misty water

[chishnfips]

Hi there, can anyone help with a wee problem, I have a ten gallon tank with as flugal 2 pump and filter, but after a water change and a day or two to let the water settle my tank was still misty, so I did a 50% water change and the water still looks really misty, my pump is working and I have cleaned the filter plenty of times. does anyone know what the problem might be. Could it be the PH levels or something?

 

[raindream]

I am also a newbie to keeping fish, I also have a ten gallon tank. When I first set up my tank it became like you are saying, kinda misty/whitish...some people suggested I had fungus and other said I had Extremely high Alkaline....so I emtyped my tank bleached my rocks and gravel, left in the sun for a week then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more, then to make sure I boiled every thing for a good half an hour, I then went out and purchased a ph testing kit, and also changed my filter from an under gravel set up to a sponge set up, everything is happy now, my water is clear, m y ph readings are ok....I now have fish living in the tank and a couple of plants to....so I am not sure if it was a fungus or the ph.....sorry I can't answer your question I just thought I would share what happened with my tank. Good luck with fixing your problem.

 

[_]im]

I encountered the same problem when I set up my 10g tank. I purchased some natural plants first without buying anything to treat the water and that cleared it up, I figure its an alternative to spending a lot of money right off and you have some scenery to start your tank with.
I still have had my tank for almost a week now with fish and no ammonia peak, it's strange. I put some objects in from an established tank and the plant a few days ago, but still I should be expecting ammonia jumps, any ideas anyone?

 

[chew-able]

Firstly the cloudy water......

Cloudy water can occur even in a tank that appears to have been running smoothly for a while. The most comman cause is over feeding. Try cutting down on the ammount you feed your fish. The "only feed as much as they can eat in a couple of mins" rule is ok as a guide but I have some seriously messy eaters in one of my tanks and thus alot of food ends up on the bottom. If your fish are very messy you need to feed only enough that they are still hungry enough to find and eat what they let fall to the bottom.

Other causes can be things like high phosphate in your tap water but try the feeding thing first. whatever you do don't expect it to just dissapear over night. It will take atleast a week. During this time don't bother doing extra water changes unless it becomes so cloudy you think it might be effecting the fish. If you still have no luck after this take a smaple of your tank water and a sample of your tap water to your local fish shop (lfs), tell them your problem and ask them to test it for you. Most lfs do these tests for free.

Now for the absent ammonia peak......

The reason you have had no ammonia spike is because you have no source of ammonia. the nitrogen cycle goes like this:

(Fish waist) Ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate (plants use this and turn it into nitrogen gass that escapes)

Because you have no fish in the tank you have no source of Ammonia to start this cyclye off. Your plants unless they are rotting are providing no ammonia at all. you can cycle your tank in two ways. You can by ammonia to do a fishless cycle or you can add a hardy fish and let him do the job. Either way you should quickly see and ammonia spike. Then testing the nitrite will show a nitrite spike which will drop off. Once this has dropped off you will have completed the cycle. The plants will not remove all the nitrate so water changes remove the rest.

When you add more fish......the level of ammonia being produced will increase and thus your tank goes through the cycling phase again until more bacteria have developed to cope with the increase.



Hope this helps you both!!!!!

Chew

 

[Phantom Thief]

If it's new, the most probable cause is bacterial bloom.

P.T.

 

[_]im]

The thing is I do have a few hardy fish in the tank 4 to be exact, this is why I'm not sure of the ammonia peak, it should have occured by now, being a week and all, perhaps my tester is broken? The fish seem to be doing fine not swimming at the top of the tank, which is what I think is one of the signs of higher ammonia levels.