Cloudy water

[Pete]

Hi sometimes when I feed our Panaques the water goes slightly cloudy just a touch milky almost certainly a bacteral bloom . Its only very slight and only notice it because the identical tank next to it with a smaller Panaque and different plecs stays clear.
Am I right in thinking that it is harmless ?
I think its because the Panaques and Gibby are messy feeders and I need to feed them more than the plecs in the other tank because they are bigger. It happens the morning after I feed and disapears in a day
I feed vegs every other day mainly courgette cuecumber sweet potato and squash

Both are Rio 400's specs are below its the second tank, Rio 400L #2 that goes cloudy.
I think that I am over filtered and understocked in both tanks
KH is 4 GH is 4 TDS is 220 and all are stable
Nitrates are 10 nitrite and ammonia zero

Rio 400L #1
Juwel internal filter with sponges
Tetratec ex1200 flled with sintered glass rings
Fluval 4 plus internal
Lots of java fern
sand on bottom
1 4 inch Panaque
1 Sultan
1 L147
1 vampire plec


Rio 400L #2
Juwel internal filter with sponges
2 eheim ecco externals filled with sintered glass rings
1 small hydor external filled with sintered glass rings
2 Fluval 4 plus internals

Lots of java fern
gravel on bottom
1 Gibby very approx 6 inch
1 Watermelon Panaque very approx 5 inch
1 L190 very approx 6 inch

 

[Doodles]

The main concern would be that the bacteria that has been produced needs oxygen which could be dangerous for any fish if it was too severe as it would deprive the fish. A bloom can happen when there are too many nutrients in the water feeding the bacteria which causes them to reproduce a quite a rate.


I know you posted the water params, are these the normal everyday params?
Have you checked the water parameters when you see the bloom?

 

[Pete]

Hi thanks, They are the normal water params
I did not think of testing the water when it was cloudy :wb: but will do next time
It's only slightly cloudy but I was surprised to see it . Thinking about it when the Panaques eat sweet potato quite a lot of bits go into the water and as you say this must put extra nutreints into the water.
Pete

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Pete I'm not sure that testing the water when it is cloudy will show any difference in parameters. The bacteria are probably utilising the easily available sugars (mono and disaccharides first, then probably the polysaccharides as well) from the macerated vegetables, and it will take some time for the population to build, before crashing when the sugars run out. It would be the decomposition of the dead bacteria that would raise the nitrogen levels. (it maybe also be that the nitrogen levels are higher in this tank already allowing a greater bloom to occur than in the tank with the smaller fish (in other words nitrogen (or other element) may become limiting before the level of sugar does))

However, like Doodles says the entire bloom/death cycle will utilise oxygen. Because your tanks are heavily planted during the day they will be very highly oxygenated from photosynthesis, but should problems occur it would be at night when the filters/oxygen diffusion alone would need to deal with extra bio-load.

You would need to test the 5 day Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) of the water immediately before feeding, and when the bloom is at it's most intense, but these aren't really tests you can do outside of the lab.

Another thought is that the cloudiness may not be entirely a bacterial bloom, but also caused by polysaccharides, such as starch, coming from the macerated vegetables.

Sweet Potato really are full of natural goodness, and I would suspect that would be by far the most polluting of the vegetables, and also probably the favourite of the fish as nutritionally they would gain the most "bang for their buck" from it. My suggestion would be to carry on feeding it, but possibly as a small block.

It might be worth trying another vegetable which is less nutritionally rich like potato, yam, carrot, parsnip etc. and see if you still get the cloudiness.

cheers Darrel

 

[Pete]

Thanks Darrel, very imformative reply . Sounds like it would be wise to cut down a bit with the quantity of sweet potato. I will now feed this once a week. I,ve already got some swede and squash (assume thats the same thing as Yam?)
The Royals like the squash and it does'nt seem to be as messy as sweet potato.
The worst veg I found for making the water go cloudy was cuecumber but it was my fault I left it in too long and it disintigrated
Pete

 

[dw1305]

Hi Pete,
Less often or smaller quantities at each sitting, if your Plecs have grown rapidly? that may be because of the nutritional qualities of Sweet Potato, it is much more nutritious than all the other vegetables (Potato is actually the next most nutritious), but I'm not sure how a fruit (like Squash) would compare.

Squash belong to the same family (Curcubitaceae) as Courgette, Melon and Cucumber. Swede is a Brassica (it's really a swollen Cabbage "root"), but Yam belongs to a tropical family the Dioscoraceae (only European member "Black Bryony"), I've seen them, it is big, very hard brown tuber, but I know no more. I think several Australian? members have recommended it for Panaques.

Cucumbers really are 99% water, so the mess would be a physical effect rather than anything more sinister.

cheers Darrel