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First of all, I am asking this question on behalf of a co-worker of mine...

In all honesty, I didn't have time to get many details from her since we were at work, however, I thought I could come on here and throw the question out anyway...

I'm pretty sure she said that this is a 20 gallon tank. It has a school of danios and a couple other small fish (she doesn't know exactly what they are). Anyway, she doesn't have anything in the tank other than the fish. No gravel, no plants, no decorations; nothing. She's had the tank set up for over 2 years without any problems. However, she says a little less than 2 weeks ago, after doing a water change, she now has cloudy water.

She says she has never had any problems with this before and has tried to just wait for it to go away, but it hasn't. And without having any gravel or anything in the tank, I don't think any product like "Cycle" will help her out, correct?

Again, I apologize for not knowing more about her tank, but I thought I'd throw the question out to you guys anyway and maybe someone can offer some advice to help clear her tank.


Last edited by neurotica1983 at 02-Mar-2005 22:32

First off convince her to stop by here, we'd love to have her around .

Second, she really should have some substrate in that tank. No matter what filter you have a massive portion of the biofilter (bacteria) lives in the substrate. This is what prevents mini cycles. The only time you shouldn't have substrate is in a fry tank that's recieving daily water changes.

If the cloudy (as I suspect) is white what she's seeing is a bacterial bloom. Either from the cycle itself or a minicycle. Bacterial blooms occur anytime the biofilter goes out of wack so to speak. This often is a result of over cleaning in a tank, or loss of power. If she'd just replaced filter media she's likely to have seen a mini cycle since she has no substrate to provide additional colonies of bacteria. If the tank has some form of filtration that involves a sponge or filter floss, or rings (ie: a place for the bacteria to grow) then cycle will help. Be sure to dose once then wait seven days per directions.

^_^ [hr width='40%']"There’s an emptiness inside her. And she’d do anything to fill it in.
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now. It's more like cold blue ice in her heart.
She feels like kicking out all the windows. And setting fire to this life."