Cloudy Water

[jtnova13]

Hey all, im new to the board.

here's my story.

me and my buddy got a 60 gallon tank. We set it up with an aquaclear 110 filter (good up to 110 gallons it says). Filled it up, balanced ph, got rid of chlorine etc etc. Ran the equipment for 4 days. Put 3 fish into it, and the next day it was a little cloudy... i waited 2 more days for the bacteria to catch up in the filter. then added a couple more fish and the water is really cloudy. I tested the water and it was a little hard so i tried to make it softer, no affect on cloudiness. I changed 50% of the water and it is still cloudy. Cleaned all the gravel with a gravel vac when i changed water. I added my old filter with new media to it. Still cloudy.

My water is:
nitrate is between 0-20 ppm, but alot closer to 0 then 20.
nitrite is at 0 ppm
hardness is like 100 ppm
alkalinity is 120 ppm
pH is around 7.2

the fish dont seem to mind, here is a list of fish i have:

1 goldfish (lame but he's been alive for a long time)
2 platties
1 pleco
2 black mollies
1 dragon goby
3 painted glassfish

I dont think i've overstocked and i havent been over feeding. they've been eating all of the food in about 3 minutes.

please help,
Justin

 

[WILDER]

The reason its cloudy is because the tank is cycling, added to many fish to soon, plus shouldn't keep tropical fish with coldwater fish, shouldn't really vac the gravel till the tank has cycled, but you have goldifish.
Don't mess with the water with chemicals leave it alone.

Do you have ammonia test kit.

 

[pokagon55]

Yea take out the gold fish as he likes it better at a cooler temp. 68 to 75. And the others like a much warmer tank. 78 to 82 degrees.
And the Dragon Goby and the Molly's perfer a brackish tank, so I would take them out as well unless you want to keep a brackish tank then take the others out.
I would do some reseach on the fish and the Nitrogen Cycle to help you better understand your tank and then choose on what type of tank that you want to keep.

 

[IceH2O]

The cloudiness is probably from high ammonia. Get a test for it and let us know the results. Once the ammonia starts to drop the nitrites are going to shoot through the roof. Nitrites are even more toxic than ammonia. Nitrite posioning results in blood not being able to hold O2 suffocating the fish.

You're going to have to do daily pwc to keep ammonia below 1 and nitrites below .5

Don't worry about water hardness or pH. The fish will adapt to it. Better to have a pH that is to high or to low than one that fluctuates due to adding chemicals.

If you had added the old filter with the old media you could have instant cycled. but since you didn't all the bacteria will have to grow again.

 

[jtnova13]

ok so the cloudiness should go away as soon as the tank cycles? how long do you think it will take to cycle?

 

[jayjay]

you need to be doing daily water changes for probably going on for over a month since you have fish in the tank when it's not cycled and what are you going to do with the goldfish and the mollies and the dragon gobby. taking fish outwill help your cycling process and you need to take the fish i just mentioned out really.

 

[jwddboy]

how long do you think it will take to cycle?

4-6 weeks unless you seed the tank with bacteria from another tank. You can seed it by taking some well established filter media from your LFS or a friend and put it in your filter. This can reduce the time to down to even a week.

 

[bobbicus]

time can vary with cycling a tank - depends upon fish load, frequency and amount of water changes, temperature etc

mine is nearly complete (after 24 days) using fish - i sorta followed this but every tank is different

but.....DONT RUSH IT!!

http/www.bestfish.com/newtank3.html

gives you sort of an idea what happens in the cycle

there are products out there theat "contain" the necessary bacteria needed - but there is no poll or article relating to their effectiveness//efficiency - there is 1 that is raved about on another forum called bio-spira

but to be honest i think at first we try to run before we can crawl!!!! and probably muck things up in the initial stages

 

[jtnova13]

yah i probably rushed... so much stuff you have to learn for this hobby. I've been doing about 10 gallon water changes everyday. it seems to be getting a little less cloudy, but its only been like 3 weeks. Im getting a 20 gallon tank to make brackish to take out the goby and the 2 mollies since i already have them. The goldfish, i'll prolly just chuck into my 10 gallon tank i use for feeder fish.

I will do that ASAP, but that involves cycling another tank! and to think, i wanted to do saltwater

 

[jtnova13]

also, when my tank finally cycles, will i have too high nitrites? how do i combat this? just do PWC's?

 

[jayjay]

well you'll have high nitrAtes not nitrItes and they are kept down by live plant and water changes.

 

[jtnova13]

ok, thanks alot guys, you've been alot of help!