How do I resolve the problem of Hazy water in my Tropical aquarian?

Question

I have a 60 litre tank and I have a bacteria bloom, I know this becase i gave my tank a good clean including all of the ornaments, this is how I have damaged all of the bacteria colonies. How long will it take until the water returns to normal ( crystal clear) ? , and what do you reccommend ? are substances like waste control and weekly cleaner any use for this problem ? Thanks Danny

Answer 1

I would advise against using anything to try and clear up your water. You seem to have a basic understanding of the cycling process, and the cloudiness you see is very likely a bacterial bloom. Anything you do to try and clear the water will affect the bacteria and these are something you need. If you try to remove the wastes chemically, you're removing the ammonia and nitrite as a food source for your bacteria, so you only make the process take longer.

There are bacteria supplement you can buy, but there's a big difference in how effective some of these products will be. If you add more bacteria than your tank has ammonia to support, they'll only die and contribute to the waste in the tank. Better to let the natural bacteria recover.

If you didn't take out the gravel and clean it with bleach or tap water, you probably still have some bacteria remaining. The best thing you can do is to turn up the temperature a bit (the bacteria multiple faster in warm water) and do weekly water changes of 25% with cleaning of about 1/3 of the gravel with a gravel vac each time (at a minimum - if you do water tests, do a 10-25% change whenever the ammonia or nitrite starts to get above 0.5). Also, if you still have the old filter media and it's wet, add it back tot he filter or tank - there will bacteria on it as well.

No one can really predict how long it will take the bacteria to recove so your tank is clear again. This will depend on things like how many bacteria there are, the temperature of the water, size of the tank, how many/size of the fish, how muchyou feed, how often you do water changes, etc. - too many variables to be able to calculate an exact time involved.

Answer 2

Cloudy water is one of two things.

If the water is green then it is an algae bloom. Algae blooms are caused by too much light and too many nutrients in the water. They are relatively easily cleared up by reducing the lighting, especially direct sunlight, and by lower the nutrients in the water. Reducing the lighting is easy. Simply shut off the light on the tank and only run it for 8-10 hours a day. You should also ensure that your tank isn't getting any direct sunlight as this will cause you algae problems, either as a green bloom or simply algae on the tank and ornaments. You lower the nutrients by doing more frequent and larger water changes and by feeding less. Fish should be fed only what they can eat entirely in 5-10 seconds. Any uneaten food should be netted out of the tank to prevent it from breaking down.

If the water is white then it is a bacterial bloom. These are caused exclusively by too many nutrients in the tank. To clear the water you will need to increase the frequency and size of your water changes, and decrease the feeding. Fish should be fed only what they can eat entirely in 5-10 seconds. Any uneaten food should be netted out of the tank to prevent it from breaking down.

Neither cloudy water situation is particularly harmful to your fish but are a symptom of a greater underlying problem that must be resolved.

One way to clear the cloudy water immediately is through the use of a micron or diatom filter. This will pull out the particles that cause the cloudiness, but it WILL NOT resolve the problem that caused the particles to be there. This is a short term fix and needs to be used in conjuction with the above fixes.

Answer 3

It's quite a common thing usually after a serious clean of the filter .

If the bacterial are not wipe out due to chlorine or chloramine. Then from my experience it usually takes a week or less to recover the crystal clear effect. Meanwhile do monitor ammonia and make sure it doesn't run amok and do some water change if it gets alittle out of hand.

Forget about adding chemical or supplement. Chemical are the last thing you'll want in your tank and bacterial supplement is a waste of money as they normally don't deliver as well as mother nature can.

Hang in there for awhile and it will be fine.

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