Am I doing this right?

[Pcallaway256]

Hi all, 

So this is the first time I've come across this. I'm getting close to 6 months in my planted tank and it's brought me a lot of joy. Anyways, as of last week I noticed that my water had went from being like looking through a window, to being foggy with particles floating everywhere. I did a water change last week (20%) and gravel vacc'd. With still no change this week. I dose Easy Green once to twice a week and Easy Iron 2-3 times per week. My tank is a 55 gallon and I didn't realize my PH had lowered so much, my water is always a little brown because of the drift wood in my tank. I normally keep it at 7.0. So I'm going to add some PH up. My question is, is this normal and healthy for the water to go from so clear to being foggy? Also I added a second light to my tank so that the foreground plants as well as the background plants are all getting equal lighting. At first I thought that I had started to make green water. But as I stated before this is still new to me and I have a lot to learn. I have a myriad of snails, shrimp, and fish. I also last week cleaned my filters with tank water and the actual filter unit itself with tap water. I'm guessing that's ok seeing as how the beneficial bacteria are all in the sponges. My filters are two Tidal 55's with a very large course sponge, the normal sponge that comes with it. I also added a Fluval fine canister filter sponge today at the top to get varying degrees of coarseness throughout the filter. With the Tidal Bio rocks in the mesh bag at the top. I also have a small sponge filter hidden in the back of my tank. I got that about 3 weeks ago now, simply because I've never tried one and wanted to learn how to use it. WAYYYYYYYY easier to use than was made out to me at first by other people haha. Lastly, here are my current water parameters that I tested just before making this post. The Nitrite being 0.25 and the Nitrate being 0 confused me as well. Is this also a normal thing? Also the ammonia usually is 0-0.25, which I don't mind because I've read that the plants essentially "eat" it. If I'm also wrong about that, please educate me. Thanks Y'all!

The bottom of the post has pictures of my tank currently. You can see at the edges of the tank the fogginess that I speak of. As with all pictures, it's easier to see in person. 

PH-6.0

Ammonia- 0.25

Nitrite- 0.25

Nitrate- 0

 

[FrozenFins]

4 hours ago, Pcallaway256 said:

Hi all, 

So this is the first time I've come across this. I'm getting close to 6 months in my planted tank and it's brought me a lot of joy. Anyways, as of last week I noticed that my water had went from being like looking through a window, to being foggy with particles floating everywhere. I did a water change last week (20%) and gravel vacc'd. With still no change this week. I dose Easy Green once to twice a week and Easy Iron 2-3 times per week. My tank is a 55 gallon and I didn't realize my PH had lowered so much, my water is always a little brown because of the drift wood in my tank. I normally keep it at 7.0. So I'm going to add some PH up. My question is, is this normal and healthy for the water to go from so clear to being foggy? Also I added a second light to my tank so that the foreground plants as well as the background plants are all getting equal lighting. At first I thought that I had started to make green water. But as I stated before this is still new to me and I have a lot to learn. I have a myriad of snails, shrimp, and fish. I also last week cleaned my filters with tank water and the actual filter unit itself with tap water. I'm guessing that's ok seeing as how the beneficial bacteria are all in the sponges. My filters are two Tidal 55's with a very large course sponge, the normal sponge that comes with it. I also added a Fluval fine canister filter sponge today at the top to get varying degrees of coarseness throughout the filter. With the Tidal Bio rocks in the mesh bag at the top. I also have a small sponge filter hidden in the back of my tank. I got that about 3 weeks ago now, simply because I've never tried one and wanted to learn how to use it. WAYYYYYYYY easier to use than was made out to me at first by other people haha. Lastly, here are my current water parameters that I tested just before making this post. The Nitrite being 0.25 and the Nitrate being 0 confused me as well. Is this also a normal thing? Also the ammonia usually is 0-0.25, which I don't mind because I've read that the plants essentially "eat" it. If I'm also wrong about that, please educate me. Thanks Y'all!

The bottom of the post has pictures of my tank currently. You can see at the edges of the tank the fogginess that I speak of. As with all pictures, it's easier to see in person. 

PH-6.0

Ammonia- 0.25

Nitrite- 0.25

Nitrate- 0

 

Your water parameters seem fine. Don't does plant fertilizer 1-2 times a week but lik once every one-two weeks, it doesn't seem that you need iron in the tank because you don't have any red plants. But if you do and I just can't see dose it with the plant fertilizer once every one-two weeks.

Do a 50% water change and see if that helps. 

[Pcallaway256]

Thanks James, I was beginning to wonder if I was dosing to heavy and that might have been the cause. However, I figured out what was actually happening was that when I cleaned my HOB filters. Even though I cleaned the sponges with tank water. Cleaning the unit themselves with tap water caused me to lose my cycle. So lesson learned, but thank you for the advice with dosing, I wasn't sure if I was dosing to much. 

[Brandy]

So hang on, you added a light, your nitrates are at 0ppm, and now you will reduce fertilizer? This seems like the wrong direction to me. Nitrates should be held at over 10ppm in a planted tank. If you have excess lights and not enough fertilizer you can cause algae blooms too, algae is like weeds and out competes the plants if conditions are suboptimal.

Have you tried dipping out some water in a white cup? What color does it appear to be? green = algae, white-cloudy is usually bacteria bloom (consistent with your nitrite/nitrate readings), chunky stuff settling means filtration/detritus issues, which can go with driftwood.

edited to add: Ah, I read more carefully and see you came to the same conclusion. Sorry!

Edited November 17, 2020 by Brandy

[David Ellsworth]

I had a similar problem with whitish and hazy water in my 30 gal guppy tank. It could be a bacterial/algae bloom like you and others above have mentioned. 

I placed a chunk of fine filter mesh in my Aquaclear HOB. I ordered some from online, but you could buy some polyester batting from the Walmart fabric department, the cheap stuff without any chemical flame retardants. I then used some Fritz Clarifier and things quickly cleared up.

I made sure and rinsed out the batting in tank water in a bucket when it got dirty and replaced it in the HOB. The water has been clear since then. I think my problem was I was overfeeding and I have cut back a bit as well in that tank.