Tank Keeps Clouding Up

[This Old Spouse]

I've had my 55g set up since last September. I have two Whisper 330 filters, I do a 70-80% water change about once a week, which takes care of the cloudiness for a few days, but then it starts getting cloudy again. I'm not overfeeding.

This is what it looked like a month or so ago. Since then the plants have grown up and I've added a few more cories and tiger barbs.

Should I switch over to sand? Will that help the cloudiness?

 

[Rogue4Fish]

do you regularly check your ammonia levels?

 

[This Old Spouse]

do you regularly check your ammonia levels?

yes. always below .25 ppm. Just tested it now and the same.

 

[Liamm]

Possibly a bacterial bloom?

 

[This Old Spouse]

I suppose it could be, but I don't understand why it would happen just out of the blue. My tank was crystal clear for weeks on end, now I can only get it that way with the huge water change. I do the gravel vac as well but I don't move all the rocks around, mainly for fear of stressing out my pleco, and also because one of them weighs a ton. Well, more like 25 lbs.

 

[OldMan47]

What color is the cloudiness? If it has a greenish tinge, it is probably green water algae. That is easily cured by cutting back on lighting a little.

 

[This Old Spouse]

It does have a bit of a greenish tinge to it, but my lighting is only on for about 6 hours a day as it is, and I have live plants.

 

[OldMan47]

Other approaches that work for green water are use of a UV filter or even using some live daphnia to eat the green water. If your local fish shop stocks live daphnia, try placing some into a livebearer breeding trap to protect them from the fish in the tank and let them eat the green water that floats by. Some will escape and be eaten but the others will consume the green water while growing bigger and producing more daphnia.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Water fleas? Hmm. If I can find some I just might try that.