goes hazy for roughly the same amount of time??

I have tested my water and is as follows; Ammonia 0pp, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 40ppm and ph is 8ppm. As I type this the water is crystal clear but I know that in several minutes it will start all over again.

I intend to do another water change tomorrow, although was intending to do one Friday, and see what happens but I really,really would like to know what is going on.

I should add that it is only a slight haze and the wife thinks it looks ok and am worrying about nothing.

Hi Sue,
yes the white poly filter seems ok! I have changed it twice this week as it was getting quite grotty after just a couple of days. I can understand this as it is a newly stocked tank and I did put  new plants in on Sunday.

I have plenty of poly filters (52) that I purchased from fleabay. I might double them up would that be ok??

I was going to do another water change today as my Nitrate has gone up from 20ppm to 40ppm + in a couple of days, but do not think I should, maybe 15% - 20% twice a week is enough and I did a water change on Monday.

It may be that doing a water change twice a week is keeping particulates floating around in the water?

Hi Sue,
I do not use fertilizer. But I think I must have mis-read the result (that horrible eco-friendly lighting)

I checked this morning in daylight and it is not 40ppm and not 20ppm I would say somewhere between but closer to 20ppm.

The food seems to go in quite a short time and yes they always appear as if they are starving

Now whenever I go to the tank to do testing, glass cleaning etc they always gather as if to say, are you going to feed us then? 

By the way the water is now sparkling.

The theory is that the flow of water through the filter should be five times the tank volume per hour. 180 x 5 = 900, so you should hava a turnover of 900 litres per hour.
But your tank won't have 180 litres of water after you've allowed for the substrate, decor etc. And your pump won't have a turnover of 600 litres per hour as the majority of manufacturers quote flow rates without any media in the filter, which slows the water flow down (Eheim is the only manufacturer I know of that quotes flow rates with media inside the filter). If these two factors cancel each other out, you are getting a turnover of 3 times tank vol per hour.

But I read somewhere that Juwel believes that if the water flow is slower it means the water is in contact with the bacteria that little bit longer allowing for a more thorough removal of ammonia and nitrite. However, I've never heard of people that have 10 times tank vol per hour having any problems, and I have heard a lot of criticism of Juwel filters.

I would seriously think about changing the pump. Looking at Juwel's website, it seems like the rio 125, 180 and 240 all have the same pump, and the 300 and 400 have the same pump. The 240 would be seriously underpowered with the same pump as a 125!
I know it says in the manual that you can change impeller to get a higher flow rate but I think that's a misprint. On retailers' websites they say that a given impeller is for a pump of a certain size, not that you can fit a given impeller in any pump.
Or did you mean changing the pump?