If this seems long winded, I'm sorry, I just want to make sure that all the bases are covered.

I have a 55gal african tank with play sand substrate, a Rena XP3 filter filled with ceramic rings and bio stars, sponges, fine filter and charcoal(biochemzorb), Air pump, and a large heater. It's stocked with a few africans, a pictus and a bushy nose pleco. The fish seem healthy and do fine in their community. The tank is cycled and has been for about 6 months now. They eay twice a day and are growing nicely. I'm having a problem with cloudy water. I suspect that it may be the substrate, being play sand, but i can't be sure because it's been clean before now and has recently started getting worse. It's a white cloudy look, not green or any other color. I do regular water changes about once a week or so depending on the water cleanliness, but lately i've been doing them more often to try to alleviate the cloudiness with no improvement. For decorations, i have some sunken ships with air bubbles and fake plants. Along with a large white rock full of holes for hiding places and what not. The water is at a constant 78 degrees and the water quality is good according to my API test kit.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20

Please help.

This post has been edited by broncbuster: May 19 2008, 01:04 AM

it sounds like a bacterial bloom, by doing water changes your feeding it a bit, the high nitrates are more than likely the cause,

when you do a water change, how much do you change out?

when you water change how much dechlorinator do you use as over use of this can do it?

what happens it the bacteria in the tank explode and have no where to go, they then float in the water,

have you resently changed any filter media out etc?




jake

ps a bloom will usually die down after a while, try to up surface aggitation and do a search on here for blooms

As above - Prob bacteria, just leave it alone and it will right itself in time.

On a side note - Keep and eye on your PH. When i had sand in the PH dropped to 7.2 which isn't good. I replaced it with crushed coral and it came back up to 8.1.
I am sure this PH crash cause a real bad case of fin rot and fungal infections!

Arnt bactrerial blooms suppose to be green ?? and most likely to occur during cycling, not after ?? .. White cloudiness is usually the result of adding someting to your tank that hasnt been cleaned propley i.e decor/sand ect ...

Algae blooms are usually green - Bacterial blooms are normally white and cloudy in appearance. They are indeed more common in recently cycled or cycling tanks but can and do occur at other times.

This does sound like a bacteria bloom - i would recommend 20% daily water changes until it clears up.

uh.. i always though green cloudiness was algae/bracterial and white was dust from unwashed decor dunno why lol.. i guess because it made sence to me Oh well, least i know now lol

leave it be, more water changes just prolongs the cycle righting it's self.

It cycled 6 months ago!

I had a similar problem once when my tank was fairly new (cycled for a few months) except I also had a rather high ammonia level.

I put the fish in buckets, emptied the entire tank, cleaned the gravel and decorations, refilled and everything was good from there on.