Why Cloudy? No Cycling, No Nothing!

[aquaidoka]

Dear all, can we please have a fresh insight in the problem I put here before?

My aquarium is cloudy for about 1 month already. Test results are:

(1) Ammonia and (2) nitrite tests are 0 ppm, so there is no cycling.
(3) Nitrate and (4) phosphate tests are 0 ppm or very close to it (significantly less than 5 ppm for nitrate and 0.25 ppm for phosphate) -- so if it is an alga bloom, what do algae consume?
(5) pH 7.2
(6) KH 4 deg (raised from 2 deg by baking soda)
(7) GH 4 deg
(8) CO2 calculated to be 7-8 ppm (a bit low from DIY contraption - have to improve it a bit)

Used tap water contains no phosphates, has KH 2, and GH 3

To avoid questions about the validity of the tests, I would dare to assert humbly that I am a professional chemist for twenty years and calibrated everything in used standard aquarium liquid tests (all tests are from API except for phosphate, which is Nutrafin).

I have 29 Gal aquairium for about three month stocked by young fish all near or below 2 inches (2 pearl gouramis, 3 neon tetra, 2 black skirth tetra, 2 guppies, 1 swordtail, 2 otos, 1 false SAE, 2 dalmatian mollies). Aquairium is moderately planted, lit with 65+18 W lamps for 8-10 hours per day, aerated when lights are off, yeast-CO2-purged with lights on, filtered by AquateTech 20-40 with biosupport as Bio Modules from Imaging, mechanical and activated carbon filter, and yesterday put their phosphate cleaning filter (to compete with algae if they consume all appearing phosphates). Fish is fed one time per two days with amount they can eat in 2-3 minutes. Fish behavior is calm with no signs of stress.

Why my aquarium is cloudy?!

The image of my aquairium today follows (not a high quality but this one is most close to the reality):

 

[Wills]

That looks like floating algae to me, you can buy a few products for it called things like green away and stuff. I had it in a similar situation a few years ago and I used the interpet one with decent success it clogs it all together and it gets sucked in the filter or just floats which you can remove.

The other option could be to buy a UV sterilizer which would also clear it of being cloudy?

Wills

 

[aquaidoka]

Thanks, Wills! Yes, I tried it one time, but cloudiness compltely restored in two days. I would really want to understand the cause of this bloom before fighting the consequence... Can it be some fungi? Because it is so strange that this substance lives without phosphates.

 

[three-fingers]

You have a planted tank. Planted tanks shouldn't be cycled, as it often doesn't happen, read here : http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/299827-why-we-should-not-fishless-cycle-planted-tanks/

Big mistake with the phosphate remover, no doubt your local pet store have given you bad advice, not your fault.

Your plants need phosphate to grow just as much as the algae does, removing it will only hamper plant growth and thus often boost algal growth. This is because generally algae fare better than plants when nutrients are short in supply.

Read here on getting rid of green water: http/www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

Green water is common in uncycled planted tanks where there isn't enough plants from the start, the plants aren't getting enough nutrients (be that CO2, one of NPK or trace elements) or the plants are getting too much light (which leads to them growing too fast and using up the nutrients too fast). In your case I would say CO2 is possibly an issue, you have a fair amount of light and only a small yeast-based CO2 kit. Reducing the light or upping the CO2 and nutrients would be the way to solve this. Ideally you want pressurised CO2.

Also, depending on how much water your filter pumps, you may not have enough circulation for the plants, an additional powerhead/pump would probably help the plants, though probably wouldn't solve the problem on its own. In total you should aim for more than 10x the tanks volume to be filtered per hour, so you would need a pump that does at least 29 gallons an hour (or another pump to make it up to that).

 

[aquaidoka]

Thanks, three-fingers! Your reply provided me with a new level of understanding (and I've read quite a bit during the last month). So there can be no usual cycle in the planted tank at all - that explains a lot! I have removed that phosphate remover - put it being type of desperate despite of the fact that there are no phosphates ("to compete" as I wrote in my first message).

My pump gives 160 gph, and it should be 290 gph, right? Also I will remake for starts my CO2 reactor to one with power head with maximum dissolution. If it won't provide some 20 ppm of CO2 -- I will think what to do. For a while I'll reduce the light to 65 W / 8 hours a day.

 

[drobbyb]

That's green water. It is caused by the presence of ammonia (even trace amounts that are too low to be detected by our test kits) and light. Luckily it is not too difficult to treat, I recommend the blackout method. What you do is perform an 80% or larger water change, leave the lights off and cover the tank completely so that no light gets in for 3 days. At the end of the 3 days, perform another 80% or larger water change. In most cases this clears the algae from the water, but if the primary problem is not taken care of it will keep coming back.

If it keeps returning the best bet is to use a UV sterilizer. This will kill the algae as it flows through the sterilizer.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I agree with Robby and three-fingers - three-fingers has a very nice paragraph there, the one beginning with "Green water" - You are very much in the range he describes, I feel, in that you are shining (83 watts?) on to a 29G tank (that's 2.8, almost 3 watts/gallon, which is huge!) that doesn't have pressurized CO2. I don't think I've ever heard of a non-pressurized setup that could handle 3w/g without algae taking over, but maybe I'm wrong and it could be done if more heavily planted. I think at this moderate planting level with limited CO2 and being driven hard with a lot of light, and then the excess ammonia always present during cycling, the green water is not surprising. The James algae page is one of our best algae resources, so you're being pointed in the right direction there.

WD

 

[OldMan47]

You have a nice green water algae culture going there Aquaidoka. It is the result of some green water algae being present and the tank then receiving enough light to promote its growth. If your tank is not getting any natural sunlight, it means your lights are on too long each day. I have tried, on numerous occasions, to grow the stuff and always failed when working indoors. If I set a small sample out in a pond, it will turn the entire pond a dark green that keeps me from seeing my hand when it is 4 inches under water. It takes almost 2 weeks for it to grow that much algae even with some sunlight. I feel strongly that light is the key to controlling green water algae. The algae is no problem for your fish, they really do not care about it, but it can be unsightly. If you want a beneficial use of the algae you might try something that recycles the energy the algae can provide. Just set up a breeder trap, like some livebearer breeders use, in the tank. Then drop a culture of daphnia into the breeder trap. The trap will give the daphnia some cover but some will end up swimming into the main part of the tank and will be eaten. With that much green water, you should be able to feed your fish almost nothing but the daphnia for at least 2 weeks. The daphnia reproduction rate is incredible with a new drop of fry every 3 or 4 days starting at an age of not much more than that. That means that a single surviving daphnia, hermaphroditic, can produce about 20 new daphnia in just a few days and all of those 20 daphnia can each produce another 20 in the next few days (total is now around 4000). If you do the maths, you will arrive at millions of daphnia in a very short time. It is just the way exponential expansions work. The thousands at the end of the first week should be enough to see a significant reduction in the green water they are using as food. That means you will quickly end up where I was, wishing you could grow the green water faster to feed your daphnia.

 

[drobbyb]

Now, I like that idea OM. The health benefits of feeding live food is well known, and using this resource like that only makes sense.

 

[aquaidoka]

Thanks, three-fingers, drobbyb, waterdrop, and OldMan47! At this moment I went to the use of 65 Watt lamp (2.2 W/gal) only, which is turned on strictly for 8 hours/day. I put 9W AA UV sterilizer inside, and yesterday designed much more efficient and more usual DIY CO2 diffuser on the powerhead of that sterilizer (all bubbles there are dissolved completely and don't leave the diffuser in gaseous state). I test it now and will have CO2 concentration in the evening today:

My old CO2 diffuser used four known methods of CO2 dissolution but did not allow to dissolve everything (probably it dissolved less than a half of added CO2). It was described in details in another thread. I removed it:

UV sterilizer works for 1.5 days now, and gw seems to disappear steadily.

OldMan47, your suggestion about using the daphnia is very elegant one. Thank you! I will remember it and try to use it in the future.

 

[drobbyb]

Make sure you are keeping a watch on your ammonia. UV sterilizers are great at what they do, but they treat the symptoms and not the cause. If the algae isn't using the ammonia anymore as a nitrogen source, the ammonia that the algae would have used suddenly doesn't have anything to keep it in check. This can result in elevated ammonia levels.

 

[BigIan]

If i may chip in my 2 pence worth.
Just you have a tank with plants in does not mean you need co2. I have run high tec planted tanks with co2 daily dosing of N,P,K and trace, and i have had tanks with none of this and a plain sand substrate. and my plants have flourished.
My advice would be to ditch the co2 kit and turn the lighting down to 6 hrs a day.

 

[aquaidoka]

Thanks, drobbyb! I'll keep an eye on ammonia levels. I hope that everything will stabilize with time, and I won't need UV sterilization (I read that it happens often). My CO2 level tested now is 8 ppm. Still low - probably will add one more bottle with yeast and sugar.

Thank you for your advice, BigIan!

 

[waterdrop]

(sh!sh! BigIan we are trying to keep our entertainment alive watching these wonderful contraptions he is building!)

A-doke, the statistics are that most people eventually give up on DIY CO2 and move to either pressurized or liquid-C approaches. Its mostly out of eventual exhaustion if you read the cases. Now the very fact that you have the interest and energy to make these devices marks you as highly unusual and it could very well be that you might be the type to methodically maintain your yeast bottles properly and not grow tired of that, so you could be among the small percentage that get on ok with it!

On the other hand, it may show that you have enough interest that you will eventually desire the move on to pressurized with the attendant greater CO2 level capabilities. Or you might even eventually try out the Walstad method or who knows?

Its my personal feeling that every period where one has a willingness to do hands-on is a period of more intense learning. I think we internalize the lessons better with touch and doing, regardless of how good our intellectual research is. Whatever period your DIY is will probably do you in good stead.

WD

 

[aquaidoka]

Oh, yeah? So now I am an entertainer! Ok, I can live with that since my aquarium is clarifying!

Thanks for your kind words and friendly support with a hint of professional phsycoanalysis , WD! Those are such a rarity these days. I am not sure that I'll prepare for my aquarium many more DIY doodads soon, but who knows . Also, I'll try remembering to find out what the "Walstad method" is.

Well all analyses are acceptable now (except for a bit low CO2), and thanks to all given above advices the water clarification is in steady progress.