# Cloudy Water In New Tank Question



## motoracer110 (May 13, 2010)

Thank you for your help in advanced. I have a 135 gallon up and going for about two and a half weeks. I used nothing but RO/DI water and my tank has been milky cloudy for about 2 weeks (bacteria bloom not sure if good or bad bacteria). I thought that it would go away by now and it still hasnt. This was my first time reusing old sand from one of my old tanks and i washed it very well before i put it in the tank. My thoughts are that the sand still has waste in it causing a bacteria spike that is clouding up the water. My question is should i just let everything go or should i replace all the water in the aquarium to get rid of some of the organics? My RO only makes 75 gallons a day so it would be 2 days to fill back up.

(the tank is currently in a fishless cycle with all of my readings very low)

Just wondering what you would do?


----------



## Trevorjm (Nov 7, 2011)

Just one tip, RO water isn't good for your fish. It's so pure and mineral free that it actually sucks them out of your fish. My tap water is high in nitrate, ph and chlorine so I can't use it either. I do a mix of 50/50 which makes the ph stable at 7, the nitrates below 20, and the for the chlorine, I use a dechlorinater (Prime).

Get rid of that water, it's probably bad bacteria anyways.


----------



## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

The pure water could be reacting with various things in your tank and sucking minerals or metals from it... as said above, RO/DI water is not a good thing when used on its own. They make an additive for RO water called "RO Right" which is made by Kent. Personally I would take the last 1 or 2 stage(s) off (the DI resin for sure and possibly RO membrane) if you are going to keep using it for freshwater tanks only . If you have a saltwater or reef tank, add a valve and T to bypass the last two stages.


----------



## motoracer110 (May 13, 2010)

awesome thank u both for the impute. so i just drained the tank and added 50% tap and 50% ro water i added prime to the tap water, after 15 min added a fresh bacteria for the aquarium, My ammonia is at 3.0 so i added a some bottled ammonia (clear) to bring up to 5.0 for a fishless cycle. Im running a FX5 filter and have the water just a little low so that there is a lot of aeration and surface disturbance. hopefully I am on the right track.

I like the idea of bypassing the RO membrane and just using the sediment and chloramine membranes for water changes.


----------



## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

You need to make sure the ammonia is 100% no additives ammonia, most store bought ammonia is like 9% and the rest is additives... i have never trusted that stuff and always just used a shrimp instead.

If that checks out you should be on the right track!


----------



## motoracer110 (May 13, 2010)

Ægir said:


> You need to make sure the ammonia is 100% no additives ammonia, most store bought ammonia is like 9% and the rest is additives... i have never trusted that stuff and always just used a shrimp instead.
> 
> If that checks out you should be on the right track!


cool thank you. I got clear ammonia and the only two ingredients listed on the bottle are a Ammonium Hydroxide and water.


----------



## Ahmed (Jun 23, 2007)

You're on the right path, glad you got the help you needed before things got really outta hand!


----------

