Red Cloud?

[myenigmaself]

I was out of town for 5 days two weeks ago and was forced to leave my fish unatended. I gave them some of the bricks they could eat off and hoped they would be fine. When I got back I realized that a circuit in my apt. had tripped, turning off my filters. To my shegrin the water was all cloudy. The cloudiness was red though! I'd never heard of that before. I know white cloudiness is generally a bacterial ploom, and green cloudiness is algae, but what is a red cloud? I did a 90% water change, got my filters running again and everything seems to be fine so far. The fish seem to be displaying no ill effects. My apt has very little natural light so I would doubt that it was algae... but I really don't know. Bacterial growth due to rotting food/stagnant water? It's not really a problem now, more something that's peaked my curiosity.

 

[Stryker]

I'd be more concerned on wheather your bacteria in your filter has died....

 

[myenigmaself]

I think the bacteria are fine. I run two filters on the tank so when changing a filter cartridge I don't completely throw off the bacteria levels. After I did the water change I also changed one of the filter cartridges and the amonia levels went up a little but not to dangerous levels, and dropped down again after about 7 days (BioCycle helped with this). The nitrite/nitrate levels never went above normal. Another thing I was thinking about, though. I have some red rocks in the tank. Could the non-moving water have changed something in the tank so they started to bleed their color?

 

[myenigmaself]

Or another possibility. The rocks are always bleeching into the water, but the filter normaly removes the redness, and once the filters stopped working the redness accumulated. Is this possible?

 

[Lateral Line]

I would have been worried about the filter bacteria as well, but perhaps you've got away with it.

If you have carbon in your filter that would normally remove colouration leaching from bog wood, peat etc. These are usually red-brown.

Normal aquarium fish can survive for weeks unfed in a normal planted tank, if I am going away for 2 weeks or less, they are left to their own devices. Never had a problem, and much safer then getting someone in or using those dubious blocks. There are electric feeders but I've never used one.

 

[myenigmaself]

Thanks for the input guys. I noticed a slight tint of red this morning so I'm going to try removing the rocks. The fish seem very happy and healthy so I don't think it's a biological thing. Thanks again!