I can't get the tank clean!

[FinHeavenAJ]

I'm having the hardest time getting my tank clean! I have a 37G Eclipse tank and have about 5 Average fish (the biggest one is about 2.5 inches). And two Balas that are about 5inches.

The tank is EXTREMELY cloudy, I can't even see the back of the tank....!

I've drained the tank down 20% and it remained dirty. I've changed filters as well.

(Gave a week to settle)

When that didn't work, I took out all the decorations, ran them under water (no soap) and drained it out more!

I then gave it less light, down to about 5-8 hours a day. And it's still cloudy!

Through all this, I haven't lost ONE fish... amazingly!

What should I do? I've had many tanks previously, but never had a problem like this before....

Please... any suggestions?

 

[keprydak]

How old was the tank when you noticed being cloudy for the first time? if it was fairly new it could have been a bacteria bloom (sometimes they take a while to go away). If you changed the water and washed your decor, you destroyed all that good bacteria, and therefore the cloud of it would have stayed. Then again, if it was an older tank... Was it a green cloudy or a white cloudy?

 

[Atlantic Fish]

I had the exact same problem a few weeks back. I did the exact same things you did with no luck. I vacumed the rock, cleaned the glass, cleaned all the plants, and put in tons of "clear water" chemicals. I ended up completely taking the whole set up apart.. I cleaned everything, put in brand new substrate and refilled the tank and put it all back together again. I think mine was due to the amout of crud under the gravel in the bottom of the tank. I have absolutly no suggestions other than tearing the whole thing down...I know its drastic..Maybe someone else may have a less drastic suggestion for you.  Mine is spotless now..Guess it just need a major overhall...Good Luck..Sorry I wasnt much help :-/
John

 

[FinHeavenAJ]

The tank is fairly old, and it has been about 3 weeks since my last clean as I wanted to make sure it wasn't just a bacteria bloom.

In reply to johnmac, do you think if I were to simply take out the substrate, clean it and put it back it would be ok? Or should I just by new substrate?

Thanks!

 

[FinHeavenAJ]

Also, johnmac, how did you keep your fish alive while doing this?

 

[Atlantic Fish]

You could try removing the substrate and cleaning it. The big problem with mine was that there was a lot of dirt and grim under all the rock next to the glass, which I had to get rid of. Not saying that it is but it might be what causing your tank to be so cloudy. I vaccumed the rocks but I guess it never really got to the bottom of the tank (near the glass). I have 4 other tanks so I just moved the fish in my 35g (which was cloudy) and put them in my 25g, then put them back when i had it all set back up again. I put in all new substrate because at first it was larger pebbles which allowed the waste to settle near the glass, when I set it all back up again I used cilica (spelling) sand. Which is much brighter and easy to clean..hope this helps..
John

 

[ronrca]

First question is how long have you had the tank running? Did you cycle it?

Just leave everything as it is. Your tank is trying to cycle and establish a bacteria culture. By cleaning everything, you do not give it a chance to culture. The most important thing not to clean would be the filter and gravel. Decorations do not matter as bacteria will grow in dark places.

Here are some articles for you to read:
http://www.myfishtank.net/articles/quick_cycling.phphttp://www.algone.com/cycle.htm
http://www.algone.com/cloudywater.htm

Give that a try! Good Luck!

 

[Matt Nace]

By cleaning the filter..or taking out the floss/sponge/cotten ,you can kill off a big part of your bacteria. Always clean or replace only a part of the filter. Better yet have two and alternate cleannings.Better still..is to have a bio-max or bio-balls for the bacteria to live on and NEVER touch them. All my filters are set up this way. I can clean or replace all I want..cause the bio-max holds the good stuff.

Did you test for ammonia?
If you did and it is 0 why do you think it is something in the gravel causing such a mess? Now if you tell me you just put flourite in, I would totally understand.

A bacteria bloom can be caused by a lot of bacteria with no place to live or seed. I had this problem in a 55 gallon....added bio-max..and it was gone.Found a place to live on. Of course bacteria lives on gravel, plants ,tank walls, but the best place is where the water passes through 100's of gallons and hour.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Matt Nace]

Sorry..just saw you have an eclipse. Doh..read..read!

So you dont ever want to touch the bio-wheel(it has one right?)

That is where your good stuff is.

Check for ammonia..if that is 0..add some bio-max or similar product to the filter it will clear up.

Vaccuum your gravel well. *crazysmiley*

 

[FinHeavenAJ]

To answer some replies, I've had the tank set up for a year. I had NO problems setting it up. I really want to kill Petsmart, because I added in some of their live plants and BOOM it got REALLY cloudy. I've vacuumed and vacuumed... and put regular tap water in with AmQuel and Cycle. I may of put in some proper pH if I had problems with the pH, otherwise, I had no problems whatsoever.

Another problem came when my development wanted to change some piping within my hose, and some people told me that could be a problem, thus, I bought some drinking water (NOT DISTILLED). And still, it remained cloudy.

Through all of this, I am still amazed that I didn't kill one fish...

Ammonia check is perfect... 0. pH is around 7.0... more or less, it usually is on the higher side though.

So, from what I gather, vacuum it out REALLY good and get something called bio-max.... that should work, right? I think I will attempt this tomorrow, Tuesday.

Thanks for your help, if there are any more ideas, let them be heard! As for right now though, I'll keep you posted on how it comes out!

Thanks again!

 

[colesea]

Ahhh... don't blame Petsmart!  :-[

If the cloudiness occured after adding live plants to your tank. Did you wash the plants off before you put them in there? It is definately reccommended that a person rinse them well under some gently running water if they can't do a quick sodium permaganate dip. Live plants are notorious for carrying algae on their leaves. With their increased need for light, algae blooms in the water column itself (green, soupy cloudiness) is a very common occurance after the addition of live plants It may not be on the decorations, walls or gravel in the way we think of algae, but it is algae none the less. Adding a phosphate remover filter addition (Green X) should help clear it up. Once the plants establish themselves and start sucking out nutrients before the algae can get a hold, that should help clear it up too.

Also, live plants need much finer sediments, such as sand, that have much longer settling times, thus creating a white, chalky looking cloudiness to the water.  If you added any additional sediment to your tank such as sand for the plants to take root in, and then are constantly stirring it up with water changes and vaccuuming, you're going to get continued cloudiness until that sand settles out. I'd just leave it so long as it ain't hurting the fish. Once things look a bit cleared up, go in with a fine paint brush and dust off your live plants.

If your cloudiness is a brownish yellow color and sometimes smells like bad BO, that's all the crud and crap from too much food and waste in your gravel being stirred up with the water changes, and from your digging for planting. Nasty stuff, the best way to get rid of that is clean your substrate and do copious water changes. Monitor for ammonia spikes.

If it is a white, milky type of cloudiness, then it is bacteria. Bacteria blooms are common after frequent large volume water changes because you are essentially re-setting the cycle of your tank. Monitor for ammonia spikes.

If you are concenerned about your tap water quality, test it with your test kits, or have your local water authority do a chemistry profile for you. Sometimes tap water itself does come out cloudy due to purification and transport. Allowing it to aerate overnight with a dechlorinater will help clear that up.

The real importance is...what color is your cloudiness? That will help determine how to handle it.
I hope this helps.
~~Colesea

 

[Matt Nace]

[quote author=colesea link=board=beginner&num=1012179977&start=0#10 date=01/29/02 at 07:34:53]

Bacteria blooms are common after frequent large volume water changes because you are essentially re-setting the cycle of your tank. Monitor for ammonia spikes.

[/quote]

I don't understand this statement.

 

[ronrca]

My confused too Ruby! Water changes do not affect the cycle. It will only affect the cycle if you do a water change without treating the chlorine and chlormines. Both these will kill the bacteria quickly.

 

[colesea]

I was under the impression that removing water from a tank during vigorous cleaning can reset tank cycles because bacteria is being removed either by cleaning ornaments, scrubbing the glass, gravel vaccing, rinsing filter floss etc, since all these things rub the bacteria off of surfaces, and thus takes it out of the aquarium. When you place fresh water in, depending upon your population load, you don't have enough bacteria left to offset the ammonia production of the fish (urin/feces/overfed food) since bacteria population = fish population, and now your bacteria population has been decreased. Thus, through cleaning, you've created new surface area for colonization, and get a bacterial bloom.  If your fish population is high, you may not have enough dilution volume in the tank to handle the ammonia production until the bacteria reestablishes itself, which can cause an ammonia spike.

This has been something that I have been told, and have reason to believe since many of my customers, especially those with fully populated ten and twenty gallon tanks, believe that cleaning means =cleaning= (gravel, walls, filter floss and foam fully replaced, water removed 50%, wipe out all the algae, etc), and have in the process effectively wiped out their bacteria cultures. Thus, each time they do tank changes, they develop new tank syndrome, milky white cloudy water, regardless of whether they've used a decholorinator or not. They become extreamly irate and fustrated because they can't keep their tanks crystal clear. Once I tell them to leave their damn tanks alone and not over-clean it (only wipe down front pane of glass, don't relplace foam or floss, allow algae to grow on ornaments, don't remove so much water, gravel vac a portion of the tank at a time), they report improvements in their water clarity.

If there is a differant theory, I'd like to hear it.

If the tank has a biowheel attachment, that should help with the bacterial recolonization of the tank and reduce the probability of an ammonia spike.
~~Colesea

 

[ronrca]

You are correst colesea in saying "during vigorous cleaning can reset tank cycles because bacteria is being removed either by cleaning ornaments, scrubbing the glass, gravel vaccing, rinsing filter floss etc". We are not trying to prove you wrong, infact, you know what you are talking about. However, in the previous statement about "frequent large volume water changes", you didnt mentioned "vigorous cleaning". No big deal!

One thing that I would like to point out though is that cleaning ornaments, scrubbing the glass and gravel vacuuming will not harm it bacteria culture as much as rinsing/replacing filter media (of course depending on how vigorous you vacuum the gravel). Most people believe that bacteria grows on decorations, glass, gravel etc. However, bacteria grows in dark places. Yes it grows in gravel, most likely under the gravel, not on top. The best place bacteria grows is in your filter. Light will kill bacteria after a number of hours therefore bacteria does not float around in the water (except in dormant stage), grow on decorations, on glass etc. Good cleaning of your tank is recommended but leave the filter media alone. Of course, one must clean the filter media once in a while but only replace some of the media. Most helpful would be using bio balls, stars, spheres, wheels etc. for building a bacteria culture, only replacing that media every six months, and only 1/4 to half of the media. Therefore the filter floss and sponges for filtering debri and other junk can be rinsed and replaced when needed.

I always surpised how some people are very misguided about aquariums. I hear many times how people place their fish in a container, drain all the water, removed all decor, gravel and replace filter media. Then they wonder why their fish are dying, are having water problems etc. I dont understand why people make so much work for themselves and having a negative result because of it. I guess thats where you have to make the difference and educate them. Sometimes I wish I could also work in a petstore.

Keep up the good work, colesea! *thumbsupsmiley*

 

[colesea]

Thanks for the info, I wasn't as well informed on bacteria as I thought I was. Everything I've ever heard was just generalized about bacteria, that it grows on stuff. Nobody's ever (not even referances I've read) really gone on to say anything about where, light levels (although I know UV kills everything, I didn't think regular light levels filtered through glass would harm bacteria), or what type of surfaces bacteria grows on.

Heck, the best filter units I have seen were ten foot tall bio-towers at the NY State Aquarium.  They don't use chemical media at all on their systems. Then again, they have ozone units  ;D.  Man would I love to have bio-towers at my store!

Thanks again!
~~Colesea

 

[ronrca]

I was in the same shoes colesea until I actually read an indepth article about the bacteria. I'll have to find it and see if I can get it in the articles section.

About chemical filtration, I dont use any either. I have a dual bio wheel and a Filstar XP3 loaded in media. The first stage has two sponges, second stage has bio spheres and floss and the last stage is just floss. Works very good. I wouldnt have it any other way. One filter I would love to get is an ozone filter one day!  

 

[Matt Nace]

Agree with ron.

You want figure that when you have say ammonia or even a trace of it in the water the bacteria should use it immeditaly. So the only traces of ammonia would be in the water near a fish or food ect. that hasn't reached your filter yet. So a good emptying of the water will usually only help matters....unless of course the tank you are emptying you are trying to cycle.

I can't stress enought to have a backup to your filter. Like a simple bio-max, bio-ball ect. in your filter you never have to touch. The only time I ever replace them is when they get super gunked up...I have the same media for well over 3 years and it looks good still in a canister.

Even two sponges(like in an aquaclear instead of carbon) you can rotate the cleannings and rotate the sponges around would be good.

Ron--I also didn't know about regular light killing bacteria. I have always had HOB filters exposed to light all day. I have a wet/dry filter(with bio stars) and they sit under my lights always exposed for 10 hours. I clean this filter well  except the stars and never saw a problem . Hmmm..find that article..I am intrested.

 

[BOOMDOG]

From your status I would suspect that you have a nitrate spike. Thus there is a bacteria bloom. Do frequent water changes 25% daily for a week and eliminate any excess organic materials. Don't feed the fish for a few days and it should clear up.

 

[ronrca]

Its not the regular light but UV that the lights give off. Fluorescents do give off UV thus killing bacteria after something like 6+ hours. I suspect that a wet/dry under lights might not have the culture that you might think and in fact is culturing else where. I will find the article but I have to find it first. Might take me a little while.

Patience is the key. If something goes wrong, dont panic and think. Take one measure at a time and wait to see if it helps. Of course there are many circumstances that can help with different solutions. However, patience is still the key. I learned the hard way (by changing too much too quickly).