Question: Clear Water On A 180Gallon?

[JustinKScott]

I've never setup a fish tank before. I had a couple turtle tanks, but never was able to get them right as they continuously stayed pea soup. So when I told my wife (to be) that I wanted to get a 180 gallon tank from craigslist and setup a fish tank she thought it was a terrible idea. Well, I bought it anyway.

I started setting it up 22 days ago, or so my fluval G6 tells me. And up until yesterday, I was starting to think that (once again) she was right. It had been pea soup, and really gross.

As of yesterday morning, the tank instantly cleared up. It was amazing! I'll post a couple photos of before and after; but I'm really not sure what made it flip the switch.

From day 3 I had about 20 little fish in the tank. 'Starter fish' as my book tells me, hardy fish that are supposed to kick off the nitrogen cycle. I've been measuring ph, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, hardness, alkalinity, chlorine, temp, water flow, salinity(which I don't understand yet), and at least one more thing that has slipped my mind at the moment. And everything has been perfect. I did one water change, although I'm not really sure why my nitrates/nitrites were sitting @ 0. And really nothing but pea soup.

6 days ago, I bought a few live plants... I'm going to start planting a few @ a time. & pulled some water lettuce from my pond, to give the algae a run for nutrients.

3-4 days ago I started seeing brown algae growing. Which I understand comes from lack of light. Not a surprise, as I had the aquarium lights out for most of the day as I read green algae means too much light.

2 days ago, I bought a small army of ottos (which I understand are algae eaters that don't stop when they get older), 4x cory cats, and 2x black moors. I also got two pieces of mobani wood.

Yesterday morning the water was slightly green but almost clear, and today I can only see slight brown when I look 4ft in (from the side).



----So my question is, what happened? Did the extra waste from the black moors kick the bio-filter into high gear?

 

[GrayScale]

Seems like your tank is fully cycled now. Your filter built up enough good bacteria to clear up the the water a bit. I'm sure adding the algea eaters and plants helped a lot too. Nice tank hopefully you'll post more pictures once you can add a few more plants.

 

[JustinKScott]

I've started another topic where I'm looking for advise & will function as a progress thread.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/333834-my-new-first-180gallon-tank/

 

[OldMan47]

The pea soup is green water algae. If it does not get enough light, it disappears just like yours did. The only way that I have succeeded in growing it was by using direct sunlight in an outdoor tub pond. There are people who can get enough light without resorting to sunlight but I have not been one of them. I suspect that a part of my problem is that I grow plants in my tanks which reduces the nutrient level of the water but certainly does not remove all nutrients from the water.

Now that you have clear water, you should be able to get meaningful test results using a liquid type testing kit. It is time to find out where you are in the cycle process. It is very unlikely that your tank has finished cycling unless to cloned an existing filter from your turtle tank.