Don't know what to do, help please!

[jmg3k]

Hi Folks, well, I'm stumped, honestly and totally...

For the last 2 weeks now, ever since I added a bunch of new plants to my aquarium the water has been getting progressively cloudier to where, now, I can't even see more than an inch into the tank before it becomes totally white with fog.

My fish seem ok, but my tank looks horrible. I've done everything I could think of, I tried waiting it out, changing water, and even adding some Crystal Clear water drops that said they would clear the water and still, the tank looks like milk instead of water. I really don't know what to do, any help would be appreciated.

Tank is a moderately planted 20 Gallon, with 4 harlequin rasboras, 2 platies, 3 ottos, and 5 cardinal tetras. Tanks params are PH 6.6, Nitrite 0, Ammonia 0, GH 5.0, KH 2.0, and a Nutrafin Natural Plant system co2 injector.

Any help much appreciated!

John

 

[adamj]

kill the co2 injector, see what happens.

 

[dogmaiwli]

I've got to agree with ADAMJ

 

[jmg3k]

K, I'll unhook the CO2 and see what happens and post with updates

Just out of curiosity tho, I was under the impression and please correct me if I'm wrong (after all, how else do we learn? ), that adding CO2 for the plants to the tank would help keep the water clear as the plants would grow faster and absorb stuff in the water, ie nutrients, disolved organics etc...

Thanks for your quick replies friends!

John

 

[adamj]

in my opinion, its best to setup tanks with a good balance of fish to plants so that you dont need co2 injectors. If you do want to use an injector, its possible the co2 can react with the water and have extremely bad reactions, raising ph, hardness etc etc. making it possibly to be cloudy... but considering your co2 injector is the odd man out in your tank setup, pull it. and see what happens

 

[jmg3k]

Well it's been a few days now with the c02 off and there's no improvement at all in the cloudiness of my water. I've been doing 50% 25% alternating changes every day (one day 50%, the next 25% etc) to try and get out whatever is causing it but every morning what little clearing i did has clouded it back up again. I'm totally at my wits end, I can't even see my fish anymore =(

John

 

[Coyote]

How long has your tank been running?

 

[adamj]

Instead of using your tap to refill, try going to your local grocery store and get a few large jugs of RO water. and try doing a water change with that.. Also, make sure its not your filter releasing bad chems back into the water. Have you tried to pull the live plants out and let it run for a few days to make sure all is well.

What kind of plants did you put in? Did you give the plants a bleach bath with water (15/1 water/bleach) to remove any parasites or impuritys before you added the plants? Where in your home is the tank placed?

 

[jmg3k]

Hi all, thanks for helping me troubleshoot this problem

To answer...

Tank has been up and running for 4 months now, and up until this moment it was doing absoloutely wonderfully. Not a single fish lost, water was beautifully clear... it really makes my heart yearn for those days, *sigh* hehe

I haven't tried removing the plants, tho in retrospect maybe I should have, because it wasn't till I put the new ones in that this mess started. The original plants I had for the prior 3.5 months were: 1 Watersprite, 1 Amazon Sword (which produced a runner with a baby plant so now there's 2) 10 Valisnera, and a bunch of anarchis.

When I bought the CO2 injector I added the remaining plants consisting of 2 Rotala Indica, 1 Rotala Walachi (sp?), and 1 bunch of Hornwort (which disintegrated into a shower of needles the next day making me remove it, messiest plant ever imho lol). At the time I did that I also uprooted from my tank all the anarchis and replanted it in a dif location to make room for the co2 difuser, took root very nicely too, had some nice long white root shoots all where it was in the gravel, which I carefully replanted.

It was in the days following this operation that the water began to cloud, and has remained so since despite my best efforts, started as a thin white haze and has since turned nearly as opaque as milk, altho when dumping the water out after changing it it's not clear like it is in the tank but rather a sickly "off-green" color.

I did not put the plants in anything when I brought them home. They gave them to me in a little bag, I emptied all the water out of it and planted them one at a time into the tank, they're truly beautiful plants, I wish I could see them to enjoy them lol. Up until I removed the c02 from the water, even as the water was so opaque, I could still see them in there pearling away, I was really thrilled the first time I saw those oxygen bubbles, really makes a tank come alive imho

The tank is a 20 gallon high and is placed in my living room on a small stand. It gets no direct sunlight and very very little indirect sunlight as I always keep my window shades pulled down (i don't live in the best neighborhood) so other than the 3x15W flourescents (2x Power-Glo Brand, a nice bluish white, and the other is the one that came with the hood, not nearly as good, the light is very purplish, bleah) on the tank it doesn't get any other light.

I'm really stumped. The gravel is just plain gravel which I vaccum with a siponvac with every water change, 25% every 2 weeks up until this disaster.

Thank you guys for trying to help me with this, hopefully I can go back to actually seeing my fish soon hehe, before somebody asks me why I have a fish tank full of skim milk in my living room lol *laughingc

John

 

[jmg3k]

Oh and I nearly forgot. I've changed my filter pad twice since the water clouded as it was getting clogged with all the "needles" that disintegrated off the hornwort which is no longer in there. So with the filter pads being fresh and new I doubt there's any chems leaking in, please correct me if I'm wrong there friends

John

 

[adamj]

Its really interesting when you talked about the water being an off-green color when its in the bucket. It may be possible that you have a bluegreen algae infection in the tank with the light distorting it. Its not likely, but it could happen. Have you tried adding in various anti-bacterial meds into the water? I'd pick something from your LFS and try it, sorry i dont have any meds to suggest. But whatever it is, it was introduced by those new plants. We've rulled out the possiblity that its the CO2 injector, which is one step in the right direction. Ill do some research and get back to ya

 

[adamj]

Ok, i've got a few ideas here. Try removing that power-glo light, and see if the water color changes, and try the same with normal light, leaving the power-glo on... note any changes here. If no difference is noted, then remove the power-glo completely for a few days and see what happens.


EDIT: Also, just from the information that we have, it looks like its a huge bacteria bloom, its possible blooms can go on extended periods of time when they have large amounts of material to feast on. But even after water changes etc etc and all the things you've done its still that bad, i dont think a normal bacteria bloom is the culprit

 

[sinasster]

just seems obvious to me that when you do something simple and it causes major changes than you first need to undo iwhat you did. in this case the water went bad after adding some new plants, so remove the new plants for a few days and see what happens.

 

[adamj]

its too late. whatever was in with the plants is in the water. im trying to think if its possible to have a type of cyanobacteria with no pigment.

 

[AmazonTankz]

Have you ever tried Algone?? It is supposed to take care of things like this. Go to Algone.com to read more about it. I have never seen ot sold in stores but I guess you can buy some of the site. Sorry I can't be of more help.