Question About Tank Odor And White Haze.

[fatheadminnow]

I am asking this question for a friend who has a 10 gallon tank with 1 black moor, 1 gold fish, 1 alge sucker, 50 gallon aquaclear power filter, aeritor, and heater. His tank was doing fine and he wanted to clean the filter since it has been running for almost two months. So he took a pail that had some soap in it and he washed the soap out the best he could, and filled it up a little with old tank water. Then he took the foam insert out of the filter and washed it out in the bucket. Then he put it all back together, and then a day later the tank water had a very weird smell to it, kind of like a very dirty lake, and it was very noticable, and it also had a white haze to the water. What could this be? Was it possible when he washed the the foam out in the bucket that he killed all of the benificial bacteria, and what he has now is a ammonia spike?
Thanks in advance!

 

[OldMan47]

He may have been too thorough and set his bacteria back a bit. If he was thorough enough at rinsing the bucket before he started, he should not have killed it completely. The stocking level in his tank is very high and those fish should be moved to a tank closer to 40 or 50 gallons than to 10. What that means is that the fish are producing enough waste to make the filter's job quite difficult. Do you have any tank water chemistry readings to give us a clue about what is going on?

 

[fatheadminnow]

He may have been too thorough and set his bacteria back a bit. If he was thorough enough at rinsing the bucket before he started, he should not have killed it completely. The stocking level in his tank is very high and those fish should be moved to a tank closer to 40 or 50 gallons than to 10. What that means is that the fish are producing enough waste to make the filter's job quite difficult. Do you have any tank water chemistry readings to give us a clue about what is going on?

Yeah he knows that the tank is too small and is currently in the proccess of buying a 55 gallon tank. Even though the stocking is pretty high and the fish are producing a lot of waste, shouldn't the 50 gallon AQ filter take care of that or not?Thanks for the response. So the haze and odor might be from high levels of ammonia? Sorry, I have no tank readings for his tank.

 

[OldMan47]

Without the water readings it is hard to say what the problem may be. With a large filter, you might be able to process the ammonia and nitrites but the tank's water would still get a large rapid build of nitrates.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Without the water readings it is hard to say what the problem may be. With a large filter, you might be able to process the ammonia and nitrites but the tank's water would still get a large rapid build of nitrates.

That would make sense, that the tank would get a large rapid build of nitrates from using a very high GPH filter on such a small tank. Even though I do not have readings for his tank, would it be okay to say that when he cleaned the filter that he killed off some of the beneficial bacteria, and in conclusion he is experiencing a small ammonia spike? Does ammonia also produce a very weird smell, like a very dirty lake smell, and a white haze? Also, one more thing, how long can the beneficial bacteria live out of water? And when cleaning the filter, should you squeeze the filter in some of the old tank water, or what should be done when cleaning the foam insert?
Thanks
-FHM

 

[bitteraspects]

what other media did he have in the ac50?
if he has biomax pellets or ceramic rings, they would have maintained the beneficial bacteria. however if hes only running the sponge, then he could have easily washed out most of the bacteria.
the ac50 is a bit much for a 10g. i run them on 20g tanks though. an ac30 would have been better imo.

 

[fatheadminnow]

what other media did he have in the ac50?
if he has biomax pellets or ceramic rings, they would have maintained the beneficial bacteria. however if hes only running the sponge, then he could have easily washed out most of the bacteria.
the ac50 is a bit much for a 10g. i run them on 20g tanks though. an ac30 would have been better imo.

The only reason he got the AC50 was because it was really cheap. He has the biomax, carbon, and the spomge insert. So if the biomax maintained the beneficial bacteria level, what would be the cause of the smell and the white haze? Also he said, after he cleaned the filter he got a bigger heater for the tank as well because the one he had before was not keeping the tank warm enough. So I do not know if that has anything to do with it either?
-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

The heater should not be affecting the tank's cycle at all. A cloudy tank from a bacterial bloom is often a result of stirring up the substrate without clearing out the resulting organic material that was exposed on the tank bottom. It is more a technique thing than a lack of proper maintenance. Whatever gets exposed by the gravel vac needs to be removed with the water.
If the sponges, etc. were all cleaned gently by using old tank water, your friend should still have a well functioning filter. I don't know what causes a smell like that because I have seldom been in the position of having an odor that I had to track down in my own tanks. I learn a lot better from my own experiences than by reading. I do get a mild earthy or even lakefront odor sometimes but don't really find it offensive and have never been tempted to try to track it down.

 

[scolby]

Well in the meantime, he should replace/add more carbon to help reduce the ammonia, and carbon is also supposed to reduce odor