How Do You Clear Up A Bactiria Bloom?

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

MrGT500

Fish Fanatic
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
118
Reaction score
0
is it just a matter of leaveing it alone and letting the tank do its own thing or are water changes the answer?
 
Water changes won't do much since the bacteria will continue to multiply rapidly. I'm guessing you have fish in the tank so increase aeration by adding an air stone or just moving your filter up a little so it creates a bigger splash. You need to do this since bacteria blooms deplete oxygen in the tank so your fish will be deprived of oxygen. Let the bloom clear up on its own but have increased aeration as well.
 
Water changes won't do much since the bacteria will continue to multiply rapidly. I'm guessing you have fish in the tank so increase aeration by adding an air stone or just moving your filter up a little so it creates a bigger splash. You need to do this since bacteria blooms deplete oxygen in the tank so your fish will be deprived of oxygen. Let the bloom clear up on its own but have increased aeration as well.

I'd say the opposite. I've had bacterial blooms and I've dealt with them by changing large amounts of water. Bacterial blooms usually occur if you've disturbed the substrate and stirred up the waste sitting in it.
If you have a syphon dig it well into the gravel - try and get it right to the bottom and hold it there for a minute and then move on to another patch. If you carry on doing this all over the substrate it will suck up a lot of the gunk and the bloom should settle.
 
yea, the bloom in both of my tanks happend after a change of substrate. but both tanks are way over filterd and airrated. my 36 gallon bowfront has an emporor 400 and 280 on it, with a 2 foot airstone and 2 6 inch airstones hooked up to a tetra air 8000. my 27 has the same setup minus the 280 cause the 400 takes up the entier back of the tank.
 
Water changes won't do much since the bacteria will continue to multiply rapidly. I'm guessing you have fish in the tank so increase aeration by adding an air stone or just moving your filter up a little so it creates a bigger splash. You need to do this since bacteria blooms deplete oxygen in the tank so your fish will be deprived of oxygen. Let the bloom clear up on its own but have increased aeration as well.

I'd say the opposite. I've had bacterial blooms and I've dealt with them by changing large amounts of water. Bacterial blooms usually occur if you've disturbed the substrate and stirred up the waste sitting in it.
If you have a syphon dig it well into the gravel - try and get it right to the bottom and hold it there for a minute and then move on to another patch. If you carry on doing this all over the substrate it will suck up a lot of the gunk and the bloom should settle.
This sound a little odd to me. Are you sure the cloudiness is caused by a bacterial bloom? If you are disturbing substrate and then the water gets cloudy could you not have just stirred up dust from the bottom and clouding the water up just like if you add new gravel to your tank without washing it fully. Any time I have dug in the gravel a lot I get cloudiness that goes away in a day anyway. I just figured either the filter was picking it up or the dust had settled back to the bottom.
 
yea, the bloom in both of my tanks happend after a change of substrate. but both tanks are way over filterd and airrated. my 36 gallon bowfront has an emporor 400 and 280 on it, with a 2 foot airstone and 2 6 inch airstones hooked up to a tetra air 8000. my 27 has the same setup minus the 280 cause the 400 takes up the entier back of the tank.

I had a bloom in my old 2ft tank after changing the gravel - it looked like I'd tipped half a pint of milk in there. Fish waste and any uneaten food, plus any plant matter sits in and under your gravel. By stirring up large area's (changing the gravel in your case) it allows the waste to come to the surface and all the bacteria too.

The only way I found to get rid of it is to start changing large amounts of water. I became a member of this forum around the time I had the bloom as I didn't know what it was and how to deal with it. The majority of the older members on here told me the only way to get rid was with water changes.

I seem to remember it took about a week of daily water changes to start seeing clear water again.
 

Most reactions

trending

Members online

Back
Top