Cloudy FW Tank   2/6/08
Evening All!
<Hello.>
I went on vacation for a week at the beginning of January '08 and had my father in law pet sit for us. Included in that pet sitting was my 10g FW tank. It has been an established tank for going on 5 years now (w/one interruption when we moved to our new house in March of '07. We took all of the tank water and reused it at the new house) and has been running very well, and needing hardly any maintenance. Anyways, when we came back from vacation, I came back to cloudy water, and lethargic fish.
<Hmm... normally when this happens after a vacation, the problem is overfeeding. If you're only gone a week, the best thing is simply don't feed the fish. They're fine for this period of time without food.>
At the time, the tank was stocked with a Bristlenose Pleco (about 4in.), 3 platys (1.75in. & .5in), 1 Dalmatian Molly (.5in), 1 Julie Cory (6yrs old &1.5in), and 1 unidentified peachy-goldish-whitish fish(.75in). I know this is probably a bit much for the tank but I've been keeping an eye on the water parameters and they've been perfect.
<It *is* too many fish, and the wrong sorts and wrong numbers... but we'll let that slide for now, except to say overstocked tanks are more prone to water quality upsets than otherwise.>
I checked my water parameters when I discovered the cloudy tank and found it to be: Nitrates - 160ppm, Nitrites - 6.0ppm, Hardness - 25ppm, Alkalinity - 300ppm, and PH - 8.4ppm.
<Seriously, that's a lethal amount of nitrite, and almost certainly implies overfeeding unless there was a dead fish or something in there. The nitrite comes from ammonia, and the ammonia comes from fish or decay.>
I didn't have time to do a water change that night, and woke up the next morning to find that the Cory had committed suicide.
<Not suicide, manslaughter. Not doing the water change exposed the fish to lethal amounts of nitrite, and that in turn killed the fish. Definitely not the Corydoras' fault!>
I did a 75% water change (treated tap water like always, and left out the aquarium salt this time) w/vacuum. Water parameters went immediately down to what was normal for my tank: Nitrates - about 20ppm, Nitrites - 0, Hardness - 25ppm, Alkalinity - about 40ppm, and PH - 7.2. Then one week later the tank got cloudy again, and I had a small platy suddenly go gaunt and then die within 72hrs.
<Whoa... the pH changed from 8.4 to 7.2? Doesn't this suggest something to you? The pH is a "handle" on water chemistry, and just looking at how the alkalinity has changed suggests to me that you're not keeping water chemistry stable. This is another critical issue with fish, and big changes of this type are fatal.>
The next day, I had one fish break out with ick and treated it with some 'jungle' brand medication that has always worked wonderfully (1 'tablet' for ea. 10g, used one). Just about the time that started to go away, roughly a day or so later, the big platy came down with pop-eye and some sort of fungus on the affected eye. I treated with the same brand but for fungal/bacterial infections, and within two days the platy was looking pretty good.
<Again, your problems with disease are all secondary to the lack of water quality/chemistry, or at least stability thereof. It's kind of like sticking a person in the Arctic without any clothes, but then treating him for hypothermia. Until you bundle that guy up with nice warm clothes, he's going to keep getting sick however often you treat him. That's the situation here.>
I didn't want to do a water change until the fish started to look stable, and then wanted to give them a few days to settle after that.
<Nope. When water quality and chemistry aren't stable, water changes are your friend. Make them frequent, say 25% twice weekly, and things should become more moderate. But in the meantime, reflect on the dynamics of the tank, and make changes -- remove excess fish (though the Grim Reaper is doing this for you I suppose), consider if you are overfeeding, etc.>
I started to notice that my remaining little platy was looking haggard and gaunt, but went ahead with the water change since the water was reading Nitrates - 200ppm, Nitrites - 10.0ppm, Hardness - 0, Alkalinity - 300, and Ph - 8.4+.
<In a mature tank you shouldn't be getting nitrite readings of 10 mg/l -- that's insane. The only explanations are too many fish, too much food, too small a filter, or somehow dead filter bacteria.>
I freaked, and did another 75-80% water change with vacuum, gave the tank a few days and rechecked the conditions. As of tonight the tank reads: Nitrates - 80ppm, Nitrites - between .5 and 1.0ppm, Hardness - 75ppm, Alkalinity - 300, and PH - 7.8. The gaunt platy that was alive when I left was dead when I got home, the big platy is doing well, but I think she'll go in the next day or so... something about her movement just isn't right, the Bristlenose is doing great and is his same old antisocial self though he does seem a bit more agitated, and the unidentified small fish is doing wonderfully and doesn't seem affected by any of this.
<As fish die, the bioload is sinking down to something proportionate to your filter and aquarium. Nature reaches its own balance, in spite of what you'd like. Once that level has been reached, the tank will work fine, right up to the point where you add more fish. Fighting against the loading capacity of an aquarium is hard work, and likely unwinnable unless you're prepared to massively upgrade the filtration system. Even then, what's the point? It's a 10 gallon tank after all. Fine for a handful of Neons but that's about it. The Ancistrus catfish alone is probably filling out the filtration capacity.>
I'm at a loss as to what to do. My husband and I have noticed that our tap water has been tasting different. I just tested the tap water and it's reading: Nitrate - 0, Nitrites - between 0 and .5, Hardness - 75, Alkalinity - 180, and PH - 7.8.
<If the tap water has a nitrite level of 0.5 mg/l, then that obviously isn't the cause of your 10 mg/l readings. There's 9.5 mg/l that has to come from someplace else, i.e., the fish. That said, I'm not thrilled about your water quality, so ensuring optimal biological filtration is essential to remove that nitrite as soon as it gets into the tank. Check your filter is up to the job. The minimum filtration turnover rate is 4 times the volume of the tank in turnover per hour. In other words, your filter must have a turnover of at least 40 gallons per hour. This rating (sometimes in litres per hour or LPH) will be on the filter pump or its packaging.>
I can't decide if I should just leave it be, start doing partial water changes every couple of days... what!
<Strongly suggest reading some of the introductory articles here at WWM about water chemistry and water quality.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwh2oquality.htm
Once you understand how and why these issues matter, you'll be better placed to solve your tanks problems, which I expect are multiple and to do with overstocking, under-filtering, and lack of water buffering capacity.>
My tank is slowly dying off and I'm just confused. I'm assuming that that the tap water is having something to do with it as the latest tank readings are fairly close to the tap water, but I don't know what to do to bring the tank back to where it used to be, or at least something close to what they were already acclimated to.
<While the 0.5 mg/l nitrite isn't a good thing, it shouldn't be a major problem if you have an efficient biological filter. That amount of nitrite will be quickly converted to nitrate before it does any harm. This is especially true if you do smaller (25%) water changes twice a week rather than one big water change. The rest of the problem is where the excess ammonia is coming from, why your established filter isn't getting rid of it, and why the water chemistry (pH, hardness) is bouncing around all over the place.>
I've contacted the water company (we're on city water) and they say that latest water test they ran showed everything in 'normal' ranges.
<Indeed. O.5 mg/l nitrite is considered "safe".>
I'm not concerned about any over feeding from when my father in law watched the tank since he has his own that has been up and running for roughly a year.
<Hmm... well, that ammonia got in there *somewhere*, and it sure didn't creep in during the night from off the street.>
Any suggestions would be welcome!
<Cheers, Neale.>

Fresh water cloudiness 1/27/08
Hi,
I have a 30 gallon tank with an eclipse hood and bio wheel. Its been set up for a year or so. I have 3 fancy goldfish and 2 Sterba Corydoras, I got 3 more Sterba Corys and 2 apple snails 2 weeks ago. For the last 5 or 6 days the water has been cloudy. I've done a 40% water change and it did not seem to help. I only feed a little bit 2 times a day. The food is gone within minutes. Do I have to many fish for tank? What to do with cloudiness?
THANK YOU.
Gary
<Hi Gary. Cloudy water can be caused by multiple things. So by itself it isn't a reliable indicator of any one specific thing. Most commonly, cloudy water is caused by silt -- fine particles that the filter should but doesn't always remove. Goldfish and Corydoras are both great "snufflers" and will kick up silt from the substrate. But you'd likely have noticed this get gradually worse over time rather than a sudden thing. That said, if the mechanical media in your filter (i.e., the very fine sponge or the filter wool) is clogged, then the silt will seem to get worse because it isn't being removed any more. Silt is harmless and doesn't really have much impact on water quality, though a seriously clogged filter may be less efficient at removing ammonia. Cloudiness can also be caused by bacterial blooms. These are typically seen with new aquaria where water quality (ammonia/nitrite) are bouncing up and down. Left alone they go away as water quality improves, and don't cause any major problems. Really the only way to confirm the situation in the tank is to perform water quality tests, at the very least by using a nitrite test kit. If the water quality is good, then I'd be tempted to leave things be for now. If things aren't improved in, say, a week, get back in touch. As to whether your tank is overstocked. A 30-gallon tank is at the low end of what's suitable for Goldfish. With that in mind, filtration is the "make or break" factor. Goldfish are so messy and so large, that you need a serious filter to keep them healthy and to remove the solid wastes and silt they produce. As a baseline, I'd want a filter offering not less than 6 times the volume of the tank in turnover per hour. So check the filter you have. The turnover will be quoted on the pump or packaging. If it's less than 6 times the tank volume in turnover per hour, then that may be part/all of the problem. Just an FYI: most all-in-one tanks have filters adequate for small fish, such as Neons and Guppies, the manufacturers (for obvious reasons) including the bare minimum filtration they can get away with. Goldfish almost certainly will require tanks with the built-in filter *plus* some other source of filtration, like an internal or external canister filter. Cheers, Neale.>

Need help with identification.... FW micro-life RMF's go   1/16/08
I'm not sure what I'm dealing with. I have been maintaining a tank for about 7 or 8 years with no problems, only having to do a completely break it down and clean it about twice a year.
<?!>
I even had the same Wal-Mart fishs for about the same period. Through some recent errors on my part, I'm down to one fish. The tank was getting cloudy right after cleaning it and nothing I put in cleared it.
<... insufficient filtration, circulation... poor feeding practices...>
I was using all the tricks in my bag. But my daughter informed me that there were tiny things swimming in the water.
<Always present in biological systems>
I can barely see these very small white creatures swimming around like the own the place, thousands of them. My daughter has much better eyes than I do and she drawn a long teardrop shaped creature and she said it seems to have maybe segments or sections.
I removed the fish and have it in a small treatment tank. I'm using Quick Cure on it and have not seen any of the things in the treatment tank.
<... I would NOT use/place Formalin in the system... nor release such in your house... toxic>
But I can't seems to find anything that looks or sounds like what I'm seeing.
<Mmm, a cheapy microscope and a borrowed book from a library on aquatic microbiology...>
I have remove the tank for my daughter's room. I had a little beach,
<?>
so I put it in the water, but it did not kill them. Maybe I didn't have enough. Them were even crawling and moving on the glass ABOVE the water. If I stared at it, I could make out their movements, crawling around. I was just wondering if you had any idea of what they might be and were I could find a picture to confirm the identification. I want to make sure I treating for the right thing.
Thank you, Sue
Please email me at my address (this is my husband's email and he doesn't always remember to tell me about replies I get, thanks).
<Done... this/these could be a bunch of types of life... from insects, to several kinds of crustaceans, to... Please read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwlvstkind2.htm
the second to last tray down. Bob Fenner>

Need help with identification - Need more information! Lynn's go  1/16/08
<Hi there, Sue>
I'm not sure what I'm dealing with.
<Heeeee! That makes two of us!>
I have been maintaining a tank for about 7 or 8 years with no problems, only having to do a completely break it down and clean it about twice a year.
<Yikes - why?>
I even had the same Wal-Mart fishes for about the same period.
<6 months or 7-8 years?>
Through some recent errors on my part, I'm down to one fish.
<Sorry to hear that.>
The tank was getting cloudy right after cleaning it and nothing I put in cleared it. I was using all the tricks in my bag.
<Need more information – is this freshwater, brackish, or saltwater? What are your methods for water changes? How often/what quantity each time? What’s the tank size? Do you use RO, RO/DI, or tap water? Do you treat the water prior to adding it to the tank, and if so, how? What were the parameters of the tank water prior to the water change?>
But my daughter informed me that there were tiny things swimming in the water. I can barely see these very small white creatures swimming around like the own the place, thousands of them. My daughter has much better eyes than I do and she drawn a long teardrop shaped creature and she said it seems to have maybe segments or sections.
I removed the fish and have it in a small treatment tank.
<Was the fish showing any signs of distress?>
I'm using Quick Cure on it and have not seen any of the things in the treatment tank. But I can't seems to find anything that looks or sounds like what I'm seeing. I have removed the tank for my daughter's room. I had a little bleach, so I put it in the water, but it did not kill them. Maybe I didn't have enough.
<Yee-ikes!>
Them were even crawling and moving on the glass ABOVE the water. If I stared at it, I could make out their movements, crawling around. I was just wondering if you had any idea of what they might be and were I could find a picture to confirm the identification. I want to make sure I treating for the right thing.
<I’d really like to help you, but I don’t have nearly enough information. For example, what kind of system is this – marine, freshwater, or brackish? What kind of set-up: equipment, livestock? If it’s freshwater, is it a planted tank? If marine/saltwater, is it a FO (fish only), FOWLR (fish only with live rock), or a full blown reef tank? I’m guessing that this is a freshwater tank, but...? What kind of fish do you have and are there any invertebrates - snails, etc., in with that fish? What are the water parameters? Have there been any recent additions? How was that one fish doing before removing it to the treatment tank? Was it eating/behaving normally? Were there any signs of disease/distress? There is much information available at WWM regarding water changes, critters, etc., but unfortunately, not knowing the basics of your system, I can’t direct you to the appropriate section(s). Please use the search engine, and available information at this link to get started - and read, read, read! http://www.wetwebmedia.com/WWMAdminSubWebIndex/question_page.htm >
Thank you, Sue
<You're very welcome. Take care -Lynn>

Cloudy Aquarium Water  1/16/08
Hello. I have a problem with my aquarium and it is not going away. The problem is cloudy aquarium water. The setup I have is a 75 gallon freshwater tank, stocked with cardinal tetras, penguin tetras, angelfish, and Corys.
The filter I use is an emperor 400.
<Need more than this...>
I do regular 15-20 percent water changes weekly. The tank was running smoothly for months with perfect water quality (This aquarium was an upgrade from a smaller tank). This problem started last month in December. I was going on vacation so I did a water change like
I always do. I have plastic plants and I hadn't washed them for months, so I took them out, put them in a bucket with water and bleach, rinsed them thoroughly, and let them dry for a day and a half.
<Good protocol, but you likely "bumped off" too much in the way of useful microbial life here>
I put them back in, and the water was crystal-clear, all the fish were healthy and I was satisfied.
The next day I turned on the aquarium lights, and the water was cloudy. The fish seemed fine, and I thought the problem would go away when I came back.
When I came back it was still cloudy. So I did a water change to see if it would help.
<Mmm, not likely>
It didn't. Then I researched the problem online, and I thought I had figured it out. I read that I needed to replace the carbon in the filter.
<Mmm, might help, but...>
That's what I did, and along with water changes, I thought it would clear up. It hasn't. I keep changing the water every other day but no success. I don't know what to do. I took out all of the plants and rocks out of the tank because I thought that they were leaching something out into the water.
<Good line of investigation>
It doesn't seem to help. When I test the water, there is no ammonia, no nitrates, but the pH has gone down from a steady 6.5 to 6.0.
<Mmm, this is a bunch... depending on the "likes" of your chosen livestock...>
All the fish seem healthy, no deaths, they still eat voraciously. The only problem I see is that some of the penguin tetras have slightly torn fins with white stuff on the end , but I don't think this is related because they keep chasing each other and nipping their fins which is probably the cause. Although now that I think of it, I had been using melafix previously
<Worthless... and too likely a contributing cause to your troubles here>
to cure this, maybe that can be somehow related (The water became cloudy with the treatment as expected, but with water changes I got it back to normal). I am extremely frustrated that I can't figure out the problem, so I turn to you WetWebMedia Crew. Please help me figure out and solve this problem, I am desperate. Thank You. -Pawel P.
P.S. I just realized I should describe the water to you. The water is hazy, and sometimes is seems yellowish. I noticed that the top of the water has a very thin film of white stuff that is only noticeable when you disturb the top of the water. I don't know if this is a bacterial bloom or not.
<Well... you should add some other "redundant" mechanical/biological filtration here... perhaps another power filter... that you clean out on alternate periods... and the clarity can likely be solved by adding BioSpira... What you have is a "classic" "bacterial" bloom... in a disturbed/cycling system. Please read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm
and the linked files above... for background. Bob Fenner>

New to this! Small, uncycled FW  1/12/2008
I've searched through all the posted FAQs and the web and I can't find anything that applies. I set up my 12G tank 10 days ago and I noticed a few days ago that my BioWheel was cycling oddly. It flows fine and then {glops} and then continues to turn.
<Not atypical of this product... much improved from the early years though...>
I had two platys and a fasciatus in there.
<A... fasciatus what? Hopefully not a Leporinus>
The water had started to cloud a bit so I did a 10% water change two days ago.
<Mmm, do know that such small systems/volumes are given to easy "bacterial" issues... particularly when relatively newly set-up...>
Treated the added water, added a little bit of salt as suggested by the pet store - all in proportions directed. I came home today to feed them and the one platy (possibly pregnant) was dead. So I'm a little panicked. I've checked the flow of water over the BioWheel and it looks unimpeded and clean. Changed the filter today. The water is still a little cloudy. What am I missing?
<Measuring for aspects of cycling... or at least reporting thus here>
Should I go out and get a test kit for the water?
<Oh yes... and likely some BioSpira product, or other ready means of initiating/establishing cycling... But first, read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwestcycling.htm
and the linked files above... till you understand...>
Thank you so much! You are already a fixture on my toolbar!
Dena
<Be chatting... and reading. Bob Fenner>

Cloudy Water, Fresh    10/21/07
Hello,
I have very cloudy water in my established tank. I did a 40% water change and filter change a few days ago and the water is getting cloudier. This condition has existed for a month or more despite water changes, cleanings, etc. I have even tried two different "water clarifiers" which actual seem to make the water cloudier. I have a water softener which has been on line for about six months, I'm not sure if this added salt has anything to do with it. I cut the amount of aquarium conditioner salt I added during the last water change but it seemed to have no effect. At the moment there are 4 black skirt tetras, 1 neon, two red spot tetras, and 2 small catfish in the 20 gal. tank, certainly not an overwhelming amt. of fish.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Jon
<Hi Jon. Cloudy water generally has one of four causes. The first is silt. This usually happens after a tank is just set up. Silt on the sand or gravel gets dumped into the water. If you don't clean the mechanical filter media regularly, a similar sort of thing can happen. The second cause is bacteria. Under some (not altogether understood) conditions bacteria can "bloom" in the water, making the water look whitish or greyish. The apparent causes for these bacterial blooms are issues with water chemistry and water quality, specifically changes. This is most common in immature aquaria, when the biological balance is not yet settled. The third cause is organic material in the water. Certain foods decay more messily that others, and they can make the water cloudy. Finally, algae can cause the water to turn cloudy. Green algae are obvious, but diatoms are more brownish. Either way, these blooms tend to be temporary, and eventually go away, The causative factors are unclear, but unstable water chemistry, direct sunlight, and high nitrate/phosphate levels have all been implicated. Anyway, identifying which is happening in your tank is difficult, but you can take a scatter-gun approach: check for excess light, experiment with different foods, check water quality, replace the mechanical filter media. Next up: water softeners. Do not use water from a domestic water softener in a fish tank. Domestic water softeners DO NOT soften water -- all they do is replace lime scale minerals with sodium salts. The advantage to this is that sodium salts don't fur up pipes. But the resulting so-called softened water isn't "soft water" as aquarium fish expect it. In fact, it's a kind of water few fish experience in the wild. Always use the unsoftened water in your aquarium. One last thing: why are you adding salt to this aquarium? There is no, repeat NO, reason to add aquarium salt to a tank containing freshwater fish. At best, it's a waste of money; at worse, it's a stress factor on soft water fish not adapted to living in mineral-rich waters. Hope this helps, Neale>