Water Clouding Badly

[Whiteskar]

Apologies if this isn't exactly a real emergency - or at least I don't think it is...

It's been about 15 years since I kept tropicals, having kept Reef tanks in the intervening period. So, I'm a bit out of the loop about today's practices for tropical keeping.

Having set my tank up a week ago, I added 10 Black Phantom Tetras, a handful of plants and Nutrafin Cycle bacterial product to the tank (220l) at the weekend. The tank has a bit of bogwood and fine sand. It's filtered by a large external.

All was well until this morning (3 days later) the water started to become cloudy. On returning home from work I find the cloudy is quite bad and seeing down the length of the tank means I can barely see the opposite end. The clouding is grey. All fish seem to be fine and have fed okay.

Is this clouding normal or do I have something to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fish_Man43]

Apologies if this isn't exactly a real emergency - or at least I don't think it is...

It's been about 15 years since I kept tropicals, having kept Reef tanks in the intervening period. So, I'm a bit out of the loop about today's practices for tropical keeping.

Having set my tank up a week ago, I added 10 Black Phantom Tetras, a handful of plants and Nutrafin Cycle bacterial product to the tank (220l) at the weekend. The tank has a bit of bogwood and fine sand. It's filtered by a large external.

All was well until this morning (3 days later) the water started to become cloudy. On returning home from work I find the cloudy is quite bad and seeing down the length of the tank means I can barely see the opposite end. The clouding is grey. All fish seem to be fine and have fed okay.

Is this clouding normal or do I have something to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

I see you didn't do your fish-less cycle, how big is your fish tank? did you clean and wash all interior substances. As from now you will be doing a fish-in cycle and you will see a few white clouding call a bacteria bloom and you have far to many fish in your tank to do a fish-in cycle it might be very hard work trying to keep the ammonia levels down and the Nitrite, you will need to get a water test kit to test your water daily and keep the ammonia levels down and the nitrite with water changes daily.
Bogwood usually give a brown tint. Here is a link about cycling

Hope this helps you a little

 

[Whiteskar]

Apologies if this isn't exactly a real emergency - or at least I don't think it is...

It's been about 15 years since I kept tropicals, having kept Reef tanks in the intervening period. So, I'm a bit out of the loop about today's practices for tropical keeping.

Having set my tank up a week ago, I added 10 Black Phantom Tetras, a handful of plants and Nutrafin Cycle bacterial product to the tank (220l) at the weekend. The tank has a bit of bogwood and fine sand. It's filtered by a large external.

All was well until this morning (3 days later) the water started to become cloudy. On returning home from work I find the cloudy is quite bad and seeing down the length of the tank means I can barely see the opposite end. The clouding is grey. All fish seem to be fine and have fed okay.

Is this clouding normal or do I have something to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

I see you didn't do your fish-less cycle, how big is your fish tank? did you clean and wash all interior substances. As from now you will be doing a fish-in cycle and you will see a few white clouding call a bacteria bloom and you have far to many fish in your tank to do a fish-in cycle it might be very hard work trying to keep the ammonia levels down and the Nitrite, you will need to get a water test kit to test your water daily and keep the ammonia levels down and the nitrite with water changes daily.
Bogwood usually give a brown tint. Here is a link about cycling

Hope this helps you a little

Thanks for the advice. I'm now angry and gutted about the advice given to me by my local store.

The tank is 220 litre. How much water do you suggest I change each day? As a precaution I've done a 20% change tonight.

I may be being a bit dim but why do I need to test the water daily - doesn't the bloom clearing indicate things are going the right direction? Should I not therefore change water until the bloom clears?

 

[Fish_Man43]

Apologies if this isn't exactly a real emergency - or at least I don't think it is...

It's been about 15 years since I kept tropicals, having kept Reef tanks in the intervening period. So, I'm a bit out of the loop about today's practices for tropical keeping.

Having set my tank up a week ago, I added 10 Black Phantom Tetras, a handful of plants and Nutrafin Cycle bacterial product to the tank (220l) at the weekend. The tank has a bit of bogwood and fine sand. It's filtered by a large external.

All was well until this morning (3 days later) the water started to become cloudy. On returning home from work I find the cloudy is quite bad and seeing down the length of the tank means I can barely see the opposite end. The clouding is grey. All fish seem to be fine and have fed okay.

Is this clouding normal or do I have something to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

I see you didn't do your fish-less cycle, how big is your fish tank? did you clean and wash all interior substances. As from now you will be doing a fish-in cycle and you will see a few white clouding call a bacteria bloom and you have far to many fish in your tank to do a fish-in cycle it might be very hard work trying to keep the ammonia levels down and the Nitrite, you will need to get a water test kit to test your water daily and keep the ammonia levels down and the nitrite with water changes daily.
Bogwood usually give a brown tint. Here is a link about cycling

Hope this helps you a little

Thanks for the advice. I'm now angry and gutted about the advice given to me by my local store.

The tank is 220 litre. How much water do you suggest I change each day? As a precaution I've done a 20% change tonight.

I may be being a bit dim but why do I need to test the water daily - doesn't the bloom clearing indicate things are going the right direction? Should I not therefore change water until the bloom clears?

The water changes all depends on the ammonia and nitrite these are very harmful to your fish and if goes to high you will have dead fish sorry. but until you get a test kit i would recommend 50% water change each day and use a decent dechlorinator, I use Prime, you need a API test kit to keep a check on these. here is another link about fish-in cycle might be better to read this as it will take me all night to write it here. But the bloom will go in a few days - a week, all you need now is Patience.

Don't wash you filter media when your doing your cycle unless it gets that clog up and stops the flow, then wash it in your tank water not the tap water or you will loss the bacteria that is growing in your filter. But the most important part is your water changes and gravel vac clean all the uneaten food (don't over feed) and and crap in the tank poo with doing a gavel vac.

Fish-in Cycle
Bactria Bloom

Hope this help

 

[Whiteskar]

The water changes all depends on the ammonia and nitrite these are very harmful to your fish and if goes to high you will have dead fish sorry. but until you get a test kit i would recommend 50% water change each day and use a decent dechlorinator, I use Prime, you need a API test kit to keep a check on these. here is another link about fish-in cycle might be better to read this as it will take me all night to write it here. But the bloom will go in a few days - a week, all you need now is Patience.

Don't wash you filter media when your doing your cycle unless it gets that clog up and stops the flow, then wash it in your tank water not the tap water or you will loss the bacteria that is growing in your filter. But the most important part is your water changes and gravel vac clean all the uneaten food (don't over feed) and and crap in the tank poo with doing a gavel vac.

Fish-in Cycle
Bactria Bloom

Hope this help

Thanks again for the extra help with this.

Having done a 50% water change yesterday the cloudiness is a lot less noticable today. I've just done tests fpor Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.

Ammonia and Nitrite are reading zero whilst Nitrate is at around 50ppm.

Quite surprised about this after less than a week from the start of cycling (four days to be precise). Thought the ammonia and nitrite stages would have taken longer.

Or am I missing something crucial?

 

[Fish_Man43]

The water changes all depends on the ammonia and nitrite these are very harmful to your fish and if goes to high you will have dead fish sorry. but until you get a test kit i would recommend 50% water change each day and use a decent dechlorinator, I use Prime, you need a API test kit to keep a check on these. here is another link about fish-in cycle might be better to read this as it will take me all night to write it here. But the bloom will go in a few days - a week, all you need now is Patience.

Don't wash you filter media when your doing your cycle unless it gets that clog up and stops the flow, then wash it in your tank water not the tap water or you will loss the bacteria that is growing in your filter. But the most important part is your water changes and gravel vac clean all the uneaten food (don't over feed) and and crap in the tank poo with doing a gavel vac.

Fish-in Cycle
Bactria Bloom

Hope this help

Thanks again for the extra help with this.

Having done a 50% water change yesterday the cloudiness is a lot less noticable today. I've just done tests fpor Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.

Ammonia and Nitrite are reading zero whilst Nitrate is at around 50ppm.

Quite surprised about this after less than a week from the start of cycling (four days to be precise). Thought the ammonia and nitrite stages would have taken longer.

Or am I missing something crucial?

Good all seems to be A ok keep checking water daily to keep the ammonia and Nitrate levels to zero, but seems a little odd for the A&N to be at zero and the nitrates as high as 50 at this time just in a week. did you buy the API liquid test kit as the dip sticks are not accurate.

 

[Whiteskar]

Good all seems to be A ok keep checking water daily to keep the ammonia and Nitrate levels to zero, but seems a little odd for the A&N to be at zero and the nitrates as high as 50 at this time just in a week. did you buy the API liquid test kit as the dip sticks are not accurate.

I'm using my Salifert test kits that I'd been using for my Reef tank previously.

Water is pretty much clear of bacterial bloom now too. I think, perhaps, I've gotten extremely lucky here. Next time it'll be a fishless cycle...

Thanks again for all your help so far.

 

[walkers101]

sounds about right to be honest just keep up with the water changes