cloudy water 265 gal

[rmdjr01]

Hello all, I purchased a Perfecto 265 a little over a month ago at lfs. Salesman set me up with 240 lbs of cichlid substrate which is mostly small shells and pieces of coral he also sold me 150 lbs of lace rock. I set up aquarium and let it cycle the past 4 weeks. I have around 25 africans in it now. Water has a white cloudy look with a thin film on surface. i called another lfs and they told me to remove half of the lace rock so I did, it didnt help. Oh, and here is a biggie, The store that sold me the substrate told me it was not neccessary to wash it before putting in tank. I have cleaned it twice with python but water is still cloudy. Amonia, nitrate are both at zero. Is ther an easy fix to this problem?
P.S. for filtration I have Fluval FX5, Rena XP3, Aquaclear 500, Emporer 400, and 2 powerheads for surface aggitation

 

[haynchinook334]

water changes. is the water milky looking, or greenish looking?

 

[mike1352]

If you didn't wash the substrate first, you should have. So, you need to do a serious water change of about 30 to 40% a couple of times in about 2 weeks. The filters inside the filters need to be changed if they have them. Make sure your not over feeding and usually when you cycle a tank you put a cheap fish in it to get things moving along.

 

[noonbaja]

or its off track

 

[stingraybob]

how do people with fish in their tanks always have 0 nitrates?? Is there a secret im missing here?? From what ive read on here when everything is 0, the tank isnt cycled, am i wrong?

 

[12 Volt Man]

only your ammonia and nitrIte (N02) should be zero.

you will have a detectable level of nitrAte (NO3).

generally between 12mg/l-40 mg/L in most tanks.

idieally, keeping it at 20 and below is ideal, but tough to do in some tanks with large fish and heavy bioloads.

 

[rmdjr01]

I miss spelled nitrite, sorry. ammonia and nitrite are zero.

 

[lighthouse39183]

How many fish did you add at one time? Did you add all 25 on the same day? If so you stressed your bioload. You could be seeing a bacterial bloom. You need to keep watching the ammonia and nitrites because you will probably see a spike.

 

[rmdjr01]

2nd day after setup I put 10 fish in to cycle tank. I assume its cycled, its been 5 weeks. ammonia is 0 and nitrites are 0. Didnt wash gravel, (eco complete cichlid sub), was told not too. I put 150 lbs of lace rock in. I washed it off with high pressure water hose. The fish seem happy and healthy. they eat great and they are in process of aranging gravel the way they want. Im guessing the cloudyness is from lace rock and gravel but I really dont know.

 

[Brian Fish]

I used that cichlid substrate and had that same film on top. It was a little cloudy til it settled.