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For the past week I have had a very white cloudy/foggy tank. I have a 42 gallon sparseley planted hex tank with an AquaClear 50 Power Filter. Temperature set at 78 degrees. I also have a bubble wall as well as a centre ornament with air stone. Currently there are 5 guppies, 3 zebra danios, 2 swordtails, 3 balloon mollies and one platy occupying the tank. They are fed twice a day and only what they can consume in 5 minutes. Substrate is glass discs of about 1/2" in diameter and 1\8" thick. This tank has only been set up for about a month.

I started to cycle with 5 danios however when I lost 2 within 24 hours I decided to go the "Cycle" way. Everything was fine until I did my first 25% water change and vacuum on week 2. Amonia spiked between between 4.0 to 5.0 ppms I tried doing 25% water changes to reduce the amonia however it wasn't helping. Decided to add Ammo Lock 2. Within a couple of days the amonia was back down to 0 however I had lost 2 of my fish. Week 3 all water paramaters were bang on. Did another 25% water change just this last Thursday and vacuumed only 1/4 of the tank. Added some "Cycle"and water conditioner. Made the mistake of completely replacing all components of the filter (sponge, carbon filter and ceramic rocks). Took an amonia reading and nitrite and nitrate reading about an hour later and everything was still A-OK.

This is when the cloudiness started. By Saturday night the water was almost like the colour of pale skim milk . I have read the posts on this subject and decided that a 50% water and a good vacuuming would be in order. Did that, and the water colour was not too bad but the amonia spiked big time between 4.0-5.0 range. This morning I added some AmmoLock 2 as I noticed one of my guppies was breathing a little hard.

At this point, the water is still getting cloudier and now another one of my guppies is breathing hard.

My current paramaters are:
Amonia 2.0 - 3.0 (AmmoLock added)
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
GH 75
KH 40
PH 7.2

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Last edited by Mitchee at 12-Dec-2005 20:35

Last edited by Mitchee at 12-Dec-2005 20:38

Last edited by Mitchee at 12-Dec-2005 22:41


*Mitch*

White cloudy is usually a sign of a bacterial bloom and means you removed too much bacteria. Doing a gravel vac was the absolute worst thing you could do especially a 100% vac. The tank was barely staying stable and you pushed it over the edge by removing too much bacteria out of the gravel. For now do lots of water changes(no gravel vacs or filter change) to keep the ammonia down until the tank can cycle again. Also don't feed them more than once a day so they aren't producing as much ammonia.
I am wondering why your having so much trouble since that tank doesn't look that overstocked. You could be feeding too much. Most of my fish can clean up more food than they need in about 2minutes. The problem with feeding for a certain amount of time is that it depends on the fish and the food being fed. My threadfin rainbows could spend 5mins picking at pelleted foods and barely get enough to eat. My congo tetras can tear apart just about any type of food and have it gone in a minute or 2 even if I overfeed them. If I fed them enough for 5mins I'd have serious water quality problems especially if I was doing so twice a day. Feeding more than once a day is fine so long as you feed them very little each time instead of 1 large feeding once a day.

Another thing you might want to check is if your tapwater contains ammonia.

Last edited by sham at 12-Dec-2005 23:50

You may be receiving a false ammonia reading from your use of AmmoLock. Although the product binds the chemical into a less toxic form, ammonium, its presence will strongly impact your water tests. Follow the water change route and treat the water for chlorine. Your tank has yet to fully cycle as you do not register any nitrites.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Made the mistake of completely replacing all components of the filter (sponge, carbon filter and ceramic rocks).

This is the reason for the bacteria bloom.
Never do such a big change. I am slowly changing to a larger first filtration rocks. These are in the tank in a seperate container for a month before they go into the tank. Also remember to only wash all the filter material in the old tank water and do not keep, it out of the tank for long I try to get it all back under 30 minutes.

Sounds like it is still cycling. You could also add a good bacteria boost/starter there are several on the market.

I still use it at every water change to keep the good bacteria in its origional form.

Have a look in [link=My Profile]http://
www.fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/profile.asp?userid=6741" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link] for my tank info

[link=Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tanks]http://photobucket.com/albums/b209/keithgh/Betta%20desktop%20tank/" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]

Keith

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Thanks so much everyone for your advice I guess you can tell I'm still new at this, but I'm learning everyday. I did test my tap water for amonia and it can out fine. I'll be doing a 25% to 30% water change (without any vacuuming) every couple of days until this clears up and definitely reduce the feedings.



Last edited by Mitchee at 13-Dec-2005 04:41

Last edited by Mitchee at 13-Dec-2005 04:42


*Mitch*

Hi,
"Substrate is glass disks of about 1/2" in diameter and 1\8" thick"

While it may look "neat" this is another mistake with the
tank. While the filter will develop the bacterial colonies
that change the fish wastes into nitrite and then nitrate,
the substrate (gravel or sand, whichever you use) also
develops the same bacterial colonies, and in fact, will
house the bulk of them. Smooth glass disks will not give
the surface area that the gravel will thus limiting the
amount of colonization that can take place and reducing
the colonies a thousand fold. And, on top of that
the disks will create "dead areas," that is areas without
circulation and that will create areas of anaerobic
bacteria that produce hydrogen sulfide and that is toxic
to fish.
If you like the disks and want to keep them, I suggest that
you remove them,clean the tank (water change) and then add
a half inch to an inch of sand or gravel and then
sparsely add SOME disks so that they stick out like
this / from the substrate randomly spaced throughout
the tank. That will give you the "look" and also
provide the substrate necessary for the tank to thrive.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Hi Frank

Thanks for your suggestion. I was just mentioning the same thing to my husband that I thought we might have made a mistake with the discs. Seems we've been doing a lot of that lately with this aquarium. The first being with the pet store where we purchased it. We told them exactly what we were planning to use as substrate and they all thought it was a great idea and it was going to look fantastic!! Go figure!!!

So, my next question is, how do I go about removing the discs at this point in the game? Would I have to do a complete tear down of the tank? And what about my fish? This process will most certainly stress them out.

Your thoughts???

Last edited by Mitchee at 14-Dec-2005 05:30

Last edited by Mitchee at 14-Dec-2005 06:54


*Mitch*

Mitchee:

I wanted to give you a little bit of my experience and opinion on this.

I'm an avid preacher in doing a fish-less cycle, if you don't know what this is just ask as many of our great members here can tell you. As you've pretty much guessed it involves cycling your tank with out the use of fish, so keep this in mind for future reference. ^_^

Secondly I'm one of the few people who seem to like "Cycle" or "NIC" and know how to use it and the difference compared to the other similar product called "Bio-Spira".
NIC has enzymes in it which help to reduce the normal duration it takes to cycle a new tank. Bio-Spira contains live bacterial cultures which when used properly "instantly" cycle your tank, and by that I mean your tank will still go through the cycle but about 90% faster.

As long as you use the AmmoLock product, and as long as it's in your tank water your ammonia tests will show that you have ammonia in your tank. That's what is referred to as a false positive, or false test reading.
AmmoLock takes the more deadly form of Ammonia present in your tank and turns it into a less toxic kind... however, it is in fact STILL ammonia.
More then likely your test kit is designed to find any type of ammonia (free, non specific ammonia) present in your tank, so your test kit is doing it's job.
However once you use a product such as AmmoLock it makes it more difficult to tell what amount of the highly deadly ammonia is in your tank.

Keep dosing with NIC follow it's instructions, you can not over dose NIC/Cycle. Do not change any of your filter media as previously discussed, and only feed as much and do as many water changes to keep your fish out of danger through the cycling processes.

About your substrate. Go buy the new substrate "regular gravel or sand" clean it well, rinse rinse rinse and then rinse some more until the water runs clear and then some.
Add it into your tank, go slow, be careful not to bother the fish too much. And then simply pull out the old glass marbles you were using.
Now if you want you can leave the glass marbles in there mixed with or scattered on top of the regular substrate. You'll just have to remember to dig past the marbles with your vacuum hose to properly vacuum the real gravel underneath.

Thanks so much AngelZoo! I really, really appreciate your comments Since I started having this fog issue and amonia spikes, I have added quite a lot of Cycle to my tank and I was concerned that this was doing more harm then good. I mean, if I'm having a bacterial bloom, wouldn't adding more bacteria make it worse?? Anyway, I did a 25% water change last night, added more Cycle and water conditioner, but I did not add any amore Ammo Lock and this morning the water is more cloudy then the day before! I'm afraid of what I'm going to find when I get home tonight!! I'm planning on doing another 25% water change tomorrow night.

As far as the substrate goes, I was considering replacing the whole gosh darn glass disc fiasco with white gravel. Once my water paramaters stabelize I was going to move my fish to a 5g tank that I have, using of course the water from my current tank. I know it's small and unfortunately unheated but if all goes well, it should just be for a couple of hours. I realize that I have to move my current filter to this new tank in order to preserve whatever bacteria I have. I'm also going to keep as much of my current tank water in buckets so that I can put most of it back in once my new substrate has been added.

I'm so frustrated right now! I just want to do whatever is best for my fish!!


*Mitch*

You can't really have too much benificial bacteria. The "bloom" your seeing is the bacteria searching for a place to settle aka your substrate, filter media and decorations to a lesser extent.

If you can get your hands on some Bio-Spira I would try that and follow the directions, leave your water alone, leave the fish in there and add the proper amount of Bio-Spira.

If you find that product make sure it was shipped to the store refridgerated, and make sure the store has kept it in a refridgerator.
From my understanding with out being kept that cold the bacteria dies and the product becomes useless.

There should not be much debris build up in your substrate currently so don't disturb that with vacuuming. You can do some water changes of course to help keep those toxic levels in check. As if you keep doing too much gravel vacs right now you are removing the benificial bacteria sitting down there which is needed to convert your Ammonia to NitrItes and NitrItes to NitrAtes, so on and so forth.

If you have some extra filter media pads sitting around, throw one or two in the the tank (just float them) so the benificial bacteria has a place to collect.

What are your Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte levels at today? FYI at this point you should be testing these levels before a water change and after a water change, each time.

What water conditioner are you using btw?

My readings as of this morning were as follows:

Amonia 4.0 to 5.0 (it has gone done from the 7.0 range but this can be misleading as there is probably still some AmmoLock present)
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
I haven't done any gravel vacs since last Thursday and the fish are only fed once per day for 2 minutes. I'll be sure to float a couple of my filter sponges as soon as I get home tonight.
The water conditioner I'm using is AquaSafe.

What's your opinion on the way I want to go about changing my substrate? Is there a better way to go about it?

Last edited by Mitchee at 14-Dec-2005 11:07

Last edited by Mitchee at 14-Dec-2005 16:38


*Mitch*

No there isn't really a better way.

Just take out some of the marbles and gently add in a handful of the new substrate. Reach into the tank and set it down on the bottom, don't just drop it from the top and let it float down.
Can you get your hands on a salicylate based kit for ammonia, or better yet the Multi-Test Ammonia Kit by Seachem which will not be effected by the presence of things such as AmmoLock. It can detect the free Ammonia (the more dangerous one) as oppose to the overall ammonia including the ionized form that AmmoLock converts it to.

Do you have any friends with established/cycled tanks that you can borrow some currently used substrate or filter media from? That will help a lot (make sure their tank does not have any diseases currently.)

Hi AngelZoo

I'll go looking for that amonia multi-test kit tonight. Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to move my fish to my 5g tank while I do the substrate change. My 42g hex is just too tall and I won't be able to add the new substrate in while the fish are there and remove the glass discs as well.

BTW, I did add the foam blocks to my tank as you suggested. I'm thinking its going to take a while before things clear up. It was really bad this morning, I could only see my fish if they came right up to the front of the tank.

Wish me luck and thanks so much for your help and advice Very much appreciated!!

Last edited by Mitchee at 15-Dec-2005 08:34


*Mitch*

Id say you are better off putting them in the 5 gallon while you do a gravel change.

I performed one gravel change in my lifetime of owning fish. I transfered my fish while I scooped out all the old gravel and added moon sand. It wasnt too difficult, but mine was a ten gallon.

The only thing Id like to say, is its most likely going to start your cycle all over again.

Hi inlikefish


Thanks for your comments. I can see no other way to do this change. I sure hope my fish survive the next "cycle" that my tank will undergo. They've been through so much in the last few days. I'll tell you one thing though, I've learned a lot through this site and its members. Very grateful for all the help and guidance. I just wish I would have known about it before I started with my aquarium.




*Mitch*

ya, Ive learned EVERYTHING here. Its a great forum.

good luck and let me know how it goes.