# UNSOLVED MYSTERY - CLOUDY WATER WILL NOT GO AWAY



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

Need help here, I'm running out of options...

I now have a constant cloudy water issue...

here are some facts and info:

-92 Gal - 8 pygos about 4.5-6.5"
-Filtration system: Eheim 2028
-medium planted 
-actual water quality is good overall : ammonia 0.20, nitrite 0-0.20, nitrate high 40 plus (keep in mind that the ammonia and nitrite are not zero because of the introduction of tap water with ammonia)
-cloudy water is not algae - seems to be a bacteria bloom
-TAP WATER HAS APROX 0.5 PPM AMMONIA
-use to get cloudy water just after a water change and it would go away with in 24hrs - not anymore
-Tank ws set up in June 06 - I've had no casualties and the 8 pygos have been there since they were 2"
-I perform weekly water changes about 40% and been doing a gravel vac with every one, but usually i do it on every other water change.
-Recently added a product called "ALGONE" - bacterial pads in the filtrationthey were suppose to remove the cloudy water and did not, removed them 5 days ago - water still cloudy and does not seem to reduce.
-Last night I did a 10% water change with DISTILLED WATER

I'm thinking that the overload in ammonia form the the tap water created a bacteria bloom and the bacteria are now entreched in the water as well becuase of the abundent source?....will a adding a new filtration system help this situation or make it worse (i.e create more benificail bacteria in the water?)

My next step is to try adding a new filtration system - what do you think?

thanks in advance!


----------



## SangreRoja (Feb 18, 2006)

My guess is Overload with the 8 piranhas in a 92 gallon extra filtration would help alot you can't go wrong.


----------



## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

Have to agree with Sangre


----------



## Leasure1 (Jul 24, 2006)

my suggestion would be rid of atleast 3 of those pygos, and do a gravel vac every water change instead of every other change. Nitrates are high probly due to all the fish making so much waste. With that many fish, you should be turning your tank over at least 10 or more times an hour. And should also do water changes every 3 days since that is your only way to rid of nitrates. A reading of 20ppm is normal, 40ppm is a little on the high side, but some here say thier tank always reads that high. IMO 20ppm MAX. Anymore and you need a water change. As for the ammonia in your tap water, that should get taken care of by filters with good bacteria colonies right away. If I were you, I would get an extra filter, like a Emperior 400, and also buy a pack of bio-spira. This should balance things out in that tank, but unless you rid of a few fish, you will still be doing water changes every 3 days due to the small tank size, and so many fish.


----------



## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

This is really not a mystery... you have an overstocked tank and you are doing water changes with water that you know has ammonia in it... not to mention when you say your water quality is "good" it is in no way near being good. You cannot do water changes with water that has ammonia in it, ammonia is not good to have in your tank and will cause bacterial blooms. Not to mention that your nitrates are too high... even planted tanks dont keep the nitrates that high. As mentioned by everyone else as well, your tank is overstocked so again, that isnt helping either. I would bet it is a bacterial bloom and the only way to get rid is to thin out your group of fish and start doing water changes with water that does not contain ammonia.


----------



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

Leasure1 said:


> my suggestion would be rid of atleast 3 of those pygos, and do a gravel vac every water change instead of every other change. Nitrates are high probly due to all the fish making so much waste. With that many fish, you should be turning your tank over at least 10 or more times an hour. And should also do water changes every 3 days since that is your only way to rid of nitrates. A reading of 20ppm is normal, 40ppm is a little on the high side, but some here say thier tank always reads that high. IMO 20ppm MAX. Anymore and you need a water change. As for the ammonia in your tap water, that should get taken care of by filters with good bacteria colonies right away. If I were you, I would get an extra filter, like a Emperior 400, and also buy a pack of bio-spira. This should balance things out in that tank, but unless you rid of a few fish, you will still be doing water changes every 3 days due to the small tank size, and so many fish.


Thank you for your help....although I agree that the aquarium is overstocked - the initail fact that the water would turn cloudy for 42hrs after a water change (amonia in tap) was making me think that it was not an overstocking issue.
I will fisrtly like to try to resolve this issue without having to get rid of any of my Pygos...Note: that originaly I had purchased a bit more than what my aquarium would be rated for soley cause I thought I would lose some fish as they grew up- fourtunatly I have not....thus I am going to invest in an extra filtration system as a first possible solution...

Orginaly I had purchased an EMp 400, however, ny tank is a corner aquarium (pie shaped) and the glass top covers about 75% of the top, and its difficult to fit the Emp 400 - without having to custom make a new top, thus I will invest in a smaller external canister (eheim) filter.

Thank you all, and I will keep you updated.


----------



## Greg Stephens (Sep 30, 2006)

It is strange I am having the same problem.
I had the 150 gal I am working with running as a chicld tank for 18 months.
Never had a bit of trouble out of it.
I switch out the crushed coral substrate for a semi fine gravel and let it run for a week, 
again no problems.
I got the water ready to take the 8 red bellies, added the fish, still no problems.
After about 12 weeks the water went milky, and nothing I have tried has made a difference.
I would say that now the fish are growing I might have the tank over stocked.
But it is a 150 gal with a overflow and wet dry with about 15 pounds of bio balls plus about 25 gal 
of sump water.
All the water parameters are right on and I am really confused as to the cause.
I did talk to a friend that maintains reef and open salt water set ups for a living.
He told me it was a beneficial bacteria over growth and it should solve it self.
Well it has been 3 weeks and it is staying the same.
No clue I am lost on this one.
I have though about installing a pond size UV filter to tame down the bacteria that have now decided to
colonize the water column.
If anyone else has any insight as to some thing else I should try please post your suggestion!

Greg Stephens


----------



## ___ (Feb 19, 2006)

had the same cloudy water.... but it went away on its own

TIME worked for me


----------



## Greg Stephens (Sep 30, 2006)

___ said:


> had the same cloudy water.... but it went away on its own
> 
> TIME worked for me


How much time, just so i have some sort of idea!

Do any of you run a UV light on your aquarium and if so how do you like it?

Greg


----------



## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

happen to me about 10 months ago, took about 4-6 weeks to go away, now it just happend to my tank. do some very good subsrtate vacuums, and clean out your filters, (in tank water!!) and just play the waiting game. sometimes doing a water change every 3 days will never let new bacteria grow, so your water will never clear it up, do a superb vacuum then wait atleast 7-10 days before stirring up your subsrate again. that seems to work for me.

dont be to worried about it, bacteria blooms will not harm your fish.


----------



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

CLUE FOUND - AND IMPROVEMENT FROM THE WORST LEVEL-BUT NOT FULLY CLEAR ....YET?

Well mid last week I went out to see what kind of filtration I can add- turned out that the ehiem 2028 was on sale so got that...(now I got the twin towers running)

Upon setting up the new filter I notice that the head had a tube that went into the trays- to make a long story short I dodn't remember seeing that last time I had the same older filter opened!...so I double check and sure enough it was not there- and turns out that the mating tube was in the tray below - (thus last time I changed the media I must have mixed up the trays and forgot the the coupler tube is needed.
Therefore the filter may have been kind of running a little messed up with some incoming water spilling into the outgoing filter pads and media.

Also did a water change in the morning and forgot to turn back the filters!! so when I got home late that night; boy was the tank cloudy- and ammonia was not good!
So did a another water change and I changed one tray of media in the old filter, and cleaned out and rinsed out the old filter and media with aquarium water.
well...about 20 hours later the cloudy water has finaly started to reduce!...finaly a positive sign!!

...not outta the woods yet but at least its a better sign!

I also bought a chemical to remove and treat bacteria blooms BUT I have not added it - cause when I got home and seen that the cloudyness had gone down, I figured I'd wait and see what happens before I start meddling with things.

last night I did a 20% water change I stirred up the gravel, and and quick gravel vac and removed dead leaves etc..
This morning my amonia level readings were 0! and nitrite were zero too.

The way I see it right now I am litteraly running on all benificial bacteria in the gravel and water and 1 tray in the old filter- once the 2 trays (from the new filter) and the other 1 tray (new media) in the old filter develop their bacteria colonies in full... I think I'll be in good shape.
and hopefully in an hour I'll get home and the cloudy water will have reduced..

I hope


----------



## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Rad. so you have the bandaid on it. Now fix the problem.


----------



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

my water parameter are steadier now with the extra filtration - ammonia 0, nitrite 0, however, cloudy water will not go away yet. I have tried B-clear, and 1st dosage had no effect.
Any other suggestions....wait it out?

thanks,


----------



## Caribe310 (Dec 28, 2006)

I have the same problem.
Two days ago my tank was super cloudy, this had never happened before.
I cleaned it and it was crystal clean until today when i woke up i found it cloudy.
Im just going to wait a bit and see if it clears on its own.


----------



## Greg Stephens (Sep 30, 2006)

Webo,
I got a reply to my post which got me thinking.
So I went to the local fish store and asked a ton of questions about how to remove 
small particals and organics from the water.
The guy turned me onto this new prefilter media and told me about th Marineland 350 mag.
It has a pleated paper filter which can be used as needed or replace as it clogs.
This filter media is designed to remove the small f#$% up your tank particals! lol

Check it out!
Greg


----------



## Greg Stephens (Sep 30, 2006)

Webo,
I got a reply to my post which got me thinking.
So I went to the local fish store and asked a ton of questions about how to remove 
small particals and organics from the water.
The guy turned me onto this new prefilter media and told me about th Marineland 350 mag.
It has a pleated paper filter which can be used as needed or replace as it clogs.
This filter media is designed to remove the small f#$% up your tank particals! lol

Check it out!
Greg


----------



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

The second filter is really helping things - ammonia is constantly at zero, and no fluctutations. Cloudyness is a lot less now (and some cloudyness was due to algea)....hopefully the cloudyness will disapear completely very soon.
New nitrate test seem to be off - thus not sure about nitrates yet, I have a second test kit and it tells me that they are still high.


----------



## inspectahdeck34 (Dec 31, 2006)

i had cloudy water as well for the longest time and i went ont and baught 2 sponge filters and a new emporer 400 and it went away fast


----------



## LGHT (Nov 9, 2005)

Greg Stephens said:


> Webo,
> I got a reply to my post which got me thinking.
> So I went to the local fish store and asked a ton of questions about how to remove
> small particals and organics from the water.
> ...


I just posted a reply to the same problem under equipment.

If you don't have the filter to get rid of algea blooms try getting some Calcium Montmorillonite.

It's very powerful chemical substance found in volcanic ash and will help bind any microscopic mycotoxins in your water. This is often what causes the water to turn white known as "algae blooms". I've seen it sold on ebay as a koi water treatment or as way to get rid of algae, but bottom line is it does exactly what the Mag does, but on a chemical level instead of a physical level using a filter.

Since I have horrible water in LA I had this problem until I picked some for my tanks.

I also use a 3 stage micron filter that basically filters all water from the tap BEFORE it goes into your tank to ensure that i'm not putting anything unwanted in the tank after doing a water change.

Good luck.


----------



## Webo (Jun 26, 2006)

[/quote]

It's very powerful chemical substance found in volcanic ash and will help bind any microscopic mycotoxins in your water. This is often what causes the water to turn white known as "algae blooms". I've seen it sold on ebay as a koi water treatment or as way to get rid of algae, but bottom line is it does exactly what the Mag does, but on a chemical level instead of a physical level using a filter.

[/quote]

But I was under the impression that white cloudy water was due to a bacteria bloom (benificial bacteria) and when its a algea bloom the water becomes green.


----------



## J-Lo (Feb 2, 2006)

I have the same problem with my 75gal so i went out and baught a cascade 1500 the cloudyness is kinda going alway so the problem is probably filtration.


----------

