Cycling

[gwand]

I’m two weeks into cycling a 10 gallon tank. No fish yet. The ammonia spikes have produced ammonia levels less than 3 ppm. All is going well with appropriate nitrite levels following spikes. However I have developed cloudy water. I assume it is bacterial in nature. What do you think? Will it clear on its own?

 

[Rocky998]

I’m two weeks into cycling a 10 gallon tank. No fish yet. The ammonia spikes have produced ammonia levels less than 3 ppm. All is going well with appropriate nitrite levels following spikes. However I have developed cloudy water. I assume it is bacterial in nature. What do you think? Will it clear on its own?

My water also got cloudy when cycling... It's just a bacterial bloom. It'll be fine and it's all part if the cycle. Just keep moving forward with cycling and it will clear on its own eventually

 

[Essjay]

The bacteria which cause the cloudiness are not the same species we grow during cycling. Filter bacteria 'eat' nitrogen based food while the bloom bacteria 'eat' carbon based food. They live floating in the water, unlike the filter bacteria, and they multiply very quickly. There are so many of them so quickly that we can see them as the cloudiness. As Rocky said, they will die off and the cloudiness clear once there is no food left.