Battling cloudy water

[Pjv81]

Tank has been running about 2 months I did a roughly a 25% water change 4 days ago and it gets a little cloudy the day of as the substrate moves a little.

The second day it was nice and clear and now days 3-4 the water has gotten really cloudy. Water is reading 0 ammonia and 5ppm nitrates. I used some Fritz water clear to clump up the particles and it did help but the next day seemed to went back to cloudy.

First two pictures are day after water change and the last two are from today.

I keep my fluval plant light on about 6 hours a day. I don’t know if it’s a bacterial bloom or possibly leaching from the centered wood piece?

 

[Sinister-Kisses]

It's not the wood. The tannins that leach from wood make the water brown, to varying degrees, but the water stays clear. It looks like tea. From the photos, it appears to be green tinted? Green coloured cloud is an algae bloom...if it's white tinted, it's a bacteria bloom.

 

[Pjv81]

It's not the wood. The tannins that leach from wood make the water brown, to varying degrees, but the water stays clear. It looks like tea. From the photos, it appears to be green tinted? Green coloured cloud is an algae bloom...if it's white tinted, it's a bacteria bloom.

So would it be beneficial to invest in a UV sterilizer?

 

[KeepOnFishing]

To me it just looks like the sand it all stirred up did you rinse it well before you put it in the aquarium? if it is the sand just run the filter do another water change and it should clear up in a few days, I had the same thing happen to me when I set up my 36 gallon bowfront. You have a beautiful tank by the way when its not all cloudy lol.

 

[Pjv81]

To me it just looks like the sand it all stirred up did you rinse it well before you put it in the aquarium? if it is the sand just run the filter do another water change and it should clear up in a few days, I had the same thing happen to me when I set up my 36 gallon bowfront. You have a beautiful tank by the way when its not all cloudy lol.

Thank you! I did rinse the sand and it was took about a week for it to really clear up. After this last water change I added more root tabs to the plants and especially near the dwarf hair grass to try to jump start it to spread. I haven’t had any issues with the sand stirring up doing water changes as I’ve been able to gravel vac just above it.

 

[KeepOnFishing]

My guess then would be that it was root tabs, like Sinister-Kisses suggested maybe some sort of a bacterial bloom, as for your question if you should buy a uv sterilizer instead of buying a whole big thing like that you could just try buying a uv light that you put in your filter for a few hours a day to try and clear it up, I have used one before on an algae bloom and it cleared it up pretty quick but I don't see why it wouldn't work for a bacterial bloom as well.

 

[deeda]

P Pjv81 what kind of sand are you using?

 

[danotaylor]

The water looks almost stagnant. Your outlet on your fluval filter is WAY to low in the water column also. There doesn’t seem to be any surface agitation to promote oxygen exchange. Try bring the outlet up as close to the surface as you can and see if that doesn’t help. Also I would add salt at 1tbsp per 5 gal to break bacterial reproductive cycle

 

[Pjv81]

Did my weekly 25% water change and added a UV sterilizer to the tank to battle the possible algae bloom and also cut the lights down to about 4 hours a day.
The water is clearer, but not crystal. I tried adding Fritz clear water to make the particles sink. Should
I just do daily water changes at 30-40% daily to help battle the cloudy water until it clears up? Thanks for your input.

 

[RyanScanner]

Well crystal clear water is rare in nature, there’s a thread in set up and filtration about probiotics and competitive exclusion that you might want to read, very informative. I bought some septic bacteria to add to my already cycled and heavily planted tank to exclude green string algae and green water tinge. A quarter tsp a week and it’s always spotless and very little algae now. I also cut my fertiliser in half. Even the fish seems healthier with more appetite.