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Thread: cloudy water in matured tank

  1. #1
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    cloudy water in matured tank

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    Hi,
    needing advice on a cloudy water situation that has been on for 1 week.
    tank is matured for 1.5 years. I previously do encountered cloudy water for at most 1 day. My lighting regime is around 2+5 hours per day. I do not have testing kit.
    When I encountered this last week, I did 'nothing' hoping for the cloudiness to go away, but it didn't. The tank has mostly been without leftover/unfinished food.
    Just finished my weekly tank clean, where I thoroughly cleaned the filter, replace some media, added new media. But I left some old media/wool on top of the new ones to encourage beneficial bacteria grow.
    any good suggestion to clear the water... I am missing the days of clear water.
    Attached Images Attached Images

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Looks like bacteria bloom from accumulated organics and build-up of waste material in the filter and substrate, it sometimes happens in older established tanks.

    Noticed the front area of your substrate looks abit bare... did you do any plant trimming or re-scape recently? That could have reduced the plant mass and upset the nutrient balance.

    Anyways, since you have already cleaned the filter, i guess that should help the bacteria population stabilize and the water should clear up on its own. More water changes can also help flush out the excess organic content in the water, reduce the "food" that bacteria are feeding on.

    You could also use products like Seachem Purigen to absorb the excess organic compound and "polish" the water, that might help too.
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
    www.urbanaquaria.com

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    the front has always been bare, probably because of the LED lights that couldn't hit the front (my LED strips are at mid width of tank).
    minimal/normal plant trimming. no re-scape recently. But the tiger lily flourish recently, can it cause the bacteria bloom? I always notice lily ponds to be very cloudy.
    ok, will check out the seachem product. Will probably buy activated charcoal too.
    Is there a way to re-activate used charcoal packs?

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Lily type plants usually require alot more nutrients, so the tiger lily growing well might be an indication of increased nutrient levels in the tank. This higher nutrient levels may have accumulated over time and now triggered a bacteria bloom. If you have a test kit, do some tests to check the parameters.

    Is your filter an internal filter? I notice a device on the left of the tank connected to a reactor. If it's an internal filter, the bio-media capacity might be limited, hence the growing beneficial bacteria population could have run out of space to live in and end up clouding the water column.

    Seachem Purigen is useful as it specializes in removing organic compounds (created by the livestock, feeding, rotting organic material etc) and thus helps reduce the excess nutrient levels, but it has minimal effect on the fertilizers, so you can still use fertilizers to achieve a more controlled nutrient balance in the tank. Activated charcoal on the other hand, although it can work too, absorbs everything, which includes both organic compounds and the fertilizers you dose, so after a while there is a chance that it may result in certain nutrient deficiencies in your plants.

    I've heard of people boiling or sunning their activated charcoal in an attempt to re-activate it, not sure if it works, but in reality you'd likely need way higher heat than just boiling to reverse the process and reset it (probably the type of extreme heat which make it activated in the first place)... so most people simply toss them out when it's exhausted and just replace with new charcoal.
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    20150122_221428.jpg
    Hi Urban,
    I bought Purigen and have used it for 2 days already. I have used a third of the bottle, since the direction is 250ml to 200 gallon. my tank is only about 60 gallon.
    The cloudiness has gotten worse. It is thicken now with a reddish tint. The fishes are still alive and normal. The shrimps can't be seen but may have all died.
    Gurus, any other suggestions?

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Purigen will help to absorb the new organic compounds that are being generated and slow down the toxic build up, but the excess nutrients that have been accumulating over the past few months could still be in the tank water.

    Do a series of larger water changes to flush out the existing excess nutrients, and try reducing the light photoperiod to minimize possible algae growth.

    If that's still not sufficient to solve the issue, you may need to look at using a UV sterilizer to kill the suspended bacteria or algae population in the water.

    It will be best if you could get a good quality test kit to measure the parameters and get more insight into the cause, otherwise everything you do will just be based on guesswork and it's difficult to advise further with so many unknowns.
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Quote Originally Posted by angus View Post
    20150122_221428.jpg
    Hi Urban,
    I bought Purigen and have used it for 2 days already. I have used a third of the bottle, since the direction is 250ml to 200 gallon. my tank is only about 60 gallon.
    The cloudiness has gotten worse. It is thicken now with a reddish tint. The fishes are still alive and normal. The shrimps can't be seen but may have all died.
    Gurus, any other suggestions?
    That is really cloudy !! Do you tried WC? Or what filter / media u using?

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    20150127_220850_resized.jpg
    my tank now after 1.5 weeks of cloudy/hazy conditions. - the purigen worked, the water looks better than before!
    per urban's suggestion, I did 90% WC. after 2 days, the cloudy condition cleared totally.
    hiaz, long miss blue sky/clear water.
    surprisingly, despite 1.5 weeks of hardy seeing the fishes and shrimps, they all survived. This weekend I can resume my scaping-which needs to be improved.
    my lesson learnt is the there is a tipping point to cloudy/bacterial condition. typically, my tank do turn cloudy slightly after weekly WC, but it has never tipped over to this stage until this round.

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Looks good!
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
    www.urbanaquaria.com

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    the plants on the front middle to the left are all red coloured plants that have become pale red.
    My current substrate is 1.5 year old GEX with Ocean free monster root tabs added. I am also dosing Lushgrow mix & micro. previously I had 3W green element LED and 1 20W floodlight above these plants for 8 hours with CO2 but still could not bring them to red. any suggestion?

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    There are 2 ways:

    1) Stabilise and add sufficient trace and macro nutrients then add a little more Fe (Iron) as fert

    2) Reduce the nitrates available in the water meaning dose less nitrogen and then increase Iron fert. (this one makes it even redder but not advisable as your plants are starved of nitrogen)
    Holy is the Lord, God Almighty ! The Earth is filled with His Glory !
    90 x 50 x 50 cm tank: Eheim 2217; ANS CO2 Solenoid with 60mm intense bazooka; Zetlight 6400; Teco 500 Chiller; Borneo Wild Steel inlet/outlet
    Ferts: Dry Mixture/Dr Mallicks. Temp: 26 degrees Substrate: ADA Amazonia

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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    Established tanks are sensitive when it comes to media replacement. I ever transferred 14 pcs of Royal pleco into my solo Cross back arowana tank which has been established for years. Outcome was the same clouded.

    My conclusion, the tank that is established to deal with a certain amount of bio load with a certain specific water parameter. Since you replaced and washed the media that might have caused major imbalance in the tank.

    When replacing media always dump back the old media in the tank with in a net bag for a few weeks. As fellow hobbyist says the tank is a finely balanced ecosystem, delicate and sensitive.

    Take home point: we learn


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    Re: cloudy water in matured tank

    any good suggestion of Iron fert?

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