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ok well my 55 gallon has well 6 panda cories and a 3 inch bn with tons and tons of live plants. tank parameters are
ammonia 0 ppm
nitrites 0 ppm
nitrates are around 20 ppm
ph is 6.4/5 ish
all this was double checked by friends test kits and by the lfc so how can three kits be getting the same ready and cloudyness


but the tank is cloudy and with partial water changes its still been cloudy for a week its just as cloudy as before. the cloudyness didnt start to happen till after the introduction of the fish the nextday. But the tank was cycling for a month with no fish and it cycled completely. Now I cant get the cloudyness to go away can anybody guess what is happening I've never had this happen ever to me.
thanks,
josh

What type of filters are you running? How about lighting? Is it near windows and what type of lights and how long are they running? Is the cloudiness a whitish/smokey look or a green? What type of gravel? How did you cycle the tank? How much are you feeding?

Josh,

Fallout is asking all the important questions to make sure that any diagnosis is as correct as possible.

I would like to tag on one more question: Are the 20ppm Nitrate the leftover from the cycling? It cannot come from the few fishies that you have in there, in particular if you have loads of plants (real, right). Are you using any fertilizers for the plants, if so what?

I would guess you are getting Green Water, but all questions need to be answered to make sure that this is really the case.

Looking forward to the details,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

My guess goes along with Little Fish's.... Green Water... but then again, I should ask if your current water supply is undergoing some changes.... When I was keeping Bettas, I did some water changes -- the water ended up with a persistent cloudiness, even with water changes -- and I eventually ended up losing a few of my boys.... A couple of days later it was noted in our local newspaper that there had been a problem with water purification in our area.....
So, you might want to check with your source of water supply....

To thine own self be true...

it is a smokey whittish kind, as of right now i have an emperor 400 and another hob filter from eheim i think its a liberty 200. as of right now im using flourish excel and flourish iron and the way i cycled it is from using the product called cycle and seeding it from other tanks such as filter pads and water, and the only other chemical being put in to the tank is a ph buffer. and it isnt anywhere near a window. the only thing different in this tank from my other tanks is that im using laterite? and a new smaller gravel but it wasnt cloudy before the fish were in there just the next morning

and thank you guys for the replies

when you added the cycle and the seeded pad, did you add the fish right away or did you wait?

um i waited 3 weeks as i went with the fishless cycle

Josh,

Does that mean that your tank was just sitting there for 3 weeks without adding more cycle, or food, or anything?

In that case your beneficial bacteria will have most likely died as there was nothing for them to "eat" anymore.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

no I was adding more cycle 2 cap fulls for every ten gallons once a week like it said on on the directions when starting new tanks instead of just the normal capfuls and then i added some flake food occassionally about once a week and measured the ammonnia and nitrites , nitrates, and ph everyday.
and i added the fertilizer once a week also
and not the parameters from today
ammonnia- 0
nitrites- 0
nitrates- is in between 10 and 20
and the ph- approx. 6.5

You should have been adding either fish food or ammonia during that time. You can't cycle a tank with Cycle alone. The bacteria need something to live off of. When using fish, the fish produce ammonia which the bacteria uses. If you didn't consistently add fish food or ammonia then your tank didn't cycle.

The nitrates could be from the left of fish food (don't know if that would happen) or from something you seeded the tank with (if you did).

The cloudyness could be a bacterial bloom. I think alot of new tanks get this. It should go away on its own.

Laterite will cloud the water but only if disturbed. I don't think it would cause white cloudiness though, since it is a reddish color. It wouldn't just happen all of a sudded either.

*Kristin*

well,

Looking at your values it truely seems like your tank has cycled.

I checked Hagen's website for the Cycle product, but the info provided there is not very specific with lines like "Works together with other beneficial strains to eliminate harmful toxins" and "The ideal mix of beneficial bacteria to make the aquarium water purer and the environment healthy", plus on another page there they say "Purchasing a small group of fish every two weeks will serve to gradually load the system and allow essential bacteria the time required to multiply and establish (dose regularly with Cycle), biologically converting toxic nitrogenous compounds produced by fish."

Sounds a little fishy to me .

Anyway - is your cloud getting less now? Usually, white clouds that indicate a bacterial bloom will dissolve on their own within 4 to 6 days. Green water, on the other hand, would only get worse.

You still haven't specified the tank though (or did I miss that? )

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Your tank did indeed cycle, but you have a lot more ammonia production right now because you now you have fish and the food that you're putting in regularly. The bacteria are rapidly reproducing to capitalize on the increase in ammonia. I'd just keep an eye on the parameters, and if it gets too bad, a water change can be done to lower them.

In any case, for a fishless cycle to be effective, ammonia should be added that is comparable to or more than the ammonia that will be produced by your fish, the amount you feed the fish, and other biological processes, so as to allow the bacteria to build up to this level. Adding a little food once a week will only cycle the tank so that the bacteria reach a level to handle food put in the tank once a week; this is not an appropriate level as, once you add fish, they will produce ammonia constantly (not to mention you will be probably be adding food daily as well). Therefore, to properly cycle, more ammonia has to be added; if you added only food, it'd get messy, so usually pure ammonia diluted in water (ammonium hydroxide) is used instead. This way you can add however much ammonia you want without making the tank dirty. However, you are beyond this point. Of course, you can't do this with fish in the aquarium as the ammonia will kill them or at least stress them.

At this point, you should let the cycle run its natural course, doing water changes if the levels reach too high. IMO, 6 Pandas and a Bristlenose in a tank as large as a 55 gallon will not produce too much ammonia, so you should probably be fine. On the other hand, Pandas are a more delicate species of Corydoras and so should be watched quite closely. The bacterial bloom and cloudiness will diminish after the cycle is complete.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.