Cloudy water after New canopy and LED light

[Leinhit]

hello all,

First post. I had supper clear water and all was fine until a week ago.

I made a wooden canopy for my 55 gallon with a top lid, I also added a new super bright led light that runs white for 8 hours and blue for two more hours.

For over a week I have extremely cloudy water, I had some algae and did a water change when I cleaned it, but a day later it was super cloudy without any algae observed again.

After the water change I added some of that liquid prime and I added some algae out.

I also had added a live plant, hogwort,2 weeks ago that isn't doing so well any more after a few weeks.

Could the new light and canopy be heating the water to the point algae is growing or causing the cloudyness?

Could the plant as it is doing poorly cause it? it is dropping allot of leaves and pieces.

Or as the weather here is finally getting warmer causing the water to cloud up as the room temp is about 75 now?

I have 5 bantas and 3 other small fish. I clean and do a water exchange every two weeks.

I have a tile bottom.

Thank you for any input, I can add photos if needed.

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[Leinhit]

Photos added

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[Colin_T]

cool green soup

It is simply single celled algae caused by lots of light and not enough plants to use that light. If you add more live plants it will help, especially floating plants like Water Sprite.

Reducing the photoperiod from 8 hours to 4 hours will make a difference too.

Temperature does not cause this.

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A number of aquarium plants sold in petshops are not true aquatic plants and die when submerged under water. Other plants are grown out of water and lose their terrestrial leaves when put under water. They grow new leaves designed to live underwater.

Some good plants to try include: Ambullia, Hygrophilla polysperma & ruba, Ludwigia, narrow Vallis, common Amazon Swordplant, and Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides). Water sprite does well floating or planted in the gravel. The other plants need to be planted in the gravel.

 

[Leinhit]

Ok thank you. The water suddenly cleared up two days ago.. I did two water change that did not help. I suspect the algae just ran out of food and died off?

I will reduce the light to 4 hours as u suggest and try a new plant. I took the hogwort out as it just fell apart and was making a huge mess. Maybe the fish ate it?

Any idea if those moss balls are good to try? I like the look. As I have no gravel and a tile bottom I will try a floating plant. I just won't be able to see it as well with the canopy I have.

Thank you for the advice.



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[Colin_T]

What is hogwort, or did you mean hornwart?
Hornwart is not worth keeping unless you have a coldwater tank. It suffers badly if it is exposed to sudden temperature changes (especially going into warmer water), and does not like pH changes either.

A lot of people here use moss balls so they should be fine.

If you don't have gravel then grow plants in pots. Use a 1 litre plastic icecream container (or similar container without holes in). Put an inch of gravel in the container, any sort of gravel will do but brown natural gravel is cheapest. Sprinkle a thin layer of lawn or plant fertiliser granules over the gravel. Then cover the fertiliser with a layer of red clay about 6mm thick. Use dry clay and powder it up then use that to cover the fertiliser. Then cover that with more gravel. Plant the plant into the gravel and as it grows, the roots will reach the clay and fertiliser and the plant will take off. The clay stops the fertiliser leaching into the water.

You can put rocks in front of the pots or smear silicon glue on the outside of the pot and sprinkle gravel or sand over the silicon. Then allow it to dry for a few days before using it in the tank. Alternatively just let algae grow on the outside of the pots to camouflage it.

The plants I mentioned in post #3 will all do well in pots, even Water Sprite, which is a floating plant can be grown in a pot in the aquarium.