Murky Malawi Tank

[Megfish]

Hi All
I Have a dilemma.I Have had a tropical tank for years and have added a cichlid tank to our fish room.I spent heaps of time and money setting it up and researching Cichlid habitats.Trying to provide the right enviroment.The tank has roughly 50/50 Argonite and Pool filter sand which i thought i washed well enough.
The Little critters a digging like made and i think it is the cause of these tiny particles in the water.I Have An Aquaone CF1200 canister filter but i dont think the filter medium is fine enough.I also have a piece of drift wood in there for effect.
Water readingd are good and stable with nil ammonium and nitrites.
PH 8
KH 10
Nitrates 20ppm.
The water is really murky and when i do a water change (weekly) it looks a little better but it does seem to be getting worse.I have been slowly adding fish and i think it may be them sturing up the bottom as they are digging little nests everywhere.
Has anyone had this problem and if so how do i fix it. Maybe i didnt clean the substrate enough because it was fine for about 2 monthes while i cycled it.Then added the diggingiest Cichlids and it all turned murky.
Will adding a charcoal bag help what about extra water changes,Please dont say pull it down and clean the sand properly.
Or is a algea of some kind.
There is not alot of growth in there only a little brown growth but the Pleco has taken care of this.
Any Assistance would be muchly apreciated

 

[keane]

What size is the tank?
Exactly what, and how many, cichlids do you have in there now?
What other decor do you have in there (rocks etc)?
What is the capacity of your filter (GPH)?

Could be the sand but could, in part, also be that your filter is not big and powerful enough to take in all the crap your fish are generating (the pleco in itself is a massive waste producer).

TBH honest...I HATE sand!

I had sand in my 55 a while back and it just got filthy too quickly and also clogged up my internal filter far too often.

I changed to fine marine gravel when I rescaped last and I love it . No dirty looking tank and the filter doesn't pack up as often.

steve

 

[freddyk]

I do agree, sand can make an aquarium appear dirtier if filtration isn't tip-top because the debris has little place to go besides the water column. Gravel makes it appear cleaner because it traps the waste and keeps it out of the water. Of course the opposite is true and the sand is the cleaner of the two for the same reasons.

I'm not familiar with the filter, but many canisters work on a low water movement rate, which as mentioned will make a difference.

When you say 'murky' though, is it larger particals, or is it cloudy? If it's cloudy is it white or brown or yellow or green?

 

[Megfish]

Ok here is the info.
The Tank is 400 ltres it is fairly big
I have a pleco
2 big feather fin cat fish
4 Labidochromis
4 melanchromis johanni
4 new cichlids we bought about a week ago that i think are Melanchromis Auratus.
I have lots of Limestone and Pilbara rock i boiled and cleaned extremly well.
The piece of wood i let sit in water for about a month but i still had to weight it down when i out it in the tank.Now it is totally water logged.
Filter Capacity is supposed to 1200 ltres an hour.The water is cloudy but you can see particles floating very fine though and if i had to pick a colour i would say brown/yellowish sort of like when your at the beach and you look in the salt water it is that sort of consistancy.
The pool filter sand i bought was the largest they had and it is more like tiny gravel than sand.It is brown in colour and it was also very dusty when i poured it out into buckets to clean.The filter although filters lots in volume it does not create a big suction towards the intake.
Thanks for the speedy reply and hope you can shed some light.
Megfish

 

[Megfish]

Any Ideas Anyone

 

[freddyk]

What kind of filter is it? You described the water color as similar to the sand so this would be my first guess. Aaragonite can be pretty dusty too. Whatever is causing it most likely won't harm the fish, so it's just a question of clearing it up for appearance. The first thing I'd do is remove the wood. The tanins from it could be making it look even worse and the easiest way to find out is to take it out. I'm not sure how to deal with dusty substrate except with water changes and patience, or a tank makeover.

Another filter wouldn't hurt the tank no matter how you look at it. Your filter is cycling the tank 3x per hour, which isn't really that much. My tanks have been about 7x per hour and 10 is often recommended for these types of setups.

 

[Megfish]

Thanks for that.
I went and bought another internal filter that is good for 1200lt per hour so that makes it cycle my whole tank 6 times per hour.I also added a finer filter to my canister and 12 hours later it already looks alot better.I will do 2 25% water changes weekly that should see it improve alot quicker.
Cheers