Cloudy Water

[GuppieMike]

Hi, first off I want to apologise if this is in the wrong place.

I've had my tank set up for about a month now maybe a little longer, I started it how I was meant to leave it for a few days, get the water tested then add fish gradually which I did. Now I did a 25% water change every week but with the water going cloudy I've done it more often. The water seems fine after I do the change but the next day its cloudy again. I'm not sure what else to do.

I have a 28ltr tank with four balloon mollies, 6 Guppie, 1 Catfish, 2 shrimp and a assassin snail, which the man in the pet shop said would be ok, as the shrimp and snail don't count towards the waste production.

If anyone could help that would be great.

 

[the_lock_man]

Interesting one. A lot of tanks go cloudy when they are first set up, it's a bacterial bloom, but usually it goes away on its own after a few days. It would be very interesting to see what your ammonia and nitrite readings are like. You have a very high bioload in your tank, mollies and guppies are too big for a 28l tank, and I can only think of 3 catfish species which would be suitable - and all of those need to be kept in a group of 6, where 6 of them would be too many for a 28l tank.
 
Without knowing your ammonia and nitrite levels, it's very hard to give you further advice, but that level of fish in such a new tank, it's likely that ammonia is very very high. As a precaution, I would suggest that you do your 25% water changes daily. It may well be that you need to do at least double that daily.
 
Do you have a liquid test kit?

 

[Akasha72]

agreeing with the_lock_man. It's a bacterial bloom and is normal in new set ups. Water changes will help to clear it. I'd also agree that that tank is too small for that amount of fish and yes, you'd need to check your water stats too. A drip test kit is the best - strip tests are very inaccurate.
 
I see you are in the U.K so you can get your water tested for free at any pets@home store. They use the API kit in my store so I'm presuming all their stores use the same kit. You'll need to take at least 25-30ml of tank water in a clean, sterilized container and ask a member of staff to test for all parameters. 
 
Once we know what you are dealing with we can help you better

 

[GuppieMike]

Thanks for the replies, I was thinking I may have too many fish in there, however it was a guy from pets at home who tested my water before any fish were put it, he also said it would be ok to have that many fish in there.

I will start doing a daily water change, I am looking to upgrade to a larger tank.

 

[the_lock_man]

The guy at Pets At Home was right about the water being fine. There was nothing wrong with the water - fish poison themselves. They produce the ammonia which then poisons them. Until there are fish in the water, there is nothing to make the water anything other than perfect.
 
However, he was very very wrong about the stocking level. The sooner you can upgrade, the better, and the bigger, the better.
 
In the meantime, you really need to get your own test kit. The majority of people on this forum use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. You can get this from P@H, but it's much cheaper if you get it off Amazon or Ebay.
 
Then, at the top of this forum section, there's a couple of pinned posts called Rescuing A Fish In Cycle Gone Wild Parts I & II, read them both, it's got a high level of detail about what is probably happening in your tank, and how you can get over it. You need current test results to help you decide how best to proceed, which is why it's miles better to have your own kit.
 
Any questions, post 'em up below, and we'll do everything we can to sort you out.

 

[GuppieMike]

I will go and buy a water testing kit asap, I should have gone with my gut instinct and thought that it would of been too many fish.

Now I worry that they will be dead one morning when I wake up, as when I put the light on in the morning they all at the top which now I presume is them trying to get oxygen.

I know you say bigger the better for a tank but what would a safe size be, as I'm limited on funds right now.

I read the boards for where people are selling, However are we able to post wanted ads?

 

[Akasha72]

if they have their noses to the surface this is a sure sign of ammonia within the tank. As you don't have a kit just yet to tell us if you do have ammonia and at what level we'll assume it's pretty high and I'd recommend doing a large water change. Long term exposure to ammonia and/or nitrite will kill your fish as worst - make them very ill at best.
 
I'd recommend doing more than half - around 75% fresh, temp matched, dechlorinated water for now until we know where the ammonia is at.
 
I hope the staff at P@H made you aware of adding dechlorinator to the fresh water?

 

[GuppieMike]

I cant recall them mentioning anything like that at pets at home. I was told about tap safe that's about it.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

My guess here is that you may have more issues with nitrite than ammonia. This is based on the timetable involved with cycling and the fact that 3 to 4 weeks in one's tank should have developed sufficient bacteria to handle ammonia and the cycle is then in the nitrite phase. The only way to know where things stand is to have the test kits for both ammonia and nitrite on hand and to be tracking them both daily.
 
When ammonia reaches problem levels there are few options. Using and ammonia detoxifier and or doing water changes are the two basic chopices. However, both will slow a cycle and detoxifiers can also make it hard to get accurate ammonia readings. As a result, I tend to prefer water changes. However, I am not a proponent of automatically performing large water changes in cycling tanks at any level of ammonia. It is a bit more involved than that. On the other hand, one can deal with nitrite without having to do water changes in most cases.
 
I would suggest you have a read here to get a better understanding of these things: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/433778-rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il/

 

[the_lock_man]

if they have their noses to the surface this is a sure sign of ammonia within the tank.

It is also a sign of nitrite - both deny the fish oxygen, just in different ways.

 

[Akasha72]

okay - Dechlorinator  explained for you.
 
We always use a dechlorinator as tap water nearly always has heavy metals and other chemicals in it that will destroy the good bacteria within your filter  (the bacteria deals with ammonia and nitrite converting it to the safer Nitrate - Nitrate at low levels is harmless to fish and is used up to some degree by natural plants. This is what we call cycling)
 
There are various dechlorinators on the market and all do pretty much the same thing - make your tap water safe for fish and filter bacteria. I use Interpet Tapsafe (available at P@H for less than £4) API do one called StressCoat but there are loads of others on the market - I can't remember all the names off the top of my head.
If you are using buckets to water change then add a bit to each bucket before adding it to the tank - it's fairly instantainious so no need to wait for it to work - unless it says to on the bottle. 
If you are using a hosepipe to refill the tank and adding the dechlorinator to the tank remember to add enough for the Whole Tank - not just for the amount changed.
 
All the different dechlorinators will give you a guide on the bottle on how much to use for litres changed - I always over dose slightly and have never had a problem doing this. It's often difficult to gauge anyway.
 
I hope that's explained it for you

 

if they have their noses to the surface this is a sure sign of ammonia within the tank.

It is also a sign of nitrite - both deny the fish oxygen, just in different ways.
 

 
I was always taught it was just ammonia but thanks for correcting my mistake

 

[Byron]

I concur with the advice already given.  I am rather intrigued that all these fish have been in this tank for close to a month without something occurring before now.  Mollies are highly sensitive to ammonia at the lowest levels.  And speaking of mollies, please see if the store will take all four back; as has been said, this tank is much too small for mollies.  Removing them before they succumb will not only save them (hopefully) but make the establishment of the tank's biological system much easier.
 
And yes, Akasha, just about any issue with the water will cause fish to hover at the surface, usually as a first step, then followed by gasping, lethargy, floating/sinking, and death.  Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate [at elevated levels for each, depending], chlorine, CO2, too low pH or a sudden change, insufficient water movement/low oxygen, many medications, water additives like clarifiers, etc, and many types of disease that affect the gills...one reason why a single symptom may not tell all.
 
Byron.

 

[GuppieMike]

Thanks for all the info its very helpful, I'm picking an 120ltr tank up later, would that size be ok? How many fish would be a safe amount be in a tank of that size.

 

[Akasha72]

120 litre is fine for the guppies and the mollies but we are yet to assertain what type of catfish you have. Depending on what type it is it may not be large enough. For instance...
 
A common pleco can grow to around 2ft in length and will need a tank of 6ft plus
 
An ancistrus catfish - which looks similar to a common plec when young - doesn't grow any larger than 6 inches and so the 120 litre is fine.
 
There are so many fish that can fall into the catagory of 'catfish' and so we really need to know what type you have. Can you photograph him or give us a description at the very least

 

[the_lock_man]

okay - Dechlorinator  explained for you.
 
We always use a dechlorinator as tap water nearly always has heavy metals and other chemicals in it that will destroy the good bacteria within your filter  (the bacteria deals with ammonia and nitrite converting it to the safer Nitrate - Nitrate at low levels is harmless to fish and is used up to some degree by natural plants. This is what we call cycling)
 
There are various dechlorinators on the market and all do pretty much the same thing - make your tap water safe for fish and filter bacteria. I use Interpet Tapsafe (available at P@H for less than £4) API do one called StressCoat but there are loads of others on the market - I can't remember all the names off the top of my head.
If you are using buckets to water change then add a bit to each bucket before adding it to the tank - it's fairly instantainious so no need to wait for it to work - unless it says to on the bottle. 
If you are using a hosepipe to refill the tank and adding the dechlorinator to the tank remember to add enough for the Whole Tank - not just for the amount changed.
 
All the different dechlorinators will give you a guide on the bottle on how much to use for litres changed - I always over dose slightly and have never had a problem doing this. It's often difficult to gauge anyway.
 
I hope that's explained it for you

 


if they have their noses to the surface this is a sure sign of ammonia within the tank.

It is also a sign of nitrite - both deny the fish oxygen, just in different ways.
 

 
I was always taught it was just ammonia but thanks for correcting my mistake

 
No problem.
 
Ammonia, as you will know, but the OP may not, burns the gills, and makes them far less efficient at drawing oxygen from the water into the bloodstream. Nitrite, on the other hand, enters the bloodstream in the same way as oxygen, and attaches itself to the haemoglobin, and thus prevents the oxygen molecules from doing the same thing.
 
Either way, the fish has less oxygen in its bloodstream, thus it gasps at the surface.