Cloudy Water!

[denis coghlan]

There is something new everyday!! and its not always necessarily good.

Last week I did a complete strip down of one of my cold water tanks. This involved removed all of the wood and stone from the tank and giving them all a decent scrubbing to remove the excess build up of old algae and to promote a certain amount of new algae growth for my hillstream loaches to brows through. It also involved a vigorous gravel vac!!

In most situation the water remains cloudy for the best part of a day following a large operation such as this and then the suspended particles settle and the water turns clear. This has not been the case this time!!

The water was cloudy after cleaning the tank and it has remained cloudy to date. In my opinion I think it must be some sort of suspended algae bloom as the water seems to be cloudier at the end of the day in comparison to when the light first turns on in the morning. Thus it must be some sort of "light induced cloudiness".

What is the solution to rid me of this problem? If it is a phototrophic problem should I just plunge the tank into darkness for a couple of days to kill off the algae?


The water stats in the tank are fine

ammonia = 0
nitrite = 0
nitrate = hardily registers
pH = 7.5


Comments and suggestions are most welcome.

 

[black angel]

Im not that great when it comes to thinks algae. Have you tested your phosphate levels? I hope someone can help.
Ive just been looking at your slide show and the fish you have marked as a fantail is a ranchu

 

[denis coghlan]

Hey black angel

Yeah I've been meaning to change that mistake for a while now. I agree that it is truly more like a ranchu than a fantail. But it must be a very poor quality ranchu as it still has a small part of its dorsal fin remaining, the scaling does not look typical of the ranchu variety and there is no extra growth around its head. Is this typical of poor quality ranchu?, because when I google ranchu all of the images shown are of fish with lots of head growth, a very fat/round abdomen and a very down-turned tail. Traits which my fish is lacking or not as developed!!

Maybe these traits come with time, but I have had the fish for nearly three years and he has remained the same shape but has grown much bigger in size?

 

[black angel]

Ive seen Ranchu with and without headgrowth but will ask around for a definition of what it should have on the head area.
As for the dorsal bump, most breeders would cull a fish if it showed that so it got past the breeder. Its still a nice fish though, even if its not the top standard.