Water suddenly cloudy

[Mbielek]

Did you just transfer the water??? What did you do with the filters and media from the 30G???

Also, any more upgrades planned in the near future???

So after buying my 75 gallon, I literally helped my friend pump water out of it and move his fish out. We rinsed out his tank completely, down to bare glass inside and out. Then I put new substrate rocks in, a few new pieces of decor, but used the same Marineland Emperor 400 filter (which already had beneficial bacteria growing in the bio-media cartridges) and transferred ALL 30 gallons from old tank to new tank. Then filled remaing 45 gallons with fresh tap water from a well. Added stress coat, and after putting fish in my tank was literally gorgeous and flawless for about 2-3 months. Then recently when adding algae wafers for my plec, I saw cloudiness and boom an algae bloom. I was told this was because my plec didn't finish the algae wafers (I only put two in within a week). So I then did a 50% change, then another one a week later. On the second big change I made, I made a mistake and accidentally caused all my beneficial bacteria to be knocked off my filter cartridges and floated freely into my tank. I cleaned it out with a net, changed MORE water and then my tank continued on its algae rampage, even worse then original bloom. Recently I've finally gotten it semi-pretty clear with numerous smaller water changes daily, and adding a water clarifier called "acurel" 1 drop per gallon of water. Tank got super clear, now starting back to be slightly hazy. I keep my light off now, and that's where I'm at. Sorry for such a long response, but I wanted to keep everybody up to speed on what exactly I've been doing with my tank. What's my next move if I continue to see cloudiness or algae? The fish store owner I buy fish from says to just keep doing small changes and let my bacteria grow back on my filters. And no, no future upgrades planned. Let me know please, thanks! -Mike

 

[Fat Homer]

^ my guess would be as follows:

1) you may have caused your Beneficial Bacteria to crash when you accidentally cleaned out the filter...

2) Then adding to the fact you have some large fish producing a lot of waste your filters are having a hardtime building up the BB needed to convert the ammonia to nitrite, especially with a Ray in a 75G tank...

Considering rays are some seriously high waste producers.,.

3) adding stuff like accuclear is just binding smaller particles together so they can be more easily trapped in your filters which at the end of the day could also be filling your filter media with quite a lot of gunk meaning its not filtering properly...

So with that being said, i would probably do the following;

1- keep up with small daily water changes

2- stop using Accuclear (its like a bandaid on a knife wound) you need to fix the problem...

3- Maybe even consider thining the stock a bit, coz as your current occupants grow, the amount of waste produced can only grow with them, further causing problems in your tank unless you stick with a religious water change schedule to keep up with them...

 

[Mbielek]

^ my guess would be as follows:

1) you may have caused your Beneficial Bacteria to crash when you accidentally cleaned out the filter...

2) Then adding to the fact you have some large fish producing a lot of waste your filters are having a hardtime building up the BB needed to convert the ammonia to nitrite, especially with a Ray in a 75G tank...

Considering rays are some seriously high waste producers.,.

3) adding stuff like accuclear is just binding smaller particles together so they can be more easily trapped in your filters which at the end of the day could also be filling your filter media with quite a lot of gunk meaning its not filtering properly...

So with that being said, i would probably do the following;

1- keep up with small daily water changes

2- stop using Accuclear (its like a bandaid on a knife wound) you need to fix the problem...

3- Maybe even consider thining the stock a bit, coz as your current occupants grow, the amount of waste produced can only grow with them, further causing problems in your tank unless you stick with a religious water change schedule to keep up with them...

Thank you so much for the advice, I will indeed keep up with daily 20-30% water changes. Should I sill use stress coat and melafix when needed? That's the only other chemicals I use in my tank.

 

[Fat Homer]

Unless you absolutely see the need to medicate the tank, i would personally speaking just keep up with the water changes...

Coz if you are mixing a lot of chemicals and meds, that could also be part of the problem causing your water to turn cloudy...

 

[Mbielek]

Unless you absolutely see the need to medicate the tank, i would personally speaking just keep up with the water changes...

Coz if you are mixing a lot of chemicals and meds, that could also be part of the problem causing your water to turn cloudy...

Understood, will just keep up with normal changes. Is salt softened we'll water pretty good for cichlids?

 

[Fat Homer]

^ that part i cant answer, as im not as familiar with chiclids needs, so need someone more knowledgeable in that area to answer your question...

 

[Mbielek]

^ that part i cant answer, as im not as familiar with chiclids needs, so need someone more knowledgeable in that area to answer your question...

All good!

 

[Zbosco13]

Thought I would update this thread, bought a UV sterilizer to deal with the algae, did my normal 50% WC last Saturday, and planned to install the sterilizer this Saturday, and on Friday the tank went from pic #1 to pic #2 in about 12 hours. Idk why, but hey it works for me.

 

[xraycer]

Did you do anything different since you started this thread?

 

[Zbosco13]

not a thing. changed water at 50%, same as i have since the the tank was started 1 year ago. whatever caused the bloom, it is gone now. pic doesnt do it justice, water is crystal clear now. beats me.