New Aquarium, White Cloudy Water After Temperature Change

[Gvilleguy]

Hi Fish Forum peeps,

I have a brand new 26 gallon aquarium that has had water in it for 3 days. Power carbon filter on the back of tank and 2 air rocks pumping out bubbles. No live plants and no fish yet. The water was crystal clear while at 78-79 degrees F. Six hours ago I turned the heater up, wanting to get the temp up in the 80s to begin a fishless cycle per the recommendations I have read on this forum. I returned home to find the water temp at 83F, and the water cloudy white.

Ammonia has not been added yet, but the natural level is testing 0.5 ppm, with zero nitrite and zero nitrate. Is this cloudiness a result of the temperature change? Or simply a bacterial bloom? I would not have expected bacterial cloudiness after only a few days and no fish/live plants present.

Thanks!

 

[upsy daisy]

Hi, I am new here myself, but my guess is, it is bacterial bloom as you said! I seem to remember the water in my tank went cloudy after a few days, too. It has cleared up nicely since.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Thanks, upsy daisy. I'll just leave it alone and start my cycling and see how it does. Still not able to find the pure ammonia - going to check a few more stores this morning.

 

[upsy daisy]

Are you in USA or UK?

 

[Gvilleguy]

I'm in southeast USA.

 

[Gvilleguy]

And so far I am not having any luck finding ammonia without surfactant, perfume, or dye!! Wal Mart, Walgreens, Publix, and Rite Aid all had clear ammonia with surfactant or perfume/dye. Trying ACE Hardware next...

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Gvilleguy and Welcome to TFF!

Where about in the southeast? The big Harris-Teeter supermarkets have the plain stuff. And Ace Hardware seems quite reliable at having it.

Believe it or not the bacteria actually can munch on chemicals left over from the process that glues the glass together! The milky/gray cloudiness is indeed a bacterial bloom usually, with so many millions that the cells themselves are what you're seeing. These bacteria are heterotrophic/saprotrophic - completely different from the autotrophic species we want to grow in the filter.

Speaking of filters, as hobbyists we have mostly come to the conclusion that carbon (activated charcoal is another name it goes by) is less expensive if left on the storage shelf. Its quite useful for clearing medications out of the tank water after their time is up and it can also clear the yellow tannins from wood or the occasional organic smell of unknown origin. But in cases of heavy clearing, its used up in about 3 days and ready to be tossed in the trash and replaced. This of course gets too expensive and causes our precious autotrophic bacteria to be trashed along with the carbon granules.

What we try to replace it with are filtration media that we refer to as "biomedia" because it is chosen for its superior surface area and texture to optimize autotrophic bacterial colonies. The type and size of the media varies depending on the actual type of filter. Sponges and ceramic gravels are in competition for being very good. In larger filters, plastic bioballs are sometimes used but, actually, cheap plastic dish scrubbies (being extremely careful that they do not have soap) have just about the best specifications out there. One of our members, oldman47, has a great picture of them in his big filter. Seachem also makes a good type called Matrix, and Eheim makes a similar sintered glass (ceramic) type called Substrat Pro I believe.

Biomedia performs one of three main functions in a filter (biological filtration.) The other two are mechanical (catching of particles, large and small) and chemical (the collecting of chemicals based on molecular charge attractions.) Let the members know your make/model of filter and what possible media is out there that will fit it.

Your "bacterial growing soup" temperature is almost optimal. Bring it on up one degree to 84F. It sounds like you've got a liquid-based test kit. If so, post up results for your tap water using all the kits. In the southeast you may have to worry about how soft and low pH the water is, but the techniques for handling that won't be hard to learn.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Gvilleguy]

Waterdrop - this is awesome information! Thanks very much. I'll reply to your questions when I have a few moments today. I was planning to post a filter media question later in the week, but since you brought it up, I'll just use this thread to post more information.

So I guess I don't need to do anything about the white cloud - sounds like it will clear up on its own?

 

[Gvilleguy]

I found the clear (no suds) ammonia at ACE.

My 26 gallon tank kit came with an Aqueon Power Filter CA20 (rated for 20-30 gallons, I guess). I'm a bit worried about it being underpowered for this size tank. Here is a picture of the filter and bio basket:

[I tried to post the picture directly, but got error "you are not allowed to use that image extension on this board"???]

Aqueon Power Filter CA20

The blue basket supposedly will act as a bio filter, but I'm not sure how well it will do. Were you suggesting I might replace the carbon filter part with a filter sponge, or a plastic dishscrubbing pad? I'm also not opposed to dumping this power filter in favor of a sponge filter if I won't be able to get a good bio-mass built up.

Other than the filter configuration, my water tests out as follows (using API freshwater master kit):

Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: 0.0
Nitrate: 0.0
pH: 7.0

Here is a pic of the aquarium as I have it currently configured (running 2 air stones):

Aqueon 26 Gallon Bow Front

 

[waterdrop]

OK, you're ready to dose some of that ACE ammonia. Let's assume its 9.5%concentration even if it doesn't say and put that into the ammonia calculator on our web page here. It will give you some sort of milliliter figure that would supposedly dose 5ppm for your tank. BUT, you don't truly know the concentration and it could even have changed once you opened the ammonia bottle. AND, it doesn't really matter at the very beginning of a cycle whether you have 5ppm or less (down through, say, 2ppm.) So just dose it low and make sure its like 4ppm or less.

I'll get back on later and talk about your filter Bye@! WD

 

[Gvilleguy]

I calculated an ammonia dose and seem to have guessed correctly - my ammonia peaked at 4 ppm. So I'll monitor daily and wait for it to drop...

 

[waterdrop]

Good, it can take up to 2 or even three weeks (!) for it to do its very first slow drop down to zero ppm, so be prepared to be patient for this "first drop" as we call it. After that it should get faster at it and you should then begin to see some nitrite(NO2) beginning to show up (or even sooner.) You can do pH about every third day and nitrite maybe after the first week (or on the third day with pH if you're curious.)

~~waterdrop~~