Newbie Question

[Littleman]

Hi all

My name is Jon and I'm fairly new to keeping fish.

I started about 18 months ago and I brought a 65L tank which had its teething problems but I got over that and now the fish that I do have are to big for the tank. Therefore I brought a 200L tank to move them into and hopefully some more fish. However I have some questions reagrding the new tank.

Firstly - having set the new tank up on Sunday and filling it with water I got everything going ok, yesterday everything was ok as well. But having got home from work today, I found that the water was very murky almost like fog or mist in the water, is this normal for a new tank and will it go??

Secondly - The filter that I have for this tank is an external one and unlike my old tank when the water returns to the tank ithe outlet is under the water therefore not breaking the surface of the water. I thought that it needed to break the water to get oxygen into the water? Am I correct in that or will it be ok submerged in the water.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jon

 

[davefish]

You might want to look into getting an air pump and airstone (or similar) to break the surface and increase oxygenation if that proves to be an issue.

They are a pretty cool addition anyway. Most of my fish love the bubbles.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Jon,

Welcome to TFF!

There are lots of things that cause cloudy water in new tanks (lots of tiny oxygen bubbles, bacterial blooms, last bit of dust from new gravel, etc. etc.) and probably in every case they will eventually go away - this not being a very critical thing to worry about in a new tank.

Water breaking the surface is not terribly important either - the important thing being surface movement and circulation. If your new external cannister filter has a spray bar, you can take some care to get the streams of water coming from the output holes causing a nice surface movement. They can do this without making much noise, if any at all, and still be quite effective at promoting gas exchange for your water.

Do you plan to use some mature filter media from your current tank to speed up the cycling of your new filter? This would be a great way to get the biofilter prepared. What sort of media types did they give you with the external filter? Have you read the pinned articles about the Nitrogen Cycle? This would be a great time to pause and get all that straight before proceeding!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Littleman]

You might want to look into getting an air pump and airstone (or similar) to break the surface and increase oxygenation if that proves to be an issue.

They are a pretty cool addition anyway. Most of my fish love the bubbles.

Cheers for your help.

I have brough one yesterday, but it's fairly noisey and as the tank is in the front room, I can have it on all the time.

Can you recomend any other pumps??

Jon

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi there, welcome to the forum, you’re kind of barking up the wrong tree worrying about oxygenation. It’s rarely an issue tbh. What is much more likely to cause cloudiness is a bacterial bloom, these are common when the tank is cycling. If you can explain to us how you have/are cycling the new tank we’ll let you know if what you are seeing is normal or give you some tips to speed up the process.

 

[Littleman]

Hi Jon,

Welcome to TFF!

There are lots of things that cause cloudy water in new tanks (lots of tiny oxygen bubbles, bacterial blooms, last bit of dust from new gravel, etc. etc.) and probably in every case they will eventually go away - this not being a very critical thing to worry about in a new tank.

Water breaking the surface is not terribly important either - the important thing being surface movement and circulation. If your new external cannister filter has a spray bar, you can take some care to get the streams of water coming from the output holes causing a nice surface movement. They can do this without making much noise, if any at all, and still be quite effective at promoting gas exchange for your water.

Do you plan to use some mature filter media from your current tank to speed up the cycling of your new filter? This would be a great way to get the biofilter prepared. What sort of media types did they give you with the external filter? Have you read the pinned articles about the Nitrogen Cycle? This would be a great time to pause and get all that straight before proceeding!

~~waterdrop~~

Ahh, so I should just wait for the mist cloudy ness to go.

Ok, so what I have do is angle the spray bar up slightly so that the surface of the water is not breaking but is moving. That should be ok then..

 

[davefish]

You might want to look into getting an air pump and airstone (or similar) to break the surface and increase oxygenation if that proves to be an issue.

They are a pretty cool addition anyway. Most of my fish love the bubbles.

Cheers for your help.

I have brough one yesterday, but it's fairly noisey and as the tank is in the front room, I can have it on all the time.

Can you recomend any other pumps??

Jon

The Tetratec pumps are pretty good, although you will find any air-pump will be noisy to some degree. There's no need to have it on all the time anyway. If you have a really low noise tolerance then an airpump is probably not for you!

MW is right that the oxygenation issue is nothing to do with the cloudiness, I thought you were asking them as two different issues.

And yes, if you can get your filter to cause surface movement and circulation then you don't need the air pump, just from your first post it seemed like you were saying you couldn't do this. The airstone will help with surface movement and circulation if you can't do it with your filter. Some fish will appreciate the bubbles and movement too. Some humans appreciate them aesthetically. The amount of aeration you need will depend on the surface area of the water with respect to the volume. On some tall tanks this can get pretty low. If you have a sensible tank then you probably have very little to worry about.

From experience I've seen the addition of airstones perk some types of fish up a lot, it depends what fish you have.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there Jon,

Like Miss Wiggle, I can't tell from what you've said so far what your status is on the question of cycling. When that happens with any newcomer there is always the fear that they've "missed the forest for the trees" so to speak.

Bubbles, cloudy water and even spraybars are all ultimately unlikely to cause you much trouble, but knowing about the nitrogen cycle and learning the methods of "Fishless Cycling" is much more likely to be a central thing for you in the hobby.

Let us know!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Leedsboi86]

For the bubbles thing you could get a air pump and put a airstone into a plant pot in the bottom of ur tank
Bubbles for surface breaking and a nice decoration.

It works with tons of stuff too

 

[rabbut]

You can get perfectly silent air pumps on Ebay and similar places, but they will set you back about £80, as they use an electric motor to turn a wheel which in turn uses two pistons to pump air. They are complicated and need oiling weekly to keep them runnng, but they are silent and can pump to un-beliveble deapths. We have one running 4 RO vats at work and they kick out as much air at the bottom of as 3 and a 1/2 foot deep vat as they do at the top, judged by eye... Serious bits of kit, but they have a serious price tag, and TBH if you are savy with the filter, you won't need one

I'd alter the filter outlet, such that it disturbs the surface more, but without lifting it out of the water, as this will make the filter noisy

We need to know more about your tank before we can diagnose the caurse of the cloudyness. Could you answer the following questions please (if you don't know the answers, let us know).

What are your water stats for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?
Do you have any fish in there?
What (if anything) have you moved from the other tank?
What filter do you have?
What filter media is it packed with, and in what order?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Littleman]

Firstly, thanks everyone for your comments and advices so far....

I would appear that the cloudyness is going slowly, either that or my eyes are getting use to it!

What are your water stats for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?
I have no idea at this time, I've got a testing kit and I will test it tommorrow.

Do you have any fish in there?
No I dont have anything in there at the moment apart from some gravel, all that i have done it cleaned the gravel as best I could and filled the tank up with cold water from the tap. I also added some safe start solution and so tap water conditioner (the conditioner was after the cloudness)

What (if anything) have you moved from the other tank?
I've not moved anything from my old tank yet.

What filter do you have?
The filter is a Aqua One Aquis 700

What filter media is it packed with, and in what order?
From Top to bottom its as follows

Wool
Sponge (Black 35ppi)

Sponge (Blue 15 ppi)
Noodles

Sponge (Blue 15 ppi)
Bio Balls


Now I come to think of it The Bio Balls were chalky, the cloudy water could have been caused by these??

Thats the other think I've been confussed about is I've spoken to a couple of people in the fish shop and I asked (apart from the fish) what if anything should I take from the old tank? 1 chap said, just chuck in all your old water/fish/stones etc and go from there and another said to transfer nothing at all. So from the same shop I got very different responces. I understand that they are really just saying what worked for them, but I really dont want to harm the fish that I have as not only will I be annoyed but my partner and son will prob kill me!!

Thanks again for all your help/advice so far.

Jon

 

[waterdrop]

OK Jon,

Its beginning to be pretty clear that "the real fishless cycling" has escaped your notice. Have a look at some of the links in Miss Wiggles post up above.

One path through the reading I like to recommend is to look at the "pinned articles" at the top of the "New to the Hobby" forum and click on the link that says "Beginner Resource Center", then click on "Cycling Resource Center" and then look for articles by AlienAnna and Miss Wiggle. Those two articles kind of introduce the nitrogen cycle. Then the main fishless cycling article by rdd1952 is a separate pinned article. Most of us do the "Add and Wait" method.

Relax and follow along and you will find it fun - the level of experience and expertise here on TFF is amazing, the people are pretty friendly and fun and the topics, once you get into them are quite interesting.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. don't think I've ever seen chalky bioballs - maybe these needed a good rinse for some reason!

 

[Littleman]

OK Jon,

Its beginning to be pretty clear that "the real fishless cycling" has escaped your notice. Have a look at some of the links in Miss Wiggles post up above.

One path through the reading I like to recommend is to look at the "pinned articles" at the top of the "New to the Hobby" forum and click on the link that says "Beginner Resource Center", then click on "Cycling Resource Center" and then look for articles by AlienAnna and Miss Wiggle. Those two articles kind of introduce the nitrogen cycle. Then the main fishless cycling article by rdd1952 is a separate pinned article. Most of us do the "Add and Wait" method.

Relax and follow along and you will find it fun - the level of experience and expertise here on TFF is amazing, the people are pretty friendly and fun and the topics, once you get into them are quite interesting.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. don't think I've ever seen chalky bioballs - maybe these needed a good rinse for some reason!

Ok, right.

I never did this with my first tank so this is all new to me. I just left the tank with the water for a week, then bougt some fish, but from what I have been reading thats not the best course of action.

I take it I can start the fishless cycle now? (I have no fish in there)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup, just follow the instructions in the pinned topic by rdd