Water permanently cloudy and fish skittish?

[Killerbro511]

Pack as much carbon as you can without risking overflowing the filter. do your diligent water changes. vacuum by sections.

I differ from Gary on that point. OTS is perfectly reversible as long as it doesn't reach swamp level. And adequate measures are taken to reduce all forms of nutrients to a low level. And maintained afterward.

Carbon will not help with phosphorus and if the fish where good for the last years, I doubt it's the cause but it can participate. it's the other building compounds that creates your new haze that are targeted. those are byproducts of solid and chemical waste dissolved. Bacteria multiply from this food, consume all oxygen, make beneficial bacteria die ammonia rise follows, fish start to panic. Removing this compound is key.

Also I agree that your could remove some substrate to lower that to 1-1/2 inch. These soils are very rich in nutrients and when not consumed or rinsed with water changes they build up in the substrates and emanation of concentrated nutrients can occur when it gets disrupted.

Cheers im going to continue doing frequent water changes for the forseeable future and monitor the water quality and such. How often do you reckon I should change the carbon?

See id lower the substrate if i could though idk if that is like feasible without like permanently screwing the water and fully restarting as im pretty sure itd release just about everything in it. So i might just have to stick with the occasional gravel vac like someone mentioned.

once again thanks.

 

[MaloK]

Change it every week until the problem is resolved.

 

[Killerbro511]

Pack as much carbon as you can without risking overflowing the filter. do your diligent water changes. vacuum by sections.

I differ from Gary on that point. OTS is perfectly reversible as long as it doesn't reach swamp level. And adequate measures are taken to reduce all forms of nutrients to a low level. And maintained afterward.

Carbon will not help with phosphorus and if the fish where good for the last years, I doubt it's the cause but it can participate. it's the other building compounds that creates your new haze that are targeted. those are byproducts of solid and chemical waste dissolved. Bacteria multiply from this food, consume all oxygen, make beneficial bacteria die ammonia rise follows, fish start to panic. Removing this compound is key.

Also I agree that your could remove some substrate to lower that to 1-1/2 inch. These soils are very rich in nutrients and when not consumed or rinsed with water changes they build up in the substrates and emanation of concentrated nutrients can occur when it gets disrupted.

Sorry to bring this thread back but ive been considering greatly reducing the substrate level and then adding a sand cap for the aesthetics because ive pretty much concluded that the yellow of the water is from either the wood or susbtrate leeching organics as I added some purigen and it resolved however the cloudiness i don't see being 100% resolved unless i completely redo this darn substrate.

So my idea is that i fill a tub with the tank water and run the heater and filter on it for the fish whilst I rescape the tank and will hopefully reduce the thickness by 3/4 and then add a thin layer of sand. My only concern is whether this will completely nuke the tank with ammonia that was trapped in the soil and how id potentially evade it as I don't have a spare tank to hold the fish for a long time.

Is there a method to prevent this or should I just do it, test the water and rapid fire water changes and prime until its a reasonable level whilst loading the filter with carbon and purigen before putting the fish back in?

Cheers

 

[MaloK]

If you do that.

Completely rinse the substrate in water until it's very clean, before re using it. this way it will help have the lowest trapped bio matter under your sand cap.

You can nearly be assured that the tank will go trough a mini cycle afterward. But it will be a lot smoother than a full one.

You may still want to check ammonia and nitrite after the modification and do water changes or use prime if nitrogen becomes too high.

It's a sound plan, it also would solve your problem for good.

 

[Killerbro511]

If you do that.

Completely rinse the substrate in water until it's very clean, before re using it. this way it will help have the lowest trapped bio matter under your sand cap.

You can nearly be assured that the tank will go trough a mini cycle afterward. But it will be a lot smoother than a full one.

You may still want to check ammonia and nitrite after the modification and do water changes or use prime if nitrogen becomes too high.

It's a sound plan, it also would solve your problem for good.

im planning to switch this tank to basically only slow growing plants so do you think its actually worth keeping any of the aqua soil or should i just replace it entirely with sand?

also in terms of sand, can i just use any old sand i get from the hardware store (under the assumption that i have to thoroughly wash it) or are there specific kinds i need to watch out for?

 

[gwand]

I like pool sand. It’s pre-cleaned.