Cloudy water :(

[tis-star]

Hey guys!

I'm having a bit of a problem with my tank. It's a 36 gallon planted grow out tank for my 5 CLs. In there i also have one betta, 2 mollies, a yoyo (he thinks he's a clown loach sometimes hehehe) and two kuhli loaches.

Anyway, I just cleaned my tank because the water was cloudy and it was time too anyway. It's been about 12hrs and the water looks the same. I'm wondering if perhaps it's just SoCal water, my filter or I'm doing something wrong...

Health wise: the new loaches have ich and have spread it to the rest of the tank, so the temperature has been raised to about ~86F.

Parameters: ph. 7.6 everything else is at zero except: Nitrite~0.25ppm Nitrate~20ppm

I'm still a newbie in this hobby so any suggestions are welcome

 

[floridagar]

cloudy as in like white milky color or is it green like algae?

cause if its turning a white milky color you need to turn the lights off at night and only have them on for a few hours a day till the water clears up.

Green algae can be from not enough water changing and poor filtration with live plants that's a major problem if you dont have enough filtration. Plus a lot of CO2 needs to be present in the tank with live plants.

When did the CL's get ich when you added them or when you bought them they already had ich?

 

[Ryan Paul]

How much water did you change when you cleaned the tank? What size and kind of filter?

 

[tis-star]

Thanks for the replies! The water is white cloudy. The ich started first with the new CLs like 2 days after I added them.

Filter: Aquaclear 70
Tank: 36 gallons

Changed about 40%

I'll cut my lighting time, that might be it.

 

[floridagar]

Yeah drop some aquarium salt in the tank and raise the temp is the best bet they should get rid of it. The reason they picked it up might have been from stress from the lights being on to long. The lighting problem is most likely it but you might not see any results really quickly but when you do your next water change you should see some results.

Good luck

 

[ziggy2]

I think the lights are the issue.

 

[Redearsunfish]

bio/cycle bloom is my uneducated guess. I'd add some additional filtration and use Carbon etc. - at least another 70, or a small canister - but again, this is just my opinion.

 

[th3champish3r3]

What type of filter are you running? It sounds to me that you started a mini cycle. For the ich the best you can do is keep doing frequent but small water changes, keep dosing salt, take out all of the gravel and submerge in boiling salty water to kill the ich. This will prevent further outbreaks incase they have laid eggs. If you feel it is necessary, you can repeat this process. Make sure when you clean the filter you are cleaning the pads with tank water. Best bet is to have 2 smaller filters opposed to one big one. Also as stated above, I would reduce the amount of time the lights are kept on.