Cloudy water in tank. Help!

[plecoman]

One of my 20 long breeding tanks has been staying pretty cloudy for the past month. I have to do a water change every other day to help clear the water up. But then, after a couple of feedings, the water is cloudy again! I put an aquaclear 30 on the tank about 2 weeks ago in hopes that this would help, but it hasn't. I am also using 2 hydro sponge foam filters in the tank. The water clears after the wc, but then after the feedings it's cloudy again. I'm not over feeding. I've made sure that I've cut back on the food. But that doesn't help either! There are around 100 pleco's in this tank that are about 8 weeks old. The father is also in the tank with them. They are all healthy and eating well too. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks :dk:

plecoman (Drew)

 

[Doodles]

What are you feeding them and how long are you leaving it in for?

Was the aquaclear filter a cycled filter, already containing some preused sponges etc? or new?

I have this problem occasionally when i leave veggies in too long, even though the water changes you are doing seem to clear it, they are diluting the problem, so when you feed again, it doesnt take much for the cloudiness to appear again. I would increase the waterchanges, maybe make the changes smaller but more often. Make sure any food isn't left in to long.

Also what is the temp? higher temps will make food stay less stable.

 

[DJ-don]

stop doing water changes for a week then do a 25 percent change when i suffered cloudiness in my silver dollar tank. the constant water changes didnt help. so i got lazy that week and forgot about the tank except for feeding th fish! and did the water change and it seemed to work

 

[Doodles]

stop doing water changes for a week then do a 25 percent change when i suffered cloudiness in my silver dollar tank. the constant water changes didnt help. so i got lazy that week and forgot about the tank except for feeding th fish! and did the water change and it seemed to work

Never tried that approach lol.

The only concern with this is that it is a breeding tank thats quite small, a week long break from water changes might not be good for the fry???

 

[Irene0100]

with all thoses babies i would w/c every day.

the cloud is possibly algae bloom, does the tank get a lot of daylight?

any idea what the ph is?

I clear up algae bloom by using small internal filter with UV, plus adds extra water movement and airation with venturi, as well as the health benefits of uv.

 

[plecoman]

The aquaclear was new and not cycled, but the sponge filters were. The temp of the water is 80% and the ph is 7.5. The fish usually clean up the food, but I only clean the bottom when I do the wc every other day. I wondered about an algae bloom. When I feed them the pleco algae wafers the water seems to cloud up quickly. I can do more wc's or I could let it go for a week and see what happens. I would still clean the food out of the bottom though. What to do? :dk: LOL..... The uv sterilizer sounds good. I've been thinking about that one. Can you buy one small enough for a 20 long tank? Thanks for all the help! :thumbup:

plecoman (Drew)

 

[Doodles]

I would do the waterchanges, if the tank wasn't full of fry then you could leave it.

How many litres is 20 Long?

uv vectron do fairly small uv sterilisers i think.

 

[Lornek8]

I would do the waterchanges, if the tank wasn't full of fry then you could leave it.

How many litres is 20 Long?

uv vectron do fairly small uv sterilisers i think.

80L? Dimensions are 30" x 12" x 12".
I ran a 5w sterilizer on a 20L before and it worked fabulously. Got it from a guy that used to run it on a 20XH. The biggest key is the flow rate through the UV if you're running an external. There is just a maximum flow rate, no minimum. You could always run a larger UV at lower flows, but it doesn't work as intended if you run them in excess of their rated flows.

EDIT: Actually more like 70L.

 

[Doodles]

ok thanks Lorne. Thats the trouble with uv, the flow has to be spot on for maximum benefits.

 

[Irene0100]

well I use these filters, they come in different sizes and are not expensive
http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/catalog/aquael-internal-filter-p-1405.html
they are made in poland I think, so no idea if you can get them where you are.
I dont know about what is needed for 'maximun benefits' but they are better than no uv at all and so much easier than plumbing in the big external UVs like vectron (which are great for big tanks) but these little filters are fine for smaller tanks.

 

[Lornek8]

I had one like this, quite easy to plumb to the outlet of my Ehiem, even happened to have the same tubing size.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+4393+7999&pcatid=7999

There are internal ones available in the US like this:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+4393+19643&pcatid=19643

 

[plecoman]

Here's what I've done. I tried algaefix for the past 24 hours. I know that's not long, but no change in that time. So today I bought a uv sterilizer. Is is an AAUV9W. I put it in about 3 hours ago. Hopefully within a couple of days I'll start seeing a difference. The flow rate is slow, but from what I gather, that allows the water to be exposed to the uv light longer. I hope this works! If I don't see any results within a few days, I'm gonna remove the fish to the larger tank and let the fry tank cycle a while. If that doesn't do any good, I'll totally shut that tank down for a while.

 

[Irene0100]

sounds good to me, keep doing small w/c for sake of the fry.
let us know how you get on.
any photos?

 

[DJ-don]

i really forgot about this thread sorry!!
i ddint read the part of keeping fry!!
i would reccomend getting something like bacteria in a bottle
it helps lower nitrates/trites and competes algae for food and is cheap and great food for fry!!!

but the uv sterilyser will clear things up-im not sure if it removes nitrates/trites though

 

[plecoman]

The water in my tank is now crystal clear! The uv sterilizer was well worth the $40! Does anyone know how long I should run the uv sterilizer? Again, I don't know if I had a algae bloom or some sort of bacteria thing happening. So I need to know how long to run this thing. Also, will the uv sterilizer kill the good bacteria in my tank? :dk:

 

[Doodles]

Also, will the uv sterilizer kill the good bacteria in my tank?

Nope, the good bacteria is sticky, its on every surface you can imagine but not really in the water at all.

You can leave the uv running all the time, its up to you.


Glad its cleared:yes:
The bloom would of occurred due to extra nutrients in the water which it would of fed off imo. I would try removing any veggies etc earlier than you are.

 

[Rabbit]

but the uv sterilyser will clear things up-im not sure if it removes nitrates/trites though

Nope but it is always worth having one.
I wouldnt worry about adding a bottled bacteria at the moment if the bloom is too strong the bacteria will die feeding the algae further, better off finding out what the original food source was before you add a new one.

You will find with most "bottled" bacteria they dont actually contain any live bacteria (just like our fish bacteria to requires certain conditions in order to thrive that cannot be met in a bottle), i have no doubt that these products can help in certain situations but your not adding live bacteria it is more so a food source for the bacteria already present in the aquarium.
HTH

 

[plecoman]

What has puzzled me, is that my other 20 long breeding tank has been crystal clear! I feed the fish in both breeding tanks the same food and the same amount of food. That tank also has more fry in it too. So your guess is as good as mine as to why this tank decided to get cloudy. One possibility could be some plants that I added to that tank for a short time. They came from another individuals aquarium and I put them in there. It was shortly after I removed the plants that this cloudy water started. Do you think it there could have been some junk on those plants? :dk:

Anyway, all is well now! :clap:
Thanks for all the advise!

plecoman