Help!

[Berlioz]

hey everyone at TropicalFishForums wondering if i could get a little help.
please bare in mind i have no fish in this tank!

started a new tank washed everything twice over if not more to make sure everything was clean i have no live plants no live rock or anything like that just couple plastic plants a glass bottle and an air curtain. The tank looked great for about 4-5 days then it went cloudly, did a little research online said it was normal so i left it and couple of days later it was so cloudly i couldnt see anything within the tank. i did a 50% water change a couple of days ago and it looked great but within 12hours its really cloudly again and seems to be getting more so...any advise i understand it need to go through a cycle and i have kept a small tropical tank before but havent experienced this. its not in the sunlight the tank light isnt on 24/7 im getting a little fustrated. i have tested the water and all levels seem fine if not almost perfect. should i leave it or do another water change? or am i doing something wrong? i have used aquasafe and accuclear no improvement

thank you in advance

 

[SamLovesCorys]

If you haven't got any fish in the tank, just leave it. It is a beneficial bacteria bloom and will sort itself out. Do no water changes, add no chemicals etc. that's what i'd do anyway.

 

[the_lock_man]

SOmetimes bacterial blooms do go like this - keep doing the water changes.

Are you adding ammonia to your tank as well?

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Berlioz]

havent been adding ammonia just used the aquasafe etc...

oh and thank you for the quick responses...

even if they contradict each other lol x

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Don't bother with water changes. Bacterial blooms are normal in new tanks and will come and go on their own in a few days.

It sounds like you are trying to "cycle" with a product like Filter Start, those products don't work unfortunately so I recommend you do a fishless cycle to save yourself a whole lot of headache in the future. Have a read of this thread: Fishless Cycling

And also this one: The Nitrogen Cycle

Beginners Resource Center

Hope that helps!!

 

[the_lock_man]

I'm certainly not going to contradict Awesome on her last post, definitely sound advice.

Most bacterial blooms do clear up on their own within a few days, but it sounded to me like you'd already had it for more than a few days, which is why I suggested giving it a little help.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

mmm I gathered that as well, which is unusual but I wonder if water changes could have lengthened it? I have no idea, just a guess!

 

[Berlioz]

thanks so much for the advice guys and ill have a good look through your links alm0stawesome this may seem like a really stupid question but because ive never encounted this problem ive never used ammonia or anything in the tanks ive kept before this situation is completely new to me which surprises me to be honest but is the ammonia essential?

 

[the_lock_man]

thanks so much for the advice guys and ill have a good look through your links alm0stawesome this may seem like a really stupid question but because ive never encounted this problem ive never used ammonia or anything in the tanks ive kept before this situation is completely new to me which surprises me to be honest but is the ammonia essential?

Yes it is, if you want to fishless-cycle.

Effectively what you are doing is simulating an aquarium chock-full of fish. You grow the bacteria to process the ammonia that the fish would have produced had they been there. When you have cycled this way, you can stock the tank to capacity straight away (you don't have to wait for the bacteria to catch up) and you don't poison any fish along the way.

These filter-start products claim to contain the bacteria. I don't want to get into the do-they-work-don't-they-work argument, but if they did contain viable bacteria, those bacteria would still need an ammonia source to survive - and that is either fish, or bottled. They definitely won't cycle a filter without.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Yep, I'm afraid it is. Once you've read the links it'll make a lot more sense but you may have questions so please feel free to ask


When I first read about cycling it was total information overload lol but it's actually all quite simple once you give it a chance to sink in