Tank Water Real Dirty Checked Everything

[bambam83]

Changing water usually doesn't help with a bacterial bloom because the microscopic bacteria just pick back up right where they left off and multiply very rapidly, graying out the water. You just have to wait it out. It might last days or weeks, not months.

Meanwhile, the much more important thing is somehow keeping your fish alive while you are growing new bacteria in the filter. What is your plan for that?

~~waterdrop~~

Not sure yet they seem to be doing ok for now...So will see, should i add more water conditioner?

 

[waterdrop]

So we've determined that you probably/may have lost all your bacteria and they need to grow again. Because there are fish in the tank, the bacteria will grow so we don't have to do anything special for the bacteria. But because there are not enough bacteria yet, the filter may not be keeping the fish safe from their worst nightmare: ammonia and nitrite(NO2).

So *you* have to *be* the filter until the bacteria are grown. The only way to do this is to change (probably daily) water (lots of water) so that the fish get fresh tap water. This is when you use your water conditioner (use it to treat the fresh tap water each time so that it will remove the chlorine/chloramine that the city puts in.)

If you don't have a test kit (the type with little test tubes and chemical bottles) then you will have to guess at how much water to change and you also will not know when the bacteria have finally grown enough. Without the test kit you just have to change -most- of the water on a daily basis. Gravel-clean-siphon the water out until there is just enough room left that they can still swim a little. The fresh tap water, as we said, must be treated with conditioner and needs to be roughly temperature-matched by feeling with your hand.

If you are able to find a good test kit (Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit for this) then the members here can help you learn how to use it to determine the real size and how often water changes are really needed and you'll be able to see when the bacteria are finally clearing away the ammonia and nitrite for you.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Green water algae is not the result of poor cleaning and water change practices. It is the result of too much light getting into the tank. Any tank contains enough nutrients for green water to grow, so if you supply enough light any green water that is present will grow and multiply quickly. Do not worry about the green water except that it makes it hard to see the fish. It will not harm the fish.

A bacterial bloom is not green so that is less likely to be happening.

If you have retained the thin sponge that is present in most cartridge type filters, you may still have a partially functional biofilter although it will not be as well developed as the bacterial population in the cartridge would make it. As others have already said, you may have set yourself back by discarding the old cartridge. It is worth at least testing to find out how you are doing. You need to test for ammonia and nitrites and reduce both to less than 0.25 ppm using large water changes. If you find both are at zero, it is possible, you have gotten lucky and have a functional biofilter in your thin filter sponge. Some of the newer cartridge type filters use rough surfaced plastic pieces instead of that thin sponge. My new Whisper filter has a plastic plate with lots of irregularities on it that the manufacturer says are there to act as a biofilter. The plastic piece looks very small to me compared to what I would expect to have as an effective biofilter but they are free to claim anything that they wish.

Cleaning the filter housing in the bathroom sink is a good idea as long as you set aside any filter media first. That includes the filter cartridge, the thin sponge if your filter has one and the plastic "biofilter plate" if your filter has one. The pumping device, looks like a tiny propeller, and the well it sits in should be scrubbed out well. I use a test tube brush for cleaning the well. Be careful handling that impeller for two reasons. It is very thin so it is easy to simply break and it has rubber bearings on each end of the shaft that are needed for the impeller to run smoothly in the filter. Those are tiny and can be lost quite easily unless you are careful.