Urgent Help Needed, Tubifex Feeding Clouding The Tank. Now How To Solve

[anshuman]

YouTube - Fancy tail Goldfish planted tank 46 gallon

Above is the tank 10 days ago before i started to feed tubifex worms regularly.

I recently moved my goldfish fry batch (4 of them) to main Goldfish planted tank . And i had to feed the fry with Tubifex worms or bloodworms which they were used too. Unfortunately the BIG PARENTS finished the food quickly , so i had to put in LOTS of Tubifex worms (LIVE) in order to allow the fry get some food.

After 1 week, I now noticed the tank is EXTREMELY CLOUDY. the parameters in water are good, i have desparetely tried to do 40% water change daily for past 3 days still its cloudy.

Now i remember the Goldfish never really finished ALL the worms, and i used to see many worms flying in the tank, its a 2 feet tall planted tank, so impossible for me to fetch the remaining and they are probably in the gravel/sand.

How long do this worms survive in Tank? When will the clouding stop? How can i repair this situation?



Right now I have removed the fry into small tank, and stop feeding the main 46 G tank with worms, only pellets now. still I want to see the tank back to normal clean and clear.

Please help, its kindof turned into Emergency now.

 

[anshuman]

BTW, i have to add, its just 2 weeks ago I added 1 inch layer of Amazonia II (ADA) and it is topped up by heavy 2 inch layer of normal gravel/sand. I had this intuition that adding lots of Amazonia Soil on top will be WRONG and it might send up nutrients in water constantly and needs to be bedded down in the tank.

So i dont thinks ADA ASII is causing this clouding, still just a thought i wanted to add here since i started seeing Amazonia Soil has caused clouding issues in tank for others.

 

[anshuman]

May have put my Goldfish tank in mini-cycle. Because there was LOTS of flying white stuff in tank with those Big fry and goldfish pair in tank, the Filter_Media was getting filled very fast. I used to feel the flow from the filter and it was really Slowed down, so i did the extra cleaning of media (not totally but did give 2-3 more squeezes in bucket of old tank water than what i usually do ) and maybe i killed really huge batch of good bacteria. (This was during last weekend water change, i.e some 6-7 days ago).

I did my third test in 48 hours and the readings are as follows.

PH: ~7.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 20+ (Still ...even after daily 30% w.c.)
Nitrite: just above 0 but not really 0.25 as on API Watertest color card. ( worries ).

Now i have returned back to my place, and Orangina is sitting down , male moving slowly too, its dark in tank, its really right into night, will be midnight in a hour, so I dont know how to judge the goldies behaviour.

lets see.

So is this really a mini-cycle? Cloudy waters for more than 2-3 days , and now i see wee bit spike of nitrite ?

BTW to be safe, I have directly added Prime in tank (extra) to nullify bady things as possible from Prime.

Advise? or i should just wait this out?

Will be doing daily 30% W.C anyway (And this is Huge Pain_In_Hind because the tank is really huge and i need huge buckets just for 30% change).

 

[Doomhed]

the tubifex worms can live in the tank nearly indefinitely. I had them in my oscar tank and my spiny pleco loved them. I would get out the black light and watch him tear through piles of them at night.

If you have the ability, I would recommend adding a spare sponge filter and possibly look into getting a hillstream loach after the water clears up.

I refuse to feed live tubifex anymore.

 

[Newman]

I personally would not feed my fish live tubifex unless I bred said worms on my own. and they do survive remarcably well in the tank. I remember I saw a few worms survive ammonia of over 8ppm and the same of nitrite while they were inside my cycling Betta breeding tank (they got added with the christmas moss) they lived through the whole cycle until I put Bettas in. that was the end of them once the bettas hit the water.

 

[anshuman]

Yes, Tubifex in feeding cone idea is banned for me now. I simply wont feed live tubifex . But i will have to feed tubifex to my Killifish tank till i find something they can munch on. I wont keep them in feeding cone (because the tubifex kindof slip through cone and really vanish in gravel quickly).

I will handfeed the tubifex to killies lets see.


UPDATE ON TANK:

The tank water has dramatically cleared up. From side of tank, ican see all the way across the tank, yesterday (for some days) the visibility was barely some inches in tank, it was that bad for 4-5 days.

BTW i have sold off the 3 babies Including Mr.Biggie, he grew almost 4 inches and other 2 were near 3 inches, getting too large too fast and too poopy, so had to stop being emotional about them and give to LFS. I dont think removing the fry has dramatically cleared the tank, its gotta be something else.

 

[lauraf]

OMG, you sold Mr. Biggie???? Sniff - even across the continent I was getting attached to him. But good for you, doing the right thing for the tank's health, i guess. Still, sad.

 

[anshuman]

yea. sad. i really did feel bad if i didnt have killifish in another tank, i would had surely kept him in there. So yea, in safety of entire 46 tank and the parents, I had to get unemotional and give the 3 big fry, there are 2 little black fry still there together in main tank, lets see.

The nano tank i have already has 40+ goldfish fry, which are growing fast, upto 1 cm some of them now. so that too is occupied.

my total focus is this main tank and killifish tank (which is absolutely squeaky clean and water parameters fantastic, i am going to plant it heavily because the killies really dont like lots of light and movement of people near tank, planting it will secure them, i am tired of watching them in sucide mode when i roam near them, i have to practically move like ninja in my own room -_- .)

 

[lauraf]

Oh, don't feel bad! I mean, yes, of course you will feel bad getting rid of any fish if you are like me, but you did the right thing, so feel good about that. And your killis are AMAZING.

 

[anshuman]

Thanks it was such a impulse , unplanned buy and turned out to be perfect. No matter how much i plan and invest in this goldfish tank , it keeps tossing up problems. well. i do enjoy seeing those orange balls (goldies), so i really cant complain.

 

[anshuman]

UPDATE:

Since posting this, the tank has improved, infact , the clouds in bottom part of water, ALL GONE.

The only thing i did was remove 3 big fry from the tank and also put 5 ml of prime directly into the tank, previous to that, I kept doing 30%W.C and it had absolutely no effect in the tank, the tank was cloudy for 4-5 days. water parameters all good, except v v small nitrite level yesterday.

I have no idea what happened and what was solved. was it really bacteriabloom ? mini-cycle? ammonia-load due to goldfish overstocking? nitrifying bacteria taken a hit due to extra cleaning of filter media? don't know.

All i know is the tank so squeaky clean, I can imagine Billy Mays right in front of tank "HI, BILLY MAYS HERE, LOOK AT THIS TANK, DONT YOU WISH FISHTANK IN YOUR HOUSE WAS THIS SQUEAKY CLEAN? I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO JUST THAT".

 

[Doomhed]

you could just move one of your kilifish to the effected tank. Killis can see in the dark better than most fish.

 

[anshuman]

yes, i have heard killies flutter in tank, when i try to take ninja steps RIGHT IN DARK IN MY ROOM . goddamit, they are batmen of fishtank.

But what will killifish do in that goldfish tank mate? and i fear the big filter flow might hurt killies more than anything else.

 

[anshuman]

UPDATE

I also want to update that, not only has the tank gone CRYSTAL CLEAR , but (NEWMAN) even some hair algae (it was very wavy white fluffy algae floating on the new crypt ferns i had bought, the algae was like flame moss. very fluffy) is GONE, totally gone. i was ready today with syringe and hydrogen peroxide to dowse this algae but its gone.

I think all this issue was due to over-feeding (i went crazy with extra bloodworms and tubifex left from the feeding killifish, who i have discovered eat v v little for batch of 25). and ofcourse i wont be feeding live tubifex in goldfish tank now.

Anyway. whatever it was , is clear. and today i have started dosing my tank Dry-Ferts Whoohoo. lets see. i am recording the changes in tank, will create thread when i feels there is anything worth updating.

 

[anshuman]

BTW i was waiting for doomhed to reply "The killiefish. They will SEE around in your cloudy tank, thats it"

 

[lauraf]

Super, Anshu - I'm happy to hear everything is "in the clear"!

 

[Doomhed]

the cloudiness could also have been tubifex eggs having been released by the worms you had in the tank.

If the tank doesnt have any snails or delicate fry/fish, I would dose with a chelated copper medication, it can kill the spore cycle of tubifex worms.

I was saying to use a killi because they can see better in the dark, when the tubifex worms are most active.

 

[anshuman]

Wow, did not know that information. Thanks doomhed.

Well i have one absolutely useless drunken AppleSnail, i call him vladamir because he is always in drunken-state and keeps falling around (well i am making a joke, just humour me thx) when going on marimo balls and wavy sand. so no copper in tank i guess.

Humm, but i can place him temporarily in killi tank and then dose copper as you said. well lets see. the tank is clean but i am observing.

if i do that solution i will update here.

 

[Doomhed]

the best trick is to wait until night time when your lights have been off for a few hours, for me it would be around 2am. then you grab a small flashlight and check the rocks. if you see masses of worms wriggling around, you still have a tubifex issue.

I would check the tank 1 night a week for the next month or so. No worms, no problem.

 

[anshuman]

well, i kinda know tubifex must be there and i will have to go through that copper treatment.

I stupidly fed LOTS of tubifex because i hated throwing it and the LFS simply gave me huge amount for some cents, i didnt know tubifex survive like hell. i have a batch in small plastic container for past 2 days, and they are still there. keep changing water every 12 hours. they are healthy and all. tough guys. and i am feeding moderately to killies who LOVE IT. i will update a video on my youtubechannel feeding them, its beautiful.

Anyway, @night i will turn off the filters and darken room and see for tubifex like you said doomhed. lets see. Thanks for the tip doomhed.