Cloudy Water- Is this bloom or something else?

[ArielB74]

Hello-
I have been out of the hobby for almost 20 years, but recently decided to do this again. Here is my setup:

55g acrylic tank
Oase Biomaster Thermo 350 canister filter
In line UV filter (currently turned off)

I initially put eco-complete in and filled up the tank. Started using Seachem Stability to get the cycle going. Water was crystal clear. I added some plants a few days later (Amazon Swords, Anubias, etc. - not heavily planted). The next day, the water seemed extremely cloudy. I tested the water with an API Master Test Kit... 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 0 Nitrate. Since the water was just cloudy but didn't have anything bad in it, I added 5 platys to the tank last week. They are doing fine. I added 6 corydoras a few days ago.

All of the fish seem perfectly fine. Normal behavior, eating fine. I tested the water again yesterday - still 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate. After the test I did a light vaccuming of the poo off the bottom and a partial (10%) water change.

I'd say that the cloudiness isn't terrible (I can see just fine to the back of the tank, but it's kind of a hazy, milky color.. it's more obvious if you look at it from the side or top down).

Is this bacterial bloom? Is it normal for it to last this long (over a week now)? I have been continuing to add Stability -- should I stop?

 

[Essjay]

Bacterial blooms are common in new tanks and take as long as it takes to clear. Every tank is different as they have different amounts of organics in the water- the bloom bacteria's food.

The other possibility is dust from the substrate, though I'm not sure if eco complete is dusty.




Since you've been out of the hobby for a number of years, are you aware that we now consider hardness to be important. I notice you have soft water fish (cories) and hard water fish (platies) in the same tank.

 

[ArielB74]

Thank you for the reply. I had no idea about the water hardness; is there a way to test for that?

If I shift around the substrate a lot, it does throw up some dust, but that clears away really fast through the filtration. I guess it's bacterial bloom. Is it worth doing water changes if everything else (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) is normal? I'm testing it daily out of concern, but it continues to remain fine.

 

[Essjay]

Water changes don't do anything for bacterial blooms becasue the bacteria multiply faster than we can keep up with. We just have to wait it out, I'm afraid.


As for hardness, look on your water provider's website first. If they give it, you need a number and the unit of measurement rather than words. If it's not there, take a sample of tap water to an LFS - again, get a number not words. Failing that, you can buy GH testers. Liquid ones are better as many strips do not go high enough for hard water.

 

[ArielB74]

Just for confirmation, this is what it looks like straight-on (visibly cloudy but not horrible):

From the side:

Does this look like bacterial bloom?

 

[Essjay]

It looks like either a bit of dust or a bacterial bloom. I've seen a lot worse, sometimes you can't see the other side of the tank

Dust will settle, and bloom bacteria will die once they've eaten all the available food.

 

[ArielB74]

Thank you for your help. It's definitely not dust, so it must be bloom. Should I keep adding the Stability to the tank or will it make the bloom worse?

 

[Essjay]

I would stop using Stability. But keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels just in case.

You have a good number of live plants and these will take up ammonia made by the fish as fertilsier, and plants don't turn ammonia into nitrite. It is quite possible that the plants are already taking up all the ammonia made by the fish you have. There is a thing called a plant or silent cycle where only plants are used; a few bacteria will grow but the plants do nearly all the work of removing ammonia.

 

[Byron]

Part of this bacterial bloom is due to the Eco-Complete. This contains various bacteria, and hazy water is not uncommon initially, hopefully it will clear. I had a very similar product, Seachem's Flourite, in my 70g for two years and the water was "clear" but never crystal clear like my other 7 tanks were which had either sand or fine gravel. I also found these two products do not do that much for plants, unfortunately. And your cories willnot appreciate this substrate, they really should be on sand.

 

[ArielB74]

Part of this bacterial bloom is due to the Eco-Complete. This contains various bacteria, and hazy water is not uncommon initially, hopefully it will clear.

That's interesting... it didn't get cloudy until a day or two after I planted the plants... with the eco-complete in there by iteself, the water was crystal clear (and initially with the plants)... but this is good to know, thank you.

 

[ArielB74]

Thanks for everyone's help... it seems to have mostly resolved itself. I'd say it's at about 95% of where I want it to be clairity-wise... I'll just keep waiting it out since it seems to be getting better on its own without any intervention from me.