Cloudy Water Won’t Go Away

[umfalcon]

Hey everyone,

 I have a tank with cloudy water that will not go away. I have tried everything written on this forum and on the CoOp blog and I cannot get the water to clear up. Any ideas? (Image attached)

[SWilson]

It could be a bacterial bloom (best guess not knowing anything else about the tank or water parameters).  You may have deduced that already if you've been doing your own research and reading Coop advice articles.  

You could try adding more stuff in there (substrate, decorations, woods, plants real or fake, rocks, intake filter sponge, etc) - the idea being to create more surface area for your beneficial bacteria to grow on.  From what I understand, bacterial blooms resulting in cloudy water happen when other bacteria (which aren't necessarily harmful) outcompete the beneficial bacteria in the water.  

If it's a quarantine tank and you don't want to fill it with substrate or plants, maybe just try some removable decorations or rocks.  

Also how long has it been like that? It can take weeks for a bacterial bloom to clear up.  

[LuckyFin]

Reduce light or number of hours light is on? Near a window?

Water change? Or add plants to compete for the nutrients?

Add daphnia? To eat the GW

Green water is usually a product of Light + nutrients + algae.

Reduce or remove one offending variable... or attack them all!

 

my 2 cents

 

[Colu]

5 minutes ago, SWilson said:

It could be a bacterial bloom (best guess not knowing anything else about the tank or water parameters).  You may have deduced that already if you've been doing your own research and reading Coop advice articles.  

You could try adding more stuff in there (substrate, decorations, woods, plants real or fake, rocks, intake filter sponge, etc) - the idea being to create more surface area for your beneficial bacteria to grow on.  From what I understand, bacterial blooms resulting in cloudy water happen when other bacteria (which aren't necessarily harmful) outcompete the beneficial bacteria in the water.  

If it's a quarantine tank and you don't want to fill it with substrate or plants, maybe just try some removable decorations or rocks.  

Also how long has it been like that? It can take weeks for a bacterial bloom to clear up.  

It bacterial bloom or free floating algae if algae it's usely caused when your tank is getting to much  light and to many nutrients from over feeding as you have no live plants to suck up these nutrients depending on how long you have your lights on each day if it's exposed to natural sun light 

[Kphillips6]

I have the same problem. I have a lot of plants with gravel as my substrate. It's not near a window and my lighting is set on a timer. I have reduced the amount of feeding. My ph is 7.4, nitrite is less than .25ppm, nitrate is 20 or less ppm, gh and kh are a tiny bit above mid level and I do about a 20%water change every week. I prime, add biological booster, stability and fertilizer with each change. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I have 3 different species of fish that eat algae. Please help. It's a 55 gallon cool water aquarium with the average temperature around 72 degrees. 

[Isaac M]

Hello @Kphillips6, how long are the lights on for? Is the water cloudy and white in color or green? How long has this been set up for? When did you last add fish? Given that you are getting a nitrite reading, my initial thought here is a bacteria bloom as your aquarium is still cycling or in a mini cycle. 

[Kphillips6]

9 hours, a mix of white and green. The tank has been set up since January. I initially added my fish mid February and I added 4 more fish about 2 weeks ago. 

[Isaac M]

@Kphillips6 a mix of white & green cloudy water? Do you have a picture? It sounds like it is likely that the new fish added a lot to the bioload and caused a mini-cycle given the nitrite reading. I keep leaning towards a bacteria bloom which would cause a more white cloudy water. However, it would be possible to have both a bacterial bloom and green water. What light fixture are you using? 

[umfalcon]

@Kphillips6I got the water to clear up by adding 10 Java Ferns and 10 Water Wisteria. Within a few days the tank cleared right up. It just goes to show that what Cory, Dean, and the rest of them say, get your hands in the water, experiment, and learn. It took me a few months to learn that the plants would clear up my water, but think of all the valuable experience I gained from just chipping away at the problem for a month or two. 

[Pete]

It's amazing what plants can do. I had a similar issue in one of my tanks. Added a ton of frogbit and it cleared right up. 

[umfalcon]

@PeteFor sure. That's why I find Dean's fish room so amazing. He really doesn't incorporate plants into his tanks very much at all, yet his tanks are pristine. One of the many reasons I find his fish keeping skills top notch. 

[Kphillips6]