Tank Is Still Cloudy

[This Old Spouse]

I'm still at a loss as to why my water in the 55g is so cloudy.

My stats now are:

Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0 (?)
pH=6.6

I'm trying to figure out if switching from gravel to sand will help things at all.

Anyone have a clue what might be happening here?

Thanks ...

 

[england]

when you say cloudy is it white cloudy or greenish?
is this normal?

 

[This Old Spouse]

When I do my w/c it has a greenish tinge in the white sink I pour it into. It's not so cloudy you can't see through it or anything, but it's not crystal clear like my other tanks.

I forgot to mention I have my lights on for 2 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night.

 

[england]

Greenish tinge is down to a algae bloom, maybe to much natural sun light, i had this problem once, moved tank and used something from fish shop which bunches it up and it cleaned up nice....
Did you clean gravel well before putting in tank?

 

[m00ms]

i was always under the impression that light should be on for 1 set period and not couple hours am and couple pm??

 

[This Old Spouse]

There is no natural sunlight that hits the tank, and the gravel was washed well 9 months ago when I put the tank together.

How can I have an algae bloom with only 6 hours of light?

 

[england]

Anythings possible with tanks..lol
Maybe to much light from the bulbs...
Whats your filteration system like? feeding resime?

 

[This Old Spouse]

I have a Tetra T3 and Whisper 300 going. The bulbs are weak ... 2 18" 15w "plant and aquarium' lights (I really hate the cast they give the water) and I feed a pinch of food twice a day, which never even hits the bottom. Gone in 60 seconds.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Thanks to LoriF who posted this link today:
http/www.fishlore....-kit-users.html


I just redid my nitrate readings and came up with 20 ppm, so that seems a little more normal.


Made my 80% water change yesterday, and also cleaned out one of my filters' intake tube which was pretty full of algae. Now it appears the water flow has increased a LOT because it's kind of blowing my elodea all over! We'll see if maybe that was the problem all along.