Cloudy Water Problem

[red_wagtail1]

Hi guys, i've got a new tank, about 8 weeks old:

69 litres: (60x36x32 cm)
3 corydoras
1 leopard plec
2 male platys
4 female platys
2 black neon
5 neon tetra
5 glowlights
1 steel blue male fighter

Anyway i've started to have problems with cloudy water lately, i do weekly 20% water changes and i'm always so careful never to overfeed, there is rarely any left over food floating about the tank, please tell me what i'm doing wrong, the fish all seem fine but my aquarium looks awful! i always make sure i give the algae a good scrub, and i regularly check my filter isn't clogged and give it a clean every week and replace one of the pads every ten days, i just don't know what else to try.

also how often is too often for water changes? when i see my tank like this it makes me want to change the water every day!

if anyone can give me any pointers then i'd be really grateful thanks

 

[SJ2K]

Sounds like a bacterial bloom to me (somthing I too suffer from), just keep up with the water changes and it'll clear in time

 

[jennybugs]

The bacterial bloom may be due to overstocking. Going by the 1cm of adult fish length per litre of water you are heavily overstocked, especially for a new tank

Hopefully the water changes will clear it up properly. I'd do daily 10% changes and see if it helps. I wouldn't change the filter pads so often - new tank or old, the sponges can be rinsed out in old tank water each week sufficiently to keep them functioning without compromising the beneficial bacteria in the filter.

Hope you get it sorted.

 

[Spooky76]

Hey - I think as pointed out, too many fish too soon.
Really you have too many fish in it and your filter cant cope. If you getting blooms without doing water changes etc, then your over stocked.
If you can give some of your fish away I would. The plattys might be a good bet, as they will probably breed in the tank and that will cause you problems of its own, as you then have more fish and need to feed them alot and the filter might suck them up etc etc.

 

[ICEEGRL]

Sounds like the bacteria is trying to get built up to handle the load. Sometimes the bacteria will build up so much so fast that it has nowhere to go except floating in the water. That makes it cloudy. It happened in on of my tanks due to overstocking.
If you don't want to or can't get some of the fish out to lower the load... You should atleast try to add another filter with lots of bilogical material in it to help handle it.

Also a very hard lesson I had to learn... There is such a thing as too clean. Try to keep in mind that when you are cleaning... you are also removing bacteria that you need. It was so hard for me to do, but I had to learn to get the nasty stuff so it would look clean but leave it alone if it isn't really dirty.

Does your filter have bio sponges that don't get replaced? (or some kind of bio thing like a wheel or balls or something?)
That is the thing that you should never wash. Just rinse/swish in old tank water when it gets really nasty. If it isn't really nasty or clogged you should leave it alone. It should look dirty. That is your bacteria and what it is feeding on. You also never want to let it get dry or get anything on it that can kill the bacteria.

HTH
Good Luck!

 

[Cazangel]

Also get your Pump and check it is turned up to maximum I had cloudy water a few weeks ago and thought it was a bacteria bloom but the pump had been knocked down to minimum and wasn;t working at full capacity.

 

[Bungy]

If you see the thread posted by SJ2K recently you will see that both he and I are both having the same difficulty with fairly new set-ups - unlike you however we are not over-stocking but you may get some pointers from our recent threads.

Bungy

 

[SJ2K]

Here