Scuzzy looking tank ?

[CRAIGER]

Iam new here at the forums and am looking foward to reading and learning ,but have a problem. I have a 55 gal. tank and have had it for two years so far everything has gone well until now. I have a problem with the water turning rusty /cloudy looking. I did a 50% water change two days ago and the water is again looking really bad. This has been going on now for about a month. all my levels test fine, new filters and it get's plenty of circulation over 1000 gal. a hour, two penguin 400 bio's and 350 powerhead. I have underground filter and was wondering if this could be causing this ( full of crap? ). Also I removed the wheels wondering of this could be a cause, Any help would be very grateful......
Thank you..........

 

[Tubby]

Sounds like an Algae bloom.

I had the same thing happen and it took about 2 weeks to clear up

But mine happened after I had moved the tank and redid everything I did a 25% change every 4 days when it started to get the good bacteria growing again


And I only have undergravel filter but with 1800 gph of power heads

 

[De Plano]

Did you put any wood into the tank?

 

[CRAIGER]

No wood, the onlything that I have done is add a couple of plants, but it wasn't looking real good before that. The plant's are alive and doing fine. I was wondering of I should remove the fish and completely clean the tank, take gravel out bleach it and hose it down and start over. I would of course put the fish in five gallon buckets of water (from the tank) about 20 gal worth. kill all bacteria and start over. SUGGESTIONS ?

 

[BlueAngel]

what kind of fish do you have in your tank.... I had similar problems when I had (all juvies at the time) pacu, oscars, and blue dolphins in my 55. I added another filter and things cleared up very nicely, then I had an unfortunate accident and lost the blue dolphins and the pacu's, and my water has never been yellowish rusty looking since. Man I miss my tanks busters...... Still have the oscars tho, I thought they were the cause of the nasty looking water but I am now guessing it was the pacu.

 

[Inchworm]

... I was wondering of I should remove the fish and completely clean the tank, take gravel out bleach it and hose it down and start over.

Hi CRAIGER

OMG NO!!!!!

The one thing that you should not do is break down your tank and clean it. And unless have a large scale disaster going on -- one that has involved many fish deaths -- never clean a big aquarium or gravel with bleach.

First, since you already have good bacteria in your tank, keep it there. It takes time to cycle a tank and you run a risk of killing your fish in the process.

Second, bleach is hard to get rid of and every trace must be removed if you expect grow bacteria. Except for small accessories ( nets and such ) it's better to avoid it.

There are few problems that cannot be resolved with water changes and careful monitoring of your tank. Just be patient and, if your fish are OK, do not panic over the way it looks.