Tank refresh/ restart after persistent milky water

[underthesea1]

For the last month my water has been very cloudly/ kind of milky looking.

I have done a water change twice, added Sachem clarity, hoovered the sand but I think we might have an algae bloom and it just isn't clearing.

I think perhaps one or two of my cories have passed, but because the water is so cloudy I can't find them.

I checked the filter yesterday and I found the foam I had put in there had disintegrated and was full of gunk so I removed it, but now there are just a few ceramic beads in the filter which isn't enough.

As this is the third filter I have bought this year, instead of wasting more money on another I took advantage of the Black Friday sale and have bought an aqua nano 60 as I have been wanting one for a while.

My question is, when it arrives and I set it up, obviously I want to seed the filter it comes with with good bacteria, will the ceramic beads from my old filter be enough to do so?

I am basically doing a tank refresh, I will use the plants from my current tank, but have also bought a few more, with tropica aqua soil capped with sand.

Basically just wanting to make sure the way I set up the new tank is safe for my fish.

Original stock was one Molly, 6 copies and shrimp and snails but I feel strongly there may be less than 6 cories now

 

[GaryE]

How large is this tank?

Generally, if you get milky water and think you have had losses, I would do a minimum of two to three large water changes (50 to 80%) a week until I could see what was going on. Two water changes in a month is minimal basic maintenance, as you go forward. I do 30% weekly.

There are members here who work hard at cycling (my set up makes it easy) so I'll hope they take it from here.

 

[underthesea1]

It is 70l, the ne I have ordered is 100l.

Honestly, up until now for the last 18 months I haven't done water changes, the water evaporates and I top up. Never had an issue until recently. The new tank has a glass lid too so hopefully that will help keep the water levels from dropping so much. The tank is heavily planted too.

But obviously something has cropped up and I will do frequent changes from now on.

 

[GaryE]

I'm in another country with sometimes different products, so I haven't had a good look at the filters in question. If it's the canister my googling coughed up, it should be good. All you have is the ceramic beads, so keep them going in the old filter til the new is there. They'll start things, but members from your part of the world (@Essjay, @MattW ) might be able to suggest other products.

The live plants will help too.

In past discussions, I seem to recall London based members having hard water from chalk deposits. If so, water evaporates but the minerals in the water stay put, and build up with every top up. Your water hardness creeps up with your maintenance technique. A hardwater molly would be fine, as would most shrimp. But Corys would suffer.

 

[underthesea1]

Okay thank you - I will tart doing regular changes, and I have bought some extra filter sponge to pop in the Current filter for a few days to also add to the new tank when I set it up!

 

[GaryE]

Wise move.

When I was in my teens, water changes were far out of fashion and many believed balanced aquariums were possible long term. We moved to a region where the water was extremely hard and I had trouble with milky water after a few top offs. I've since wondered about that. Usually, such things are bacterial, or from algae, but there, it may actually have been sediment.

But that was a country well, and I don't know London water.

 

[AJ356]

Hi, I'm based in London as well.

I just wanted to let you know quickly about a product I can vouch for. If you didnt know, there is a company based in Kent called Tropco Fish. They do a product called Nitrico Goop. You can get it by post as well (which is what I did twice). It's like a smoothy, but you rub it into your filter media.

It's bacteria. I can assure you that it works. I am a testing geek, including ammonia and nitrite. I don't consider it an "instant cycle" because I think it can be risky to think of it that way and lead to complacency potentially.

I can tell you, having used it twice, nothing else comes close to speeding up a cycle, not seachem stability, Tetra Safe Start or Dr Tim's. I can vouch for Tetra Safe Start and Dr Tim's as helping. Stability didn't do much, if anything for me. Other people swear by it.