Cloudy Water Won't Clear Up

[This Old Spouse]

55g tank, and the water's been cloudy for a bit over a week. I did a 50% water change yesterday. Here are the stats today.

pH is 6.4
amm .25
NO2 0
NO3 is >0
pH is 6.4

I know these are off a bit, but I can't figure out why.

 

[karin]

I would try to figure out that ammonia first. Ammonia can lead to cloudy water problems. Have you tested your tap water for ammonia?

Also, what color is the cloudiness.

 

[This Old Spouse]

my tap water does have ammonia ... when I tested a week ago or so it was at about .5 ppm. So how can I take care of that??

There is no background on the tank so I can see straight through to the wall on the other side, and I guess if anything it's a slightly green tinge. It's not terrible, but up until a week or so ago it was crystal clear and I was so proud of that! Gah.

 

[anon02]

You could cut the photo period down to 4-6 hours per day and do a 30% water change every 2nd day till it clears

 

[This Old Spouse]

That's what the photo period is now. But I'll do another water change tomorrow then Friday. But what about the !@#$% ammonia in the tap water??

I have two 10g tanks that are just fine. I'm trying to figure out what the difference is.

 

[karin]

If you have green water, don't expect water changes to clear it. Sometimes it makes it worse, in my experience, and especially if there is ammonia in your tap water. The two things that worked for me are a UV sterilizer (The green killing machine) and SeaChem Purigin a filter medium. Black outs did not work for me.

Ya know, given the tap water ammonia, I wonder if Purigin or Zeolite would be your best bet to keep your ammonia in check. Both are filter mediums that many folks here don't like but I wonder if this would be an exception. The problem, in theory, is that both can stop working suddenly after a month or two or something like that and then you can have an ammonia spike. I've read lots on the Purigin and everyone seems to say they have never seen an ammonia spike. I don't know about Zeolite. Most will say you have to figure out why you have ammonia But, you have a special circumstance with the ammonia in the tap. Just a thought here.

Here is info on the green water. Your problem will be the introduction of ammonia with the water changes. This is from James Planted Tank website

http/www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

Green Water

Description This is a unicellular algae. Water goes cloudy. Sometimes just a green tint, other times it can look like pea soup.
Cause Ammonia is often the main cause green water. There may have been an ammonia spike that isn't detected with test kits. Other possible causes are an imbalance of nutrients and/or low CO2 levels.
Removal Large water changes do not seem to always help. If there is an imbalance in nutrients then fixing it will sometimes make it go away by itself after a while. A three day blackout followed by a large water change will hit it hard and sometimes may clear it. A UV steriliser/clarifier or diatom filter will clear it up very quickly and is often the only way to clear it.
A new method is to use freshly cut 1-2 year old willow branches about 0.5-1cm in width. Place these in your tank vertically so they go from the substrate to a few centimetres above the water's surface. After a few days they will start to grow roots and the green water should start to clear. When cleared remove the branches from the water.
Don't confuse this with a bacterial bloom which gives the water a white haze.

 

[Tizer]

If i found ammonia in my tap water i woul dbe making phone calls very quickly to the water board.

Do you like drinking your own wee? no, i didnt think so, thats what ammonia is. eew

 

[ian]

Ammonia is present in nearly all tap water to some point. This is why we use 'decent' dechlors like Seachem Prime for instance (i have mentioned this to you before), Prime will bind ammonia and turn it into ammonium. Which will still register on an off the shelf test kit anyway.

have a read of this

http/www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/ammonia.pdf

Karin has also given you some good reading there^^

 

[This Old Spouse]

If i found ammonia in my tap water i woul dbe making phone calls very quickly to the water board.

Do you like drinking your own wee? no, i didnt think so, thats what ammonia is. eew

There are lots of reasons to have ammonia in our drinking water, none of which is "wee." Fertilizer, and most likely in my neighborhood, it's used to process metals. We live on the Iron Range of Minnesota, right next to a mine, and I'd imagine that's where it comes from.

I put some Ammo-Chips in my filters, and took another reading today. Looks like it's come down a bit today.

My wonderful husband just retrieved a couple of willow branches and "planted" them in the tank. We'll see what happens!

 

[karin]

OH please let us know if the willow thing works. Will be interesting to hear. Good luck.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I'll be interested myself. It really sounds like an old wives' tale, but if it works TFF will be the first to know about it!

 

[This Old Spouse]

Well, after an unusually busy week, I was able to devote a chunk of time to my tanks today. I stopped putting Melafix in the 20g tank with the black skirted longfin tetras. I did a 50% water change and vacuum and treated the clean water with Stress Coat.

I did a 75% water change with the 55g, trying to clear up the cloudy water. I also treated the water with Stress Coat (can only get Seachem Prime online) and the water is now clear for the first time in more than 2 weeks. I vacuumed behind a big rock that I don't normally do because the corys like to hang out there while I clean, but I thought it was time and boy, oh boy, did I pull up a lot of garbage.

Everyone seems happy and quite a bit more active. I'm thinking I should do a huge water change like this about once a month, and stick with the usual 20% the other weeks.

Just thought some folks might like to know.

 

[elisew]

Glad you`re on your way to getting it all sorted

You`ll probably find that if you`re normally doing only 20% water change per week, the grotty debris is settling and causing your cloudy water over the weeks, a minimum of 30-50% per week is usually recommended and then possibly a 60-70 or even 80 % once every 4 weeks (ish) might help

 

[This Old Spouse]

OH please let us know if the willow thing works. Will be interesting to hear. Good luck.

I did indeed put the willow branches in the water. Two of them, and they have started sprouting roots and leaves. I just did a 90% water change today to help with the still-cloudy water. I don't believe the willow branches are doing anything one way or another with the water quality. But at least now I'll have two new willow trees to plant when the snow melts.

 

[karin]

Bummer. was hoping that would work. The website that I had posted that had the willow suggestion is now down. Go figure. Well it was worth a try. Enjoy your new willows.