Is this normal?

[Danny Boy]

It definitely seems that my lightly planted tank is cloudy, compared to the crystal clear water I had when I first put the water in and let it settle.

I'm now in to the second week of my fish cycle adding ammonia and testing every day, and wasn't planning on doing any kind of water change or getting the gravel cleaner out until the day before I was going to put fish in.

Should I rethink this plan?

 

[Vivienne]

I recently started a fishless cycle in a lightly planted tank and managed to destroy all the plants within about 4 days. From about day 2 I noticed the water became cloudier and took on a slightly musty odour. Slowly but surely the leaves of all the plants gradually turned darker and started to rot. At first I thought it was because the temperature of the tank had crept up too high - that I'd cooked the plants. However, discussions on the forum suggested that the problems may have been the high ph > 9.5 (caused directly by adding the high quantity of ammonia needed for the fishless cycle).

Having taken all the rotting plant material out (no plants left at all now) and done a water change, all the cloudiness in the water has gone. I haven't been able to find much info on doing fishless cycles with lightly planted tanks. Only info I managed to find when trawling was that if you plant a tank heavily you can put fish in straight away, since the plants help avoid problems and, that when fishless cycling, adding live plants is a good way of introducing some of the bacteria to speed up the cycle. No ention of the affect very high ammonia has on the plants themselves.

Sooo, after all my rambling. What state are your plants in ? Mine started to show signs of decay within a couple of days and I'm sure that was what caused my cloudy water. As to why they started to decay, I'm still not absolutely certain

 

[Danny Boy]

Interesting, the plants look healthy, doing very well in fact.

My pH is fluctuating between 7.8 and 8.

 

[rdd1952]

Are you adding more ammonia every day? If so, that is probably the problem. Only add ammonia at the start to get a level of about 5 or 6 ppm. Wait till it drops to zero before adding any more and then add to raise it to about 1 or 2 ppm and continue that everytime it drops back. If you add ammonia every day before the ammonia spike ends, it will take forever for the tank to cycle.

 

[jackobean]

hi,

i had the same problem with my tank so i bought some filter aid madee by interpet aquarium treatments the results i had was crystol clear