Foggy Water....

[Devorax]

Hi people. I have the tank in my siggie and there has been a serious problem with the water of late. It has been running for 2-3 months, but I brought over the matured Eheim 2224. We have had many weeks of perfect water test results, and about a fortnight ago we had a major spike of ammonia, that would read over 1ppm/L 24 hours after an 80% water change. Then it just disappeared as quickly as it started, and now we have the most foggiest water imaginable.
If we look from one end of the tank to the other, we cannot see the other end. The fish/plants just appear as vague shadows. We know this is not a good situation, but nothing seems to be responsible. We have switched the filters off, only for it to cloud, so they went on again, we took out an ornament that was discolouring, and it's still clouding.
Could it be the sand substrate? Is there something that could cause it, like anaerobic bacteria? We did boil the bogwood to oblivion around the same time that this all started, hoping to rid it of tannins (about 7 hours total boil time) only to find out that you can't. Could it be the result of over-killing the bogwood? I'm close to quitting on this big tank now, it's been nothing but hassle since we had it, I was better off with the 2 smaller tanks I had.
Any help, much appreciated.

 

[markandhisfish]

sounds like you could be experiencing a bacterial bloom .

take a read through this and see if it helps .

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=246850

 

[Devorax]

In general though, our bacterial blooms (we have had one in each main tnak we have had) appear very quickly and last a day or 2 and then just vanish of their own accord. This has been going on for almost a fortnight and doesn't get reduced by changing the water. I have also extensively cleaned the glass. As an afterthought, I also change the lighting at around the same time, for AquaGlow tubes. Could they be responsible in some way?

 

[Gilli]

I would cut right back on feeding - even stop for a week, then feed a little and gradually build it up to the norm . Instead of a large weekly water change try doing daily small ones whilst really concerntrating on giving that substrate a really good vac and turn over at the same time Also increase your air flow - and it should start to clear.

 

[Devorax]

I couldn't cut back the food any more without being cruel!!! As it is I feed every other day, sometimes every 3rd day, as I am, trying to get the Black Widows leaner!!! And when I do feed, it does look a lot but it's all cleared in less than 20 minutes!! I turned the sand over yesterday and some bubbles did surface, but nothing to think 'wow'. The sand is practically clean all over, there is none of the waste I'd expect to see, I think they go around clearing it up because they are hungry. None of the plants are dying, in fact they are growing too quickly for my liking, although the vallis does have black hairy algae on it atm which also seems to be going mad.
In terms of aeration, I have an air pump running through a diffuser, and the eheim's outlet causes a bit of surface agitation, and the juwel's filter causes a fountain effect at the surface too.

 

[jonnyf84]

sounds to me like the lighting could be your problem, bacterial blooms can last weeks but more likely is a algae bloom.

is your new lighting considerably higher after changing the bulb?
How old was the old bulb?
The hair algae on the Vallis, did that start to appear soon after the bulb change?
Is your tank in direct sunlight?
Do you use ferts / co2?
Are the fish healthy?

Inspect your tank very closely and tell me if you have any algae elswhere or little green specs on the glass(can be hard to see)

 

[Devorax]

The tubes seem to be a different colour ligh to the old ones, and we have no idea how old the older ones were because this tank was bought second hand. We have no trace of the black hairy algae on any other surface, and we do have green algae in variuos amounts on different surfaces, including the glass. Although, it isn't enough to cause any problems, and the snails and plec keep on top of it pretty well. I don't use any fertiliser of any kind, for this size tank the FloraBoost seems to be too pricy. and seeing as they are doing well, the plants don't seem to need it anyway. The tank has no direct sunlight of any kind.

 

[jonnyf84]

algae is very rarely a problem its just un-sightly, with snails and a plec your algae should be pretty much none existant however few fish eat black hair algae which explains why its growing on your vallis, after a year tubes lose there power very quickly and with the tank been second hand then it could be a few years old so replacing it with a new one drastically increases the amount of light and this could explain your bloom. To be honest i can't say for sure what it is, best guess is all i can give.

Reduce your lighting period straight away,

how long do you have your lights on per day at the moment??

 

[Devorax]

The lighting is on extensively, maybe some 16 hours a day, which is probably too long. The tank details are in my siggie.

 

[jonnyf84]

The lighting is on extensively, maybe some 16 hours a day, which is probably too long. The tank details are in my siggie.

####! halve it at least, light causes more problems than good when on for more than 9 hours a day - this is coming from a aquascaping point of view but essentialy this is what we'r talking about, your plants will suffer from the drastic change and without co2 or ferts they might die but i am now almost sure that this will solve the problem.

i would recommend you reduce to 10 hours today, 8 hours tomorrow and 6 hours each day after that until it has gone.