cloudy tank

I have had a problem with cloudy water. I have done a 50% water change and it makes no difference. I am using a Fx6 with a medium sponge filter then quilting-bating and sea-cem blue in the bottom, bio-media in middle, and more quilting-bating and seacem elete in the top.

The attached file shows the two different photos.

Would a uv sterilizer help, or another canister with filter media only?

Thank for the help.......Rich

My water gets like that when I am delinquent in vacuuming the gravel. I'd give that a try if it had been a while.

Marlin

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Vacuumed on Sunday. A will do it again with a water change.

Very nice rock there.

Thanks

Cloudiness can be from very small bubbles generated by a canister filter. Cloudiness can be developed by bacteria because of excess nutrients. Or debris stirred up when cleaning a tank.

Take a quart sample of the water and set it on a table on a background that allows you to see the cloudiness easily. If the cloudiness disappears in an hour or two, it is likely air. If a layer of stuff settles to the bottom, it is debris. If it will not settle it is bacteria.

IF it is air, clean the canister completely and restart.
If it is debris, it will clear up of its own accord in a day or so, unless the filter needs to be cleaned. Check the flow rate of the filter to see if it needs cleaned.
If it is bacteria, change water and quit feeding. Change water daily until the water is clear and then start feeding again with less food.

Just my opinion, but hope it helps.

BTW I think it is a good idea to have two filters on all big tanks. That way you can completely clean one while the other is still working. Alternate the cleaning of the filters, as needed. Use the flow rate to determine which needs cleaning. If you feed little, the filters do not need to be cleaned very often. If you feed a lot of food, you might need to clean one of the filters weekly.

Wow thanks for the help. I will do the glass test in the morning. What do you think of a uv light? What would you put in the second filter as far as media? How do I go about checking the flow rate?

Rich

A UV light can destroy bacteria and coagulate green-water algae. But how well it does depends on flow rate. The slower the rate of water through the UV light, the better. A UV light will not have an effect on air or debris. I use a UV light on my pond to keep down green water and it works pretty well.

As for flow rate, you just need relative flow rate. SO look at the return flow to the tank or return nozzle when the filter has just been cleaned. As the filter collects debris and does its job, the flow rate will slow. If it looks like it is a lot slower than it did when the filter was clean, it needs to be cleaned again. Just check it routinely until you get a feel for how dirty the filter is. Basically if it looks like the flow is lower by 50%, clean the filter.

Filter media choices are actually not that critical. Go with what the manufacturer recommends or study up on other types of media. You can choose media that will clean the water better, that is, take out smaller particles, but these will cause the filter to plug up quicker and so need cleaned more often. Same with bioballs or ceramics, the smaller they are, the more you can put in and the better the filter does its job, but the more often it will need to be cleaned. I was using lava rock as a filter medium and it does great, but once it got really dirty it was very hard to clean. i have replaced it with Poret sponges cut to size. Poret sponges come in various pore sizes. All are relatively easy to clean. But if you choose the small pore size sponge it can clog up in less than a week. I also use them in HOB filters and find the larger pore size works best.

Very informative content!!!


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Usually cloudiness is a sign of a mini cycle, so it's possible you've crashed part of your nitrogen cycle. Along with the water changes you should keep an eye on all your ammonia/nitrate/nitrite and especially ph. What the water changes are doing are minimizing all of those while your beneficial bacteria catch up.I have uv lights on almost all of my tanks, including my heavily planted nano. My favorite out of all of them (I tend to play around and get multiple brands) is a TMC Vecton. Easiest to plumb and one of the UV nerds raves about them (And also sells them, so you have to remember that while you are reading his stuff
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/TMCUVSterilizer.html
A Level 1 UV Sterilizer (often called a clarifier) only has enough dwell time/power to kill smaller things like algae and bacteria.A level 2 UV sterilizer has enough dwell time/power as long as you keep in mind the input flow rate and kill things like ich.The really big pong/large water uv systems you see often have 4-5 or more pvc pipes, this is maximizing exposure or dwell time
By the way, while UV sterilizers kill the beneficial bacteria in your water column, the majority of the beneficial bacteria is in your substrate and filter

I did the water test you recommended. I got water in a jar, let it set for 2 hours, when I checked it, there is no sediment, and no cloudiness. So I guess that leaves the micro..air bubbles. I'll do a complete filter change over the weekend and let. You know what happens.

What would you suggest I add first, the uv sterilizer or the extra canister filter?

Rich


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Maybe you've posted this already in another thread, otherwise the question should be how long has the tank, and especially the filter (and/or media), been set up? Or how long have had the sand and rocks in there? Also, what size tank? Have you added fish recently? If any of it is recent the best answer may be to give everything time to settle down and balance out rather than fuss with it too much.

Visual water glass test doesn't necessarily eliminate a bacteria bloom as the problem, heterotrophic bacteria (the type you actually see in a bacteria bloom) can multiply and/or disappear quickly, depending on conditions, especially so in the small volume of water in a drinking glass. If it turns out it's tiny water bubbles from your tap water, your tank should also clear fairly quickly and the answer isn't cleaning, changing, or adding filtration-- the exception being if your filter itself is the source of micro bubbles, in which case you should be able to see them coming out of the filter.

Unless your filter is mature and has been running a while, I wouldn't be cleaning it yet or changing media, etc. If it has been running some time I still wouldn't be too quick to clean it if flow is still good and media looks clean. Otherwise I would clean it gently (with tank or well water, not chlorinated tap water). Whether a new or new-ish tank/filter, or an established tank going through bacteria bloom or mini-cycle, sometimes you can be your own worst enemy by getting too zealous to fix it-- cleaning, water changes, water clarifiers, micron filters, adding filters, etc.-- when sometimes your best option is to leave it alone and allow time for things to settle down and come into balance.

I learned this years ago from personal experience, but so you don't take my word for it, here are a couple of references:
Link

A water change is not recommended to clear a bacterial bloom. When the free-floating heterotrophs are removed, the others will reproduce even faster to compensate, thus worsening the bloom. If left alone, they usually dissipate in a few days. In an established tank, however, the source of the problem should be removed. Clean the gravel, remove decaying matter, don’t overfeed, reduce overstocking, etc. And be aware of the oxygen shortage issue.

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Link

Larger, irregular water changes may actually end up causing more harm than good by suddenly altering the tank’s chemistry to an excessively large degree.

Leave the tank alone. Stop feeding the fish for a week, as healthy fish will be fine, and don’t clean the filter or carry out any more changes for at least a week.

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Stop feeding is optional, more of an emergency measure in my opinion. You can do just as well to continue feeding, but lighten up some. What you're trying to do is get your tank to settle down and balance out with beneficial bacteria, bio-load, chemistry, etc. Stopping feed for a week, then suddenly feeding again as normal doesn't necessarily accomplish this.

On the other hand, if it's a mature tank and you have lots of gunk in the filter or substrate, cleaning them would be one of the first steps. (actually your sand looks clean, possibly new, in the photo).

Maybe it is not your case. One culprit of cloudy water that is often over looked is due to flow bypassing the filter media. This can happen to any filter, but more often with AC and some canister filters that don't provide a good seal. The seal on the edges of the mechanical filter media must be tight, otherwise, water will be forced to by pass the media and leak through the edges. If this happens, the filter will continue to run forever without slowing down or overflowing the spillway. The filter appears to be working, but it is not filtering, just leaking water. I know from past experience how frequent each filter will need to be cleaned. If the filter continues to run longer than expected, something is suspicious and I would take it apart and always discover that it it is leaking around, not filtering through the media.

Thanks all for the info. I feed only one time in the morning. I have about 25 2-3" fish so I dont think my bio load is real high. I just did a complete filter cleaning 2 weeks ago. I do a 50% water change every week. I think I'll wait and see what happens over the next week or so. I'm still looking at a UV sterilizer or another filter. What do you all think?

Rich

Did you change the sand? As someone mentioned it looks new.. Maybe in the process of changing your sand you messed with the bacteria/balance. The water changes don't help with bacterial bloom and will be the cause if you do huge water changes.



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I did add sand 2 weeks ago. How do I fix a bacterial problem?

Time...you should be fine in a week or so don't add anymore fish and feed lightly. Toss a filter pad from another filter in there or swap some filter media if you have another tank


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Thanks to all for your great help

Suunsu said:

I did add sand 2 weeks ago. How do I fix a bacterial problem?

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Suspected it was something like that. You could be simply getting dust off your new sand, which can simply take time to clear out completely-- you could speed that up if you had a micron filter pad or other really fine mechanical media.

Or you could have lost part of your beneficial bacteria with the old subtrate, how much depends on what your previous substrate was, what depth, etc. (different bacteria inhabit different oxygen zones in the substrate). Either way, should just be a matter of time, feeding light, not overdoing water changes, etc., as Localzoo mentioned. Mostly a matter of letting things settle down and come back into balance.

Or you could have released extra organics when you changed over to the new sand, which could be causing a bacteria bloom. As I mentioned above, this would be heterotrophic bacteria, different type from your filter bacteria and much faster multiplying. Again, normally a matter of giving your tank time to settle down and come back into balance.

Yea, all I did was to add 60lbs of sand. Plan on cleaning sand and water change today. All water data is good. We'll see what happens.