# Cloudy Water, I Think I Made A Oops!



## FourFists (Mar 17, 2011)

Hey guys Im not new to having an aquarium but I am new to piranhas and setting a tank up properly, with that being said ill tell you my oops!!!

I have a 65g tank that I started about 3 weeks ago, I used nutrafin cycle to get it going quick (patience is not one of my better quality's), I was useing a marineland emperor 400 powerfilter at that time and the tank had a small piece of drift wood some plastic plants from my smaller tank, and the substrate is white freshwater marine sand.
I had put in 6 RBP in the tank 2 days after I started it up (again patience not one of my better quality's) the water was clear and they were fine.
I have a test kit and have been keeping an eye on the water, the last two weeks the ph 7.6 ammonia 0.25 nitrite 0.25 nitrate 10, these readings wouldn't change at all for those 2 weeks. The fish in the tank the whole time swimming fine acting fine eating fine, water is clear but not crystal clear, all is good.

Now the oops, yesturday I decided that I want a badass filter that is quiet (my powerfilter keeps me up at night) and I go and buy a fx5 and install it.
I filled the top basket with 2 layers of filter floss and one layer with fine filter pad, the 2 bottom baskets are filled with biomax. 
After this I did a 50% water change in a hope to try to kill off some of the ammonia in the tank.

This morning i wake up and the water is very cloudy, and all the fish are out to lunch there swimming to the top of tank like they are gasping for air and if I look in the top I can poke them with my nose or pick them out of the water with no effort.
The water tested ph 7.2 ammoina 1.0 nitrite 0 nitrate 10
I have a fluval edge thats been running since january and crystal clear with nothing in it at the moment, so being that my reds are only 22.5 inchs in size i put them in the edge in hopes that they dont go belly up, and so far they look un stressed and looking good.

So what did I do wrong here, and what do i do to fix it. thanks


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## pirana666 (Aug 26, 2010)




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## Guest (Apr 2, 2011)

Hi and welcome to the forum








First off do you have surface agitation? Fish breathing heavily towards the top of the tank is often a symptom of low oxygen levels in the water.
Next, when you perform a water change, do you use any products to remove chlorine and chloramine from the tap water? Chlorine poisoning in fish also gives similar symptoms you are talking about.
You mention patience isn't your best quality as if you knew adding fish to an un-cycled tank could be harmful, if this is the case it was irresponsible of you, and I also find your readings hard to believe. If this isn't the case then pardon me.
Cloudy water is very likely a bacterial bloom as your biological filtration is trying colonise and cope with the ammonia load. I suggest cycling the filter properly using either ammonia solution or raw shrimp, and return the fish when the tank is properly cycled. Hopefully your fluval edge is cycled and will be able to cope with their bio-load till the other tank is cycled. 
Best of luck.


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## FourFists (Mar 17, 2011)

The edge has was cycled with water from a friends tank and has been working mint since January, it was irresponsible for me to rush things along and im kinda hating myself for it.
I did try using ammo lock 8 days ago up until now, I followed the instructions and on the 8th day it said if you still find ammonia in the water do a 50% change which is what I did and this happened.
I always use conditioners when I put in new water, also I was changing about 8 to 10 gallons of water from vacuuming there waste out everyday for the past 2 weeks.
As for the reading I got my kit from big al's I do what the instructions say and the numbers that are on the card are what I posted.
Thanks for the welcome.


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## FEEFA (Nov 19, 2007)

Did you remove the emp 400 when you added the fx5? If so then that would be the main problem even though I dont thing it was fully cycled yet. That emp is needed to handle the ammo until the fx5 is cycled.

I find it strange that you were already showing nitrates after only 2 weeks and at that point I would think that your ammo would actually be a lil higher.

Are you using any ammo remover products/chemicals? If so then thats another problem because they will interupt and not allow the tank to cycle properly.

I dont think its an oxygen issue, most likely an ammonia or nitrite spike.

What test kit are you using, strips or a masterkit? Also is your ph always the same or does it fluctuate and is it high out of the tap and then decrease once in your tank?

Ammo is more toxic at a higher ph so if tap water is high then that 50% w/c would cause a swing and that 1ppm of ammonia that you read would be more toxic and could possibly explain the sudden gasping.

List everything that youve done so we can narrow things done, and this point its kind of an educated guessing game.

Good luck and hope the p's are alright











FourFists said:


> The edge has was cycled with water from a friends tank and has been working mint since January, it was irresponsible for me to rush things along and im kinda hating myself for it.
> *I did try using ammo lock 8 days ago up until now,* I followed the instructions and on the 8th day it said if you still find ammonia in the water do a 50% change which is what I did and this happened.
> I always use conditioners when I put in new water, also I was changing about 8 to 10 gallons of water from vacuuming there waste out everyday for the past 2 weeks.
> As for the reading I got my kit from big al's I do what the instructions say and the numbers that are on the card are what I posted.
> Thanks for the welcome.


Theres the problem right there, these products interupt the cyccle and actually cause more problems.
Also explains the weird test results, like I said the ammo levels should be a lil higher at the two week mark, still not sure how there were nitrates already present though?

Didnt see this earlier I saw this after my first post


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## FourFists (Mar 17, 2011)

I did remove the power filter as soon as I installed the the fx5, I was all excited to hook it up I wasen't thinking propely.
The test kit I have is a master.
The ph of the water is at 7.6 out of the tap and it stays that way in the tank most of the time, that last reading is the lowest its ever been.

As for the pee's they seem good so far, as soon as I removed them they were already acting normal.


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## Guest (Apr 2, 2011)

Just cycle the P tank and when ammo and nitrates are reading 0, put them back in


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

You could of caused a recycycle with a 50% waterchange is it was unconditioned. I would do a gravel vac and abunch of smaller conditioned waterchanges. First concentrate on gettign the ammonia and nitrite down then focus on estrablighing the filter.


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