Day 11 of my Fishless cycle What's going on with my tank?

[excaliber]

I'm on day 11 of my Fishless cycling in my 75 gal tank. The ammonia is just about gone. That part looks to be ok. The problem is the tank is so cloudy I can't see across it lengthwise. There is a brownish type of bacteria or algae on the glass lids when I wipe them off. It's everywhere in the tank.
I'm beginning to wonder if this tank will ever clear. We have another 75 gal tank right next to it and it has already received it's second dose of Ammonia tonight. This tank is clear as can be. The only difference is the clear tank has Mopani wood and live plants. The cloudy tank has Malaysian Driftwood and fake plants. Both tank have PFS for a substrate.

Should I be worried or is this normal? Should I remove plants and rocks, wood and clean them or just wait this bacteria/algae bloom out?

any ideas?

 

[Gourami Swami]

I would say just have some patience, 11 days in is still the beginning of the cycle. The cloudy water is probably a bacterial bloom which is relatively normal in a new tank. The brown film is likely diatoms which is also a normal thing. As long as there is adequate filtration on the tank it should clear in time, if not you may want to try adding some filter floss temporarily to polish the water a bit. I wouldn't go and remove all the décor unless you have reason to believe the rocks or wood are clouding the water

 

[imabot]

^^^
and you can use poly fill instead of filter floss if you want to save a few bucks from my personal experience. Just bag it up so the fibers don't get everywhere.

 

[duanes]

I agree 11 days is still very early in the cycle, you still have a few weeks to go.
Your tank is going thru a typical bacterial bloom as part of the cycle, you need to to have patience, it will go away on its own.

 

[excaliber]

Thanks everyone. I was hoping it would go away so I'll just wait it out. I'll look into the filter floss or poly fill.

 

[LBDave]

Cloudy stage is normal. Brown algae is diatom bloom. Happened when I first cycled my tank. It usually goes away or tones down.

 

[duanes]

Algae cells and bacteria are too small for any filter media, they just slip thru.
Cycling is the process of acquiring a large population of the right species of bacteria, and during that process different species come and go, and the natural selection takes times. when comes to equilibrium it will be on its own terms.

 

[Coryloach]

I am guessing you have the lights on every day? Ammonia and light = algae

Cloudy water is often caused by:

1) heterotrophic bacteria, not the type you want to multiply in the tank although it is always present in low oxygen areas such as the substrate. When it goes in the water column it causes the water to go cloudy. Increase surface agitation for more oxygen, or add any device that can increase the oxygen content. It should go away when the tank matures.
2)green algae bloom, normally caused by the presence of ammonia and light.

 

[excaliber]

The lights are on for maybe 10 minutes a day at the most sometimes not at all. The tank is in a room with natural sunlight but we have not had much of that lately. We put some Puregen in one of the AC 110's yesterday and it's made a big difference overnight.

 

[Sac39051]

I just went through my cycle recently...took damn near 6 weeks with adding sea chem stability and some seeded media from a friend’s tank. I had a massive algae bloom almost the entire time, tons of heterotrophic bacteria coating everything. I wouldn’t worry about it one bit, just make sure you are keeping ammonia up. Things are happening since your ammonia is being consumed. I don’t think I started even getting a nitrite reading until after about 4 weeks.