Cloudy water

[chemflex]

No an emergency, just a query. My water appears to have a slight cloudiness to it. All my water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, pH and nitrate) are all perfect. No fish are ill or have died, any ideas?

 

[heresmike]

How long have your tanks been running? Are the tank sizes litres? They seem a bit overstocked to me.

 

[Dragonslair]

I would probably agree with heresmike,all three tank seemed a little overstocked. However if the problem has just suddenly appeared look out for dead or decaying organic matter including fish. does the tank smell fishy? (It shouldn't) It sound as though there is a sudden bacterial bloom.

 

[Spat_si]

Yep they seem overstocked.

 

[lou_zerr]

Those tanks are WAY overstocked! Even if those were gallons instead of litres, they'd still be overstocked.

 

[chemflex]

It's the 180L tank. It may weem overstocked, but it has been running for 14 months and as I said before, I have had no fish death and the fish aren't showing any signs of illness or disease. I thought it was a bacterial bloom myself, but all of my test readings are spot on!!

 

[Dragonslair]

If it seems that it may be sediment suspension, you could try polishing the water.
You can do this by adding some Accruel solution into the tank and replacing some fine filter floss inside your filter. What will happen is the minute sediments will clump up together sink to the bottom to be swept up by the filter. Then before the water is returned into the tank it is polished by the fine floss. The floss acts like a fine filter blocking out any sediments leaving the returned water crystal clear.

 

[chemflex]

Thanks, but it's a Juwel tank so already has a fine polyester pad in the filter.

 

[lou_zerr]

Have you ever heard of the 1 inch per gallon rule? Which really only applies to small fish (3" and under) ... the larger the fish I think the rule is more like 1 inch per 5 gallons. You have some potentially LARGE fish there, dude. That gibbi plec could get to 12", the silver shark 14", the elephant noses 9", the clown loaches 6".

I did the math on your 180L .... using the 1" per gallon rule you have nearly 5 inches of fish per gallon!! Keep in mind that the 1" per gallon rule is way too conservative for larger fish, which you have a large percentage of. Not only that, the plecos are poop machines . This just might be why your water is cloudy. Your tank is way way way overstocked.

I recommend splitting the inhabitants of your 180L into at least 4 other 180L, or the equivalent thereof. That will still result in 5 overstocked tanks as you've got some big fish there.

 

[lou_zerr]

The other thing about angelfish ... rule of thumb is a minimum of 1 angel per 10 gallons.

 

[Dragonslair]

I'm not knocking your filter, but all too often the juwel filter are not powerful enough to suck in the debris and if that is your only means of filtration in your overloaded tank, may I suggest you add an additional filter, you'll find the benefits outweigh the cost.
I have a juwel tank(their largest) and I need to supplement the filtration with 2 external canister filters, and I don't have such an overstocked tank. It's just that my fish are messy eaters!

 

[heresmike]

Totally agree with Lou, but I think he underestimated the potential size of clown loaches. I've heard they can get well over 12".