My water has debris in it ALWAYS!!!?

Question

I have a 20g aquarium and its planted with no fish atm, there are some algae eating shrimp tho. my question is why is my water always have suspended debri in it. i have a hagen aqua clear for a 50g on it, also i have noticed some of the debri looks like TINy Tiny air bubles, could this be from my plants ???

Answer 1

You may want to rearrange your filter outflow direction to better move the water & improve filtering performance. If using external filters, you can re-site your inlet & outlet pipes. If you have a good filter, it should resolve any cloudy situation within a few days. You can also use a water clarifier or flocculent solution to enable smaller particles to clump together to sink to the bottom or be removed by the filter. Note that air bubbles on plant leaves & floating to the surface is normal and not debris. In fact proof that your plants are thriving with such visible results of photosynthesis.

Answer 2

Depending on how long you've been seeing this debris, it could also be minute debris from around the roots/potting medium that just hasn't settled yet. And it could be air bubbles if these are sticking to the edges of your plants, or if they float to the top.

It's also possible you've got some microorganisms that were introduced with your plants. Ostracods are the type I seem to get most often - these look like tiny white or brown clamshells with "feelers" sticking out and the swim through the water: http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Fossilgroups/Crustacea/ostracod.jpg

There are also daphnia (http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/images/Daphnia_magna_large.jpg ) and cyclops (http://www.painetworks.com/photos/hq/hq1321.JPG ).

Since these are able to swim, they can avoid being caught by your filter, but not by fish - smaller fish will eat them. None that I've mentioned here are harmful to fish, but there are other organisms that could be. You might need to catch some of these with a medicine dropper/turkey baster and look at them under a microscope to be sure what they are.

Here are some photos of other possibilities: http://www.microcosmos.nl/vlooigal.htm - if there are any that appear to be what you have, you can google more info on them once you know the name.