Cloudy Water

[bally]

hi there

i have had a new tank now for about 3 momths and its all going well. its a juwel 125 lts tanks and its stocked with about 10 fish, all friendly type.

i did a water changed on friday and also changed the white filter substate in the filter box (white wool i think its called) anyway, i noticed on sunday the tank has began to cloud over, liek it did when it was cycling.

Anyway any ideas what this could be, the fish seem happy enough.

thanks

 

[nosoup4you]

You are probably experiencing a bacterial bloom due to replacing your filter media. I very rarely, if ever, change the media in my filters. When you do a water change just take out the cartridge and rinse it vigorously in the removed tank water. Have you tested your water? If not, I suggest you test/have it tested ASAP. In the meantime, I would do another water change and keep a close eye on things (fish behavior, etc.).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can you give us an idea how much of the media you replaced, is it all of it, half of it etc?

you can usually safely replace around one third of the media without encountering any problems.

Do you have a test kit? If so you can easily confirm/deny the suggestion above so can you test your water for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and post teh stats up here?

 

[bally]

hi never replaced the carbon filter nor did i replace the sponges, all i replaced was the white filter material thats sits at the top of the filter box.Its is suppose to be change at least one a month.

so cant see how that will have effected the balance. I did an ammonia test and it was fine,havent done nitrates as yet

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup you're quite right that the floss should be changed regularly, bacteria bloom is the obvious cause of cloudy water, even after a small media change you would get this as some new bacteria needs to grow onto the new media, effectivey any media change will cause a mini cycle, but it might be so small and quick that it's done in an hour or so before you've even noticed it.

as long as ammonia and nitrite are fine then you're OK, I would suggest just giving it a day or so then posting back if it doesn't clear by itself. Juts a tiny mini cycle and bacteria bloom i think.

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, agree with MW, just a small mini-cycle probably and agree that the important thing is that ammonia and nitrite should both stay at zero (nitrate(NO3) not so important.) I'd do morning and evening tests on ammonia and nitrite for the next few days just to be sure.

I think technically that the reason you sometimes see a small bacterial bloom at times like this is because when you do a water change, you stir up the gravel and other places in the tank that can harbor debris and small concentrations of ammonia and nitrate. When this gets stirred up, it serves as food for the heterotrophic bacteria (these are completely different species from the chemolithoautotrophic bacteria that our beneficial bacteria in the filter are) and the heterotrophic ones, which live more in the free water, not on surfaces, will rapidly multiply for a short time while they convert the debris into more ammonia.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bally]

mmm, i did the change on friday, and its still cloudy, would have thought it would have cleared by now. Maybe a water change is required, and i ll see what happens then.


But i was thinking on Saturday i had 2 power cuts, for short period of time, but pump and filter went off. Maybe this has chucked a load of rubbish back into the tank.

 

[waterdrop]

well, still sounds consistent with my guess there, when debris gets stirred up into the free water, whatever the cause, a bacterial bloom (milky white (exactly as small amount of milk in water would look)) may ensue and they last often for several days, usually not hours.

Note that the bloom process I'm talking about here is bacteria working on loose debris, converting it to ammonia, which will not appear in quantities large enough or long enough for your liquid tests to detect usually (our test kits have a lower threshold below which there is ammonia, but they just don't show it (zero is not really zero as it were , which always makes beginners groan!)

Also always good to note that we're at the business here of diagnosing/interpreting "cloudiness" over the internet, using words, which is never the best way to diagnose cloudiness, as of course an experienced aquarist might walk into your home, look at it and laugh and say "oh, that's not a bacterial bloom, that's just..." debris from your filter, or green water or some other such different thing! A lot of it would be in the actual seeing of it.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fishyfreak]

Overfeeding causes cloudy water too. How much are you feeding?

 

[bally]

i m pretty good with the amount i feed them, twice a day and not more than they can eat.

I am pretty convinced that the problem is this "bloom" effect, as this morning a noticed one of my baby mollies (only 1 left now) has gone missing, which seemed to be fit and healthy yesterday, so something in that water is killing them.

I plan to do a 50% water change this evening, and hope this will help, was also considering using some of that Methyl Blue to treat any diease in the water.

What do you reckon?

 

[waterdrop]

OK, several things here. Its not good to treat unless you know very specifically of a particular disease. You don't know that yet so you should hold off on anything like that.

Making larger water changes is the right kind of reaction I think. A bacteria bloom is one of many things that might make one want to do larger and more frequent water changes in case there are excess toxins and we're somehow missing them. Its important to know your source water is good though.

When we see bacterial blooms we don't right away think they are going to kill fish, we worry that maybe we're going to have ammonia or nitrite or nitrate and we keep up our testing for those while also doing water changes.

Many of us go for periods where we only feed our fish ever other day or even every third day. Fish will always act hungry but that doesn't mean the always need to get fed. Very, very light feeding is one of the hallmarks of a healthy aquarium. It takes willpower but it works out much better in the long run.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bally]

hi everyone

okay i took a water sample into the shop today for testing. The results was all good, slight nitrate which i will come to later. The man in the shop has advised me that my local water company tend to add a lot of extra chorline to the water on a friday afternoon, the day i did the change. He advised me water changes should be made on a thursday only when the levels are at the lowest, so i have done a 50% change and its looking clear, so thanks to everyone for the help.

Now to the nitrate, the guy said it was only slightly up and did i have a dead fish in the tank, as i mentioned earlier my mollie had gone missing and i couldnd fine it, now after a huge such still no sign, untill noticed the thing had managed to get wedged right behind my filter box, there is no way for me to get it out as the filter box is stuck on the glass and i dont want to start pulling it to bits.

So new question, can i leave the body in tank just to rot away?

thanks again

 

[waterdrop]

wow, difficult problem. Maybe you -should- start pulling it to bits if its going to keep trapping fish! Not good! Its not good to have anything of significant size rotting in the tank for a long time. Of course maybe you can get creative with ways to get the body out...

 

[bally]

dont understand this, just done the 50% water change, and the waters gone cloudy again, not as bad but on its way, i ll see how its looking tomorrow. I wonder if the rotting body is makign it cloud

 

[nosoup4you]

Could you possibly pull it out with a thin piece of wire or something?