Cloudy Tank (Long post warning)

[ShellBell]

So I'm after a little help please, our tank has become very cloudy over the past few week and I'm lost as to what else to try resolve it. I think I know what may have caused it but have no idea how to fix it?!
We had some eldoea densa plants and they got quite large and started to take over the tank (and also hid any waste/debris/dead fish that had gone unnoticed) so I decided to remove it and slim it down by splitting some of the plants out and cutting off the 'dead' stems before putting them back in the tank. (They had been in for a good few months so it disrupted the gravel at the bottom) shortly after that the water started to cloud over. I kept an eye of the levels and did my usual weekly water changes, still the tank remained slightly cloudy. I ensured to also keep an eye on the water lettuce plants we also have in the tank, and removed any plants that looked unhealthy. After a week I decided to totally remove the eldoea plant during a water change, still no improvement but levels all remained where they should. Then last week the tank went extremely cloudy, we tried changing/rinsing the filters every couple of days to no avail, so I did a 50% water change on Sunday evening (using a vacuum to remove the water/waste from the bottom), rinsed/changed the filters, added water conditioner as usual and eagerly waited. Mondays comes and so remains the cloudy tank!
Tuesday the ammonia levels spiked (just a little) so I removed all ornaments and plants (fake & live) and gave them a good old rinse (in tank water of course) and again used the vacuum to do a 20% water change c/w filter change before putting the ornaments and fake plants only back in the tank. Wednesday whilst scratching my head as to why the tank was still cloudy, I spotted something under the filter. Unfortunately, it looked like fish remains but with the pleasant surprise of finding some baby fish hiding out around it. So after prodding, poking n hoovering we managed to remove the furry mass. Again we changed/rinsed the filters and topped the water levels back up. 24 hours later we still have an extremely cloudy tank!!!! Please help!!!
My tank is a Juwel rio 125 with a fluval filter (silicone sealed to the side) and our fishy family compromises of:
5 x diamond tetra
4 x neon tetra
3 x albino corydoras
1 x albino pleco
2 x shrimp
5 x harlequins
2 x female guppies (unfortunately the males didn't last longer than a week, looked like they were stressed and their fins started to rot)
And some surprise babies: 2 x larger babies (unsure who they belong to but quite possibly the diamond tetra) 5 x tiny tiny babies (again unsure who they belong to)
Luckily all fishes are happily swimming around, none are hiding or acting out of the ordinary

 

[ClownLurch]

Filter sponges apparently should not be rinsed in clean/fresh water, only in used tank water to remove “gunge”. Rinsing in clean water will wash away beneficial bacteria. Don’t know if that’s causing your problem but it won’t be helping.
I only learnt this on here myself. Apologies if you already know this stuff.

 

[kwi]

It could just be a bacterial bloom, if your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are good it shouldn't do harm and will clear in time.
But, it can use up O2 in the water, if you have an airstone turn up the flow and direct your filter putlet to disturb the surface as much as possible, both actions increase the surface area for gas exchange.
Large water changes can also be done to help remove the problem.

 

[Essjay]

If you disturbed the substrate removing the plants you could have disturbed a lot of organic sediment which would feed 'bloom' bacteria. These bacteria live free floating in the water and multiply very quickly. Water changes have little impact as they reproduce so quickly they soon make up the numbers. The good news is that once they've eaten all their food, they die and the water clears.

Do you have any live plants left? Live plants take up ammonia as fertiliser so if you have removed any/all of them, there might not be enough left to take up all the ammonia made by the fish. Since they take up ammonia faster than the bacteria, these do not grow in the same numbers as with a tank with no live plants so the few that were in the tank need to grow some more, hence the ammonia spike. Keep an eye on that and nitrite as well until the stank settles.

 

[squidneh]

I agree with the others that the initial problem was likely a bacteria bloom after disturbing the gravel at the bottom. In the future, try to deep clean the gravel a bit more regularly to prevent that from happening in the future. There will always be some "gunk" in the gravel, but keeping it to a minimum is best practice. If you have sand, you only have to hoover over the top of it, but with gravel you need to get down in there.

Now that you have changed/washed the filter media so often and also cleaned off all of your ornaments, you're probably experiencing a fish-in cycle, maybe a mini cycle, but a cycle none the less. You'll likely need to do large (75%ish) water changes for a little while until things settle down again. Test the water daily and if you get an ammonia reading, you need to do a large water change.

Adding in some floating plants would help your fish in this scenario. They absorb ammonia from the water column and help keep your water parameters in check. Other live plants, especially stem plants, also help because they get their nutrients out of the water column, but floating plants do this most quickly and will have the biggest impact.

Floating plants can be purchased online if you don't have access to them locally.

 

[ShellBell]

Filter sponges apparently should not be rinsed in clean/fresh water, only in used tank water to remove “gunge”. Rinsing in clean water will wash away beneficial bacteria. Don’t know if that’s causing your problem but it won’t be helping.
I only learnt this on here myself. Apologies if you already know this stuff.

All replies appreciated but I only rinse with tank water, after learning the hard way when we first started up our tank

 

[ShellBell]

I agree with the others that the initial problem was likely a bacteria bloom after disturbing the gravel at the bottom. In the future, try to deep clean the gravel a bit more regularly to prevent that from happening in the future. There will always be some "gunk" in the gravel, but keeping it to a minimum is best practice. If you have sand, you only have to hoover over the top of it, but with gravel you need to get down in there.

Now that you have changed/washed the filter media so often and also cleaned off all of your ornaments, you're probably experiencing a fish-in cycle, maybe a mini cycle, but a cycle none the less. You'll likely need to do large (75%ish) water changes for a little while until things settle down again. Test the water daily and if you get an ammonia reading, you need to do a large water change.

Adding in some floating plants would help your fish in this scenario. They absorb ammonia from the water column and help keep your water parameters in check. Other live plants, especially stem plants, also help because they get their nutrients out of the water column, but floating plants do this most quickly and will have the biggest impact.

Floating plants can be purchased online if you don't have access to them locally.

Thanks, we do have some water lettuce in at the minute but think I might invest in some more live plants as they did keep the tank levels nice

 

[ShellBell]

If you disturbed the substrate removing the plants you could have disturbed a lot of organic sediment which would feed 'bloom' bacteria. These bacteria live free floating in the water and multiply very quickly. Water changes have little impact as they reproduce so quickly they soon make up the numbers. The good news is that once they've eaten all their food, they die and the water clears.

Do you have any live plants left? Live plants take up ammonia as fertiliser so if you have removed any/all of them, there might not be enough left to take up all the ammonia made by the fish. Since they take up ammonia faster than the bacteria, these do not grow in the same numbers as with a tank with no live plants so the few that were in the tank need to grow some more, hence the ammonia spike. Keep an eye on that and nitrite as well until the stank settles.

Thanks, will certainly invest in some more live plants as we only have some water lettuce floating on top and the eldoea was quite large when I originally removed it

 

[ShellBell]

It could just be a bacterial bloom, if your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are good it shouldn't do harm and will clear in time.
But, it can use up O2 in the water, if you have an airstone turn up the flow and direct your filter putlet to disturb the surface as much as possible, both actions increase the surface area for gas exchange.
Large water changes can also be done to help remove the problem.

Thanks, no air stone but I will adjust my water outlet to create more ripples