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My twenty nine gallon is giving me fits. Last year, I had horrible brown algae that took forever to go away. I cut down on feeding and changed to a different kind of food, and it went away, but.......
Now I have white murky water (for a while it was green), Ph: 7; nitrates: 5.0; and as of this week, Ammonia: 0.25.
A few months ago, I went to live plants -- the plants are doing great, so far. It has a biowheel 170 filter.
I have eight danios, five cories and one female betta (may move her).
I; also, have a ten gallon tank, that is doing great. Both tanks have been up and running for about three years. I clean then and do a water change every week. This week, I put some of the used water from the ten, into the 29 - someplace I saw that might help, but so far nothing is working. What am I doing wrong here?

Sounds like your tank is going through some sort of cycle. Have added anything lately. How do you clean the filter media.

Green water is the result of an algae bloom while white or cloudy water is generally caused by a bacteria bloom. Both of these causes are created by high levels of nutrients in your water. These nutrients are the natural result of the cycle, nitrates, and dying organic matter, phosphates.
You can resolve the blooms by controlling the nutrients in your aquarium by water changes, regular vacuuming of the substrate and filter maintenance. All three actions are required to control the problems.



Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 14-Jul-2005 10:11

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

I have been replacing the filters every week, as they have been covered in green muck after a week. Usually, I just pour the water out and and clean the filter with a clean soft rag.
For a few days about three weeks ago, the problem actually looked like it was clearing up. I added some cycle to it, maybe that will help.
Thanks.

Brown algae appears when nitrates are high. This bacteria feeds from this, and that's why appears when we left uneaten food for a while and with sparse water changes.

Green algae appears when nitrates are high and there's a substantial source of sunlight (direct or indirect). In fact, some orienal goldfish keepers (pond) like green water cause the green algae actually 'eats' the nitrates, balancing more the water parameters and allowing doing less often water changes.

Green water is like having a planted tank. Plants do just as green algae.

... as for the white water, im not really sure.. sometimes is an ammonia burst or it might be dead green algae... Plants discolour when dead, so it might be.

Try to avoid direct sunlight or intense light reflection over the tanks. it might solve the problem if your parameters are correct.

I've never had to deal with a "white water" bacterial bloom, but i have found a way to beat green water. I was having trouble with an algae bloom and I used a diatom filter to clear things up. However, as I knew it would, the green water came back after a month or so. I was able to dilute it with water changes, and the tank didnt look that bad, just the water always looked just a bit off.

Now,one possible solution that has worked for me. As others have said, algae blooms are caused by excess nutrients in the water column. In order to choke off the algae's supply of nutrients, it's helpful to introduce a very fast growing stem plant to your tank: for me, both hornwort and anacharis have worked wonderfully. Depending on light and the amount of C available, either of these plants, but especially hornwort, will suck up nutrients so fast that you may need to add N to your tank just to keep them growing optimally. And that's the whole point here: keep another (more attractive ) form of plant life gowing so that lower forms cannot. After adding the hornwort, I think adding flourish excel every other day or so, along with a regular light schedule will take care of your problem. Of course, all of this is just IME, others may have easier ways...

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Back in the saddle!

I think I may have figured out part of the problem - at least.
When my husband had his stroke in February, (he is expected to make a full recovery in time), I was strapped for time (Dr. appointments, rehab, etc.) and cash, so started using tap water in my tanks. The water company flushed the lines out in March, killing one of my bettas and nearly killing two others, so I went back to bottled water for a while, but it got to be too much for me with physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc. so went back to tap water in April, just for the betta bowls.
Last month, I lost a female betta to a huge, fast growing tumor (see post in Hospital). I had to euthenise her a few weeks ago. I wondered what caused it?
When ever I have water left over from the betta bowls and the dog bowl (won't give her this stuff since the betta tumor), I use it for the ten gallon - why it is doing so much better than the 29 gallon. The week the water nearly cleared up on the 29, is the week I added a bit of bottled water in it.
I have been using tap water filtered through a britta filter, thinking it would make it useable, but apparently it is not, even though it comes out fine when I test it. Someplace, I have a report from the water company with the test result from their last well test. If memory serves me right, it was not good - but they claimed the amounts of microbs, benzine and formaldehyde were within leagel limits - yeah, right! I wish I had kept it, but I was using bottled water at the time and didn't think anything more about it - until now.
There is a neighborhood in town with an unusually high rate of cancer in the human population, but the water company insist it is not due to the water. Three miles down the road from me, is a hazard waste site, where no one is allowed to enter. The railroad used it to treat their railroad ties with some sort of chemical, now listed as deadly. No one knows how to clean it up, it is so bad. Three years ago, I lost a dog to melanoma..... this was before I had gotten into fish. The NC vet school, said it was the highest concentration of cancer cells they had ever seen in a slide. Now, I am wondering?
Anyway, it is back to the store for bottled water. NowherMan6, I will take your advice on the plants. I have
Amazon Sword, Aponogeton, mono grass, and some sort of pond lilly, but have space for a few more. I will check PetSmart. I have a big window in an ajoining room that could have been the cause of my green water, but presently a large tree provides some shade. I don't think light is the problem.
I have just had so many other things to deal with lately, it did not occur to me it might be the water.
Thank you for all of your help and advice.

Last edited by Two Tanks at 14-Jul-2005 19:33

It took some work, but the tank is finally getting back to normal. I did two water changes with bottled water and tried a variety of things to put in the filter to take out the ammonia and nitrate (the ammonia went down after about three days, but not the nitrates).
Yesterday, I did a third water change and replaced the old bio-wheel (I had, had it for nearly three years) with a new Aqua Clear 50. Also, I hooked up a smaller spare filter I found with my other fish stuff out in the laundry room cabinet (an old sandshark -- had fun finding replacement filters for it), and this morning the nitrates were normal and the cloudy water is just about gone. I am thrilled!
I also, added the plants that were memtioned - hornworth.
I am going to look into a reverse osmosis water filter once my husband is feeling better. Our tap water is terrible: I live within one mile of a major military base (Fort Bragg, NC), two gas stations, a dry cleaners, a major road widening project, and on land that was once used for farming - no wonder the water is lousy (it is blue and makes blue stains on the laundry).
I am not completely sure which thing I did to the tank is what helped it, or if it was a combination of things, but is is a lot better now.
Take care.