Established Tank with WHITE CLOUDY WATER

[eradulovic]

Please help. Few hours ago I noticed the water turned from this mornings water which was clear to white... my fish are gasping for air and i dont know what to do!!!

In the last hour I have done a 10% water change

and these are my readings in the last 30 mins:

ph - 6.0

ammonia - 4.0

Nitrite - 0ppm

Nitrate - 10

CAN ANYBODY OUT THERE PLEASE HELP?

 

[Clairel]

How many litres do you have? and how long as it been set up? What fish do you have in there?

Claire xx

 

[eradulovic]

How many litres do you have? and how long as it been set up? What fish do you have in there?

Claire xx

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Its 84 Litre Tank BEEN SETUP FOR 2 Years

My Fish Include:

- 1 x golden gourami
- 1 x silver molly
- 5 x male guppies
- 6 x black widdow tetras
- 6 x silver tetras with yellow/black tipped fins
- 3 x painted tetras (2 pink, 1 blue)
- 1 x buenos tetra

 

[black angel]

Please answer the above questions.
Your ammonia level is way to high. Do small water changes to get it back down to 0.

 

[Clairel]

If i were you, i would do a 25% water change.... and leave it for today...you dont want to change too much water, as you will lose bacteria...give the gravel a good clean, with your syphon etc....

Have you added anymore fish in there recently? Have you always had that many fish in there without any problems??

Good Luck

Claire xx

 

[Gourami Girl]

It sounds like something's happened to your filter, has it been switched off by mistake or has someone rinsed the sponge under tap water?

i would take a third of the water out, vacuuming the gravel at the same time, it is so important to get rid of all the ammonia that's appeared. Make sure you condition the new water you are putting in and ensure it is not too cold.

do not touch the filter, except to put in some live bacteria to help deal with the ammonia.

make sure there is plenty of aeration going on, to help with the gasping.

keep an eye out to make sure they're not getting worse and take readings every day.

 

[dwarfgourami]

You are rather heavily stocked for an 84 ltr tank (a little over 20 gallon); this could be a contributing factor.

 

[eradulovic]

well guys,

that was it for me,

my tank was getting worse by the hour and more and more fish just kept dying.
I had the tank for 2 years and my absolute fave fish since the start has been the silver molly and the golden gourami and i just could not take the pressure anymore so i had to give the remaining fish away and now i have an empty tank at home.
I consulted with my LFS in manly, sydney and they asked me a whole range of questions but they figured out why my tank went white. Everytime I did partial water changes and cleaned the tank I would have rinsed the filter with tap water and my LFS told me that this was the problem, no-one ever told me that I could not rinse it under the tap, instead i should have been rinsing it with the tank water and overall sometimes . I admit i made some mistakes but i thought i was a pretty good fish keeper for my first time. Although i do not have anymore fish and I am selling my tank, I would like to get another tank oneday in the future and this time i would not make the same mistake. I just wisj i could have known this in the beginning, i could have still had my little fishies...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The reason why you shouldn't wash your filter in tap water is because tap water contains chlorine, which kills bacteria.
Inside your filter sponge dwells a type of bacteria that breaks down the ammonia and nitrites in your tank into nitrates, fish pee and poop ammonia and without the bacteria the ammonia levels just rise up without anything to lower them and kill off your fish.
This is one of the main reasons why you should add dechlorinator to your tank, to help remove chlorine and other harmful chemicals present in tap water, so your beneficial bacteria can grow and survive in your filter and why you shouldn't clean out the filter in untreated tap water, most people wash out their filters in water from water changes.
There are many other things that can cause water quality issues like overstocking your tank, letting dead fish or plants rot in your tank or not doing water changes and substrate cleaning sessions often enough, leaving the tank empty with nothing to produce ammonia for the filter bacteria to survive off(as much as it gets rid of ammonia in your tank it also needs a constant siurce to survive, which usually comes in the form of the fish pooping in your tank) etc.
Water changes with dechlorinator are the best way to lower all harmful toxins in your tank(ammonia and nitrates should be 0 in a healthy tank while nitrates under 40), most people do a 30% one once a week with a substrate cleaning session.