I was hoping to get some help here for a disaster that is going on in my tank right now. I have a 150 gallon tank that prior to a few days ago was pristine. I did a water change on Sunday and fed the fish in the evening which I admittedly probable fed them a little too much. The next morning the tank was a little hazy so I skipped the feeding for the day. On Tuesday I did a 50% water change and fed them a much smaller amount then normal. On Wednesday the tank was looking worse so I did another another water change in the after noon, when doing this I went pretty low on the tank and my filter stopped. I primed up the filter by running the water through it and proceeded to fill the tank through the filter (eheim 2260). I fed the fish a very small amount again and the tank was looking worse. I tested the water and got 0 nitrites but ammonia was off the charts. I have been adding prime in with the water changes so I am fairly confident that it is now ammonium especially since my sticky seachem testing tag is only reading a small amount of ammonia present. I did another 50% water change in the evening and when I woke up this morning and I can't hardly see into the tank at all. I still have not lost any fish but I am getting really scared at this point. Please help with some ideas on what would be the best way to fix this. I have the eheim filter along with an Aquaclear 110 HOB. The eheim was last cleaned around 3-4 months and can probably use a cleaning but I am nervous about doing so since I think it may make my problem worse by getting rid of beneficial bacteria. The aquaclear is only a month old. Any tips to help get rid of this would be greatly appreciated. It is a dense white cloud if that helps as well which would lead me to believe I have a bacterial bloom.
Tank is super cloudy, HELP!!!!!
- Thread starter kfiggy
- Start date
You are going through a cycle. I would do a daily 20% waterchange with prime to neutralize the ammonia until things are back to normal.
I had a similar problem, except all my "normal" water parameters were perfect. I had no ammonia, nitrites or nitrates and my ph was stable but my water was cloudy. I started doing frequent water changes trying to clear things up but it only made it worse. In my case the issue was phosphorous. Our water has a lot of dissolved phosphorous in it and that's what caused the cloudiness in my tank. Since the bb in the tank had the ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites in the tank under control I just stopped doing water changes until the phosphorous had "cycled" and the water went clear again.
If I were in your shoes I'd get the ammonia under control first and worry about the cloudiness later.
If I were in your shoes I'd get the ammonia under control first and worry about the cloudiness later.
did you do a water change with out adding prime or safe? or did you clean your filters with tap water? the cloudy water is do to a bacteria bloom, looks like you are going to need to be doing a 90% water change every other day, tank dosed for size of tank not water replacing. every other day because prime/safe lasts up to 48 hours. but is only good to up to 2ppm. hope all turns out well.
When I cam home from work yesterday the tank looked its absolute worst. I could hardly see in the tank at all. The water had even gotten a brownish hue to it and I lost one of my convict fish. I cleaned the filter with tank water and did a 90% water change. After doing the water change I was able to see into the tank and noticed debris on the bottom. I did another 20% water change while removing the debris. The tank looked much better after that and I am happy to report that the tank is crystal clear as of this morning. I guess I went a little too heavy on the feeding on Sunday which caused this mess but I am happy to see it resolved and even happier to be able to see my fish.
