Cloudy But No Ammonia?

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pwmin

pwmin

Giant Snakehead
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Nov 26, 2007
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I'm having an ongoing problem with my 210 long (7x2x2). It's always cloudy and has ammonia spikes which makes it even cloudier. I tested the water very recently and it was at 0 ammonia, .25 nitrite and 30 nitrate, temp is ~84F. This tank has been running for a long time. My filtration is 2 x Penguin 350's stuffed with AC filter foam instead of the standard cartridges. I also have 2 x Rena XP3's with the filter pads that come with it (mechanical) plus pot scrubbers for the rest (biological). I know the scrubbies aren't the best thing, so I'm in the process of slowly changing them out for bio-max, but I don't want to take too much of the BB out. I am also running an AC110 powerhead. I never have to vacuum anything because it all gets sucked into the XP3's, but the P350's never are dirty for some reason. It was always fine until I moved it and then it started doing this. I added on the the P350's after I started having problems, but that's been running a couple months now. I tried Stress Zyme, too to try and help the BB recover, but it's still cloudy.

I'm sure I don't have enough bio and I'm working on that, but otherwise in addition to what I'm doing, I'm going to need to make a sump or something. None of my other tanks are ever cloudy and I don't believe in chemical filtration, so I'm not going to use them. I have recently taken out four fish, too. It takes longer for a spike, but it still happens and the water is always cloudy, sometimes very cloudy.

What else should I do? Do you think just swapping out the bio-media and adding a large sponge filter to the PowerHead will be good enough? That still doesn't explain why it's cloudy even when the ammonia and nitrite are at zero. Why is that?
 
How long is a long time because Im having the same problem with my 180gallon. Ive had it up for about almost 2 months now and it still has not cleared up 100%. It gets nice and clear for a few days then it gets cloudy again. Ive asked people before and they said that it is still cycling. Sometimes it takes a long time.
 
Tank itself and the XP3's have been running for 6 months and one of the penguins (actually that one is an Emperor 400) has been running for 3 years or more. It's been 2 or 3 months since I moved the tank.
 
really? no one? I'm really at a loss for this one. Besides rearranging everything, what can I do with the fish in it? It's really really cloudy right now and I just did another water change last night. I am going to test the water again right now. This is very frustrating.

I just tested the water and the parameters are:

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 5 ppm


It used to get really cloudy when the ammonia went up, but it's at 0. It was up to 2 before. Maybe I will have to use chemical filtration, but I don't see why I would need it if my bio and mechanical are working correctly.
 
midnight;2501858; said:
to much light?
mine was the same till i added a small uv and less light
Click to expand...
I have 2 dual 36" T5 HO lights on the tank w/ 1 Marine-Glo and 1 Power-Glo for each (i think 10000k and 18000K). They were on there for a long time at my old place before I moved them w/o incident. I also have a 75 gal w/ 2 dual 48" T5 HO (all 6700K) and no cloudiness. It doesn't get hardly any sunlight, either, so I doubt that's it. IDK about the UV if that'll work or not.
 
Sounds like a bacteria bloom caused by the move - you've disrupted the bacterial colonies. Increase your oxygenation, add another pump and airstones if you have an ey extra at hand. DON'T mess with the bio media at this time, and when you do, do it slowly.
 
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