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Hi All,

I'm having a bit of a problem with the water clarity in my 160L/42 gal tank. It's been running for about 3 months after fishless cycling, and for the last 2 weeks or so the water has been a bit hazy (especially evident when seen from the sides).
Some details of the tank:
- Stocking: 6 harlequin rasboras, 5 black neon tetras, 5 praecox rainbowfishes, 2 cherry barbs, 11 corydoras (3 Paleatus, 4 Trilineatus, & 4 juvenile metae just added last week). I feed them twice a day, small amounts. The fishes seem unaffected by the haze. So far I've lost one fish - a black neon - but that was over a month ago (still not sure why it died ).
- Filtration: Eheim 2213 canister filter. Over the last 2 weeks I've been running an AquaClear 200 in addition (preseeding for a new tank).
- Mostly plastic plants, except for one live plant (I don't know the name of it) which was added around the same time the water started turning cloudy.
- Ammonia & Nitrite readings are always 0, Nitrate ranges between 10-40ppm depending on how long after a water change. I do weekly 20-25% water changes with gravel vacuum (about 1/3 of the tank).
- Light on 8 hours a day (4 hours in the morning & 4 hours at night)

The last 2 water changes didn't really help clear the water. I also added the activated carbon in the AC200 a few days ago hoping that it would help, but so far no effect. Do you think the live plant could be causing the haziness? Not sure why it would though; I added the plant hoping it would help consume some nitrate. Or is the tank overstocked? I heard white cloudiness is usually caused by bacterial bloom, but since my Ammonia & Nitrite readings are 0, I don't think it's because of a mini-cycle.
Some things that I've read may be able to help (but haven't tried):
- daily water change (do I vacuum the gravel each time?)
- using Seachem Purigen (should I put it in the Eheim?)
- using Diatom Filter (not likely, as they're not readily available in Australia and costs a fortune!)
- turning the light off for 4 days (in case it's an Algae bloom, even though I haven't seen green algae in the tank at all)

Any thoughts/suggestions on what might be the best solution(s) to try first? I'm also reducing feeds to once a day (and smaller amount) until I can figure out the problem.

Thanks very much in advance! Sorry for the long post - just wanted to make sure I give as much info about the tank as possible, and to show that I did some research beforehand. It's just a bit frustrating because I kept a 25gal tank for 3 years before this and had no experience with cloudiness at all (but never had live plants).

-P

Hm, some thoughts on what could be the cause, but handle with care as I am only guessing.

First off, when did you clean your Eheim for the last time? If the answer is never then this might be the problem.
Second, did you add a driftwood / bogwood a while ago? This will cause the water to become hazy if it has not been soaked for a while (days / weeks ? ) before it was added to the tank.

Again, just some thoughts, maybe it will help,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Okay--I had a bad bacterial bloom, thats the cloudiness I think...Have you felt the plant lately? Is it rotting? That what started mine I didn't have quite enough lighting to have live plants and over time the plant died--and rotted without my knowledge.

I tried water changes and they helped but didnt completly take it away, I tried all those clearers (crystal clear/aqua clear/etc) didnt work All you can do is wait. Wait and do an every other day water change and one morning i woke up and it was clear. It took 3 weeks . Any ways goo dluck it's frustrating I know not to mention UGLY! but it didnt effect MY fish i dont think it will hurt yours.

On a side note: Those nitrates are HIGH! Expecially for FW!! 40ppms? Try to keep it under 30ppms. (Nitrates are deadly in big doeses which I know you all ready know sorry I'm just reiderating myself )

Jess

Cleaning the water with carbon or purigen is not going to fix a bacterial bloom. You also don't need ammonia or nitrite at high enough levels to test for there to be cloudy water. I agree 40 nitrate is high especially with weekly water changes. I would guess there is something rotting in your tank. I'm not sure the plant would handle the seperated lighting time and depending on the plant it might not even survive in your tank no matter what. Choosing plants requires as much or more research than choosing what fish can go in your tank. All your solutions are short term and unless you find the cause the cloudiness will come back. Have you cleaned the filters at all? Both cleaning too much and leaving too much fish waste and excess food in the tank can cause a bacterial bloom. You have to find the right amount for your tank but with nitrates going that high in that short of time it sounds like there's an excess of waste in your filter or your plant is dying. Did you ever find the dead neon or did he just disapear?

Hi - thanks for the suggestions.

I hadn't cleaned the Eheim at all in the 4 months I've used it, until yesterday. Yesterday I did a quick rinse of the top 3 sponges (in tank water) and added filter wool on the very top. The cleaning took out a bit of gunk, and afterwards, the water flow is much stronger than before. But it didn't seem to help as the tank is still hazy this morning.

Here's a picture of the tank taken about a month ago:
[/font]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/witje/Fish/clear.jpg

And here are some pictures taken just now:
[/font]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/witje/Fish/cloudy1.jpg
[/font]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v58/witje/Fish/cloudy2.jpg

You can definitely see the difference in water clarity.

About the nitrate level, I did a water change 2 days ago and today it's 10ppm. The last time the nitrate reading was 40ppm was when I still had my 5 head-and-tail light tetras, which I returned back to the LFS a month ago. So I don't think the nitrate level now gets that high. I will check again towards the end of this week to make sure.

I haven't added any driftwood or anything else to the tank, with the exception of the one live plant (the LFS said it's called "blue stricter' or something like that). It's not rotting at all, quite the opposite actually - it's sprouted quite a few roots since I added it (it's the plant with the white roots coming off it on the left side of the 2nd picture above). I did find the dead neon within one day of its death and took it out, so it's not the cause.

Anyways, I've added filter wool in both the Eheim and AquaClear filters, so I think I'm going to let it go for a few more days and hope it clears away by itself. One question about the water change though: I usually clean vacuum about 1/4-1/3 of the gravel during the weekly change. Is that too much cleaning?

Jess: when you did your every-other-day water change to remove the cloudiness, how much water did you take out each time and did you vacuum the gravel each time or just took out some water from the top?

Thanks again!

Last edited by upikabu at 03-Jul-2005 19:43

-P

An update:
I've been replacing 25% of H2O every 2-3 days, took out the one live plant, feeding *very* little once daily, & added a 100mL bag of Purigen to the Eheim 2213 canister filter. A week later, and the water is still cloudy.
Ammonia & Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 10-20ppm.
I'm pretty much at a loss ATM, not sure what else to do besides waiting it out. Should I try one of those bacterial starter or "water clarifier" (like p-Clear)? Any other ideas, please?

Thanks.


-P

I have had this happen to me, but I was trying to clear up an algae problem and was cleaning the tank a bit too much to stop the algae. I turned the lights off for a while (think it was about a week or so) and also stopped cleaning the gravel for a month. I think from memory it took about 4weeks to clear up and for the tank to get back to normal in which time I was ready to give up - but just be patient and wait and it should clear up

like what the_goldie sayed, this also happened to me but if you just wait a bit it should clear up.

Good news! On Monday night I added a dose of Seachem Stability (bacterial starter) that I had lying around, and by Wednesday the water has cleared up significantly!
Now the water is pretty much back to crystal clear.
I guess it was a bacterial bloom after all.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions!!

-P

sorry bout the late reply!! So happy for you!!

Jess