# bacteria bloom



## killerbee (Aug 18, 2004)

Day before yesterday i get home and i find my tank all milky, could barely see my p's. I was like WTF? Checked to see if light had gone out or something and nope it was not the problem (i can tell because if the light goes out my alarm clock starts flashing).

Checked the Emperor 400's and they were working. So i got out my master water test kit and started to do some investigating. These were the results:

amonia=0 (perfect)
nitrIte=<.3 mg/l (perfect)
nitrAte=80-160ppm (can't tell the difference b/c wack ass color chart they are all pretty much the same red)
ph=7.5 (usual)
gh=6 (most freshwater fish thrive from 6-15 per instructions)
kg=2-3 (water is extremely soft per instructions)

Anyways i borrowed this pic from skelator in another post b/c this thread would be worthless without pics, i know. Since i don't have a camera....










P.S. Skelator if you wish i take this pic down just pm me and i will do so.

Anyways, my numbers seem the usual. so i concluded it be a bacteria bloom. I think i know what caused as well. Lately i've been feeding my p's some catfish nuggets and they don't finish it right away sometimes. So i was leaving it in the tank till they finished it (max 1 day).














on me!!!!!!!

I have made a 25-30% water change, added prime (chemical removes nitrates, nitrites, cloramines, clorine, ect....), added aquarium salt, and left lights off and the tank 1 day later looks a whole lot better. So when i woke up today i put some towels over the tank in order to keep light out. I just wanted to share this info, incase it might be helpful to you all.

BTW there is a great sticky on bacteria bloom if you don't know what it is by DonD on top but here is a link: http://www.piranha-fury.com/pfury/index.php?showtopic=50714

Thanks goes out to DonD and skelator


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## shoe997bed263 (Oct 15, 2004)

i used to leave the food in there over night and i would get a bacteria bloom often. i only leave the food in there for 25-30 min at a time. if they dont eat they dont eat. i have slowly trained them that when food is introduced they had better eat. working well. my fish usually eat right when i throw food in there and i have not gotten a bactera bloom in a while


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## killerbee (Aug 18, 2004)

Shoe, no only once or twice. Sometimes they would tear the catfish nuggets up in seconds, other times they like to wait a while. however, i will now do what u and everyone else has doing 30 minutes or nothing. I just didn't want to risk a p.

I never have a problem with shrimp or krill though, they kill that sh*t.


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## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

I got a bloom when I missed my filter maintenance one month. Alot of things could cause it, but it's usually pretty easy to make go away


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## The_Spoot (Nov 15, 2004)

I got 1, and all it took was time.


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## killerbee (Aug 18, 2004)

mine is gone in two days














i can see my fishies again


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