Can't get rid of cloudy water in planted tank.

[megdaig]

I've been struggling with white cloudy water for nearly 4 months now. I believe it is a bacterial bloom since it is white cloudy and not green murky.

Details about the setup:
- Brand new Osaka 320, filter and media are new. Only thing I think may be hurting me is the activated carbon that came with it.
- 60 lbs of the Eco-Complete substrate came from my tank that was established for 3+ years.
- 4x54 T5 bulbs. First ran for 8 hours a day now at 10 hours a day with no significant difference from when I moved them back to only 8 hours.
- Lots of plants and running pressurized CO2. CO2 concentrations anywhere between 30 and 50 ppm since there is no fish load yet (anymore).
- Water params. showing 0 across the board for ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites.

What I'm thinking...maybe the nitrogen cycle hasn't started yet (even though the substrate should have some bacteria maybe enough hasn't seeded in the filter media?) so I'm thinking I should add a few fish to get it going. Wouldn't leaving the plant debris in the tank to break down provide some of this 'waste' needed to kick start the cycle? I had stopped doing weekly water changes for a while to 'wait it out' as I have been instructed but still no luck after a month.

I haven't had any algae growing on the glass. There is relatively no algae to speak of what-so-ever except for a little fuzz on some plant leaves.

I've never experienced cloudy water so I've done a lot of reading and everywhere I read says to wait it out, reduce water changes, etc. Any advice or experience you guys have would be much appreciated.

[TonyO]

I've been struggling with white cloudy water for nearly 4 months now. I believe it is a bacterial bloom since it is white cloudy and not green murky.

Details about the setup:
- Brand new Osaka 320, filter and media are new. Only thing I think may be hurting me is the activated carbon that came with it.
- 60 lbs of the Eco-Complete substrate came from my tank that was established for 3+ years.
- 4x54 T5 bulbs. First ran for 8 hours a day now at 10 hours a day with no significant difference from when I moved them back to only 8 hours.
- Lots of plants and running pressurized CO2. CO2 concentrations anywhere between 30 and 50 ppm since there is no fish load yet (anymore).
- Water params. showing 0 across the board for ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites.

What I'm thinking...maybe the nitrogen cycle hasn't started yet (even though the substrate should have some bacteria maybe enough hasn't seeded in the filter media?) so I'm thinking I should add a few fish to get it going. Wouldn't leaving the plant debris in the tank to break down provide some of this 'waste' needed to kick start the cycle? I had stopped doing weekly water changes for a while to 'wait it out' as I have been instructed but still no luck after a month.

I haven't had any algae growing on the glass. There is relatively no algae to speak of what-so-ever except for a little fuzz on some plant leaves.

I've never experienced cloudy water so I've done a lot of reading and everywhere I read says to wait it out, reduce water changes, etc. Any advice or experience you guys have would be much appreciated.

There are a couple of things in your statements that immediately caught my attention. I'm just going to shoot off some thoughts, and see if anything kicks off a discussion that may be of help. . . I'm thinking quickly, so I may actually be missing a big point, and I'm hoping others can come in and add to it.

If there was decaying plant material in the tank to kick-start the cycle, you would most likely have measurable nitrates, unless the amount of decaying material is very small, and immediately wiped via water changes, and that was when the water was tested. No nitrates usually is indicative, to me, of the cycle not being complete. . . though the presence of the plants could be affecting that, because when I did a planted tank years ago, I don't recall seeing an actual cycle. I did have measurable nitrates, though.

Second, you may have added seeded materials, but without a source of ammonia (as the initial consumable product), the bacterial colony would die off. I find it hard to believe that there is nothing in this tank contributing *something* to keep a viable colony of bacteria.

What my initial gut thought is, and I could be way off, is that this has to do with an increasing bacterial colony, which is what your initial thought was. You had an established bacterial colony to handle whatever bioload it was supposed to handle before. With the new set-up, you had part of this colony die-back due to reduction of resources, and everything was perfectly in sync. Now, something has happened and skewed it to where you've had to have this expand this colony, and now it's kind of stalled as the bacterial colony is trying to handle any increases in bioload.

I'll be honest, I've never dealt with a cloudy tank for more than a couple of days, and the 4 month thing is perplexing, and as such, I would be prone to taking a more drastic action, since it doesn't seem to fit with the usual series of events for dealing with a cloudy tank. . . I think what I would do, and I don't know if someone else would do this: Since there are no fish, I'd drain it all the way back down, and refill. Take it back close to the beginning, and see what happens. If I had to re-do any cycle, I would just re-do the cycle. . .

Does anyone think the plants would be unable to recover this action? I mean, many of these species we see in aquariums are actually emergent vegetation (as evidenced by their floral structure), so they most often just have their roots continuously wet anyway.

[rage]

You might or might not have the same problem.

When I first set up my planted tank with soil substrate, my pump was too strong and it kicked up the dust. I had to reduce the flow and directed the flow away from the bottom.

Another thing is 5 yr old eco-complete soil would probably have broken down too much and become dust which is much easier to be blown around.

[nacra99]

i would take out the carbon. You don't need it unless you want to remove chems and meds from the water. They must be taken out of the tank before it gets saturated otherwise it will leech nasties back into the water.
it actually looks green to me in the pic.
To be sure (to find out if bacterial or algal bloom), do a 100% blackout for 48 hrs. Wrap the tank with heavy towels and stuff to make sure absolutely no light gets in. If after 48 hrs, it gets less cloudy, you can be sure it is a greenwater algae bloom. If it is bacterial, chances are it should still be cloudy.

if algae bloom, the best quick fix would be to us a UV sterilizer. You can get cheap "turbo twist" units locally at a couple of LFSs.
but it's just a band aid and you should really get to the bottom of the issue by addressing the nutrient levels.

[lee85]

too much light!!!!!

[megdaig]

When the problem is really bad it's more white than green...green maybe because of the plants? Anyway, thanks for the advice. I'm starting a 24 hour blackout period this morning. Will see what happens on Wednesday.

[nacra99]

I would advise 48 hrs instead of 24. Microalgae (greenwater stuff) should have enough energy stores to last 24 hrs, but usually not 48 hrs so the change will be more pronounced after 48 hrs. Some places even advise 60 hrs. But 48 should be fine.
Don't worry, your plants will be fine.
NO PEEKING!!

I'm leaning away from a bacteria bloom because your nitrogen (ammonia, nitrIte & nitrAte) levels are all zero! I would expect there to be an excess of at least one of these compounds that would trigger a particular bacteria to explode.

[tbui1178]

+1 on the algae bloom. I'd do atleast 48hrs and see what happens as well. Good luck and keep us updated.

[Sea-agg09]

Blooms are from an excess of nutrients. Cutting the light will only slow the problem if things are going that way.

4 months with a fully planted tank with no fish? What are you dosing to keep the plants going? If your tank has been fully planted and things are growing, your tank is probably cycled. Nitrifying bacteria naturally live in the substrate, so basically your bloom is a result of being too many nutrients for both the nitrifying bacteria and your plants to use.

If you are dosing ferts... stop. Also, limiting water changes will only help if you are using tap water. People suggest reducing tap water in changes because tap water naturally contains all sorts of fertilizers. I would suggest doing weekly water changes with RO water. RO has 90% less nutrients than tap water, which should cut back on your nutrient load in the tank.

Also, how old are the bulbs in your light? Old bulbs degrade and can actually encourage algal growth over vascular plant growth. If the bulbs are really old, replace them.

If you have any powerheads in the tank... turn them off as well.

[megdaig]

Not dosing ferts but maybe once a week max, not even that, Eco-complete is only "fert" so far. There were 3 otos in the tank at one time, I've seen one around here lately but no other fish and no feed added to tank. All water changes are done with RO/DI, have never used plain tap water ever in this tank. All bulbs are new and definitely still less than 6 months at this time.

If the 48-hour blackout doesn't improve the situation, next step is to change out the bulbs to 8000-10000k spectrum and reduce time to 4 hours noon burst and 6 to 8 hours of daylight bulb. I'll continue with weekly RO/DI water changes.

[megdaig]

Ok...with a little more searching...I'll replace all bulbs with something in the 6400-6700K range(aqua and flora-glo an maybe a sun-glow/life-glo). To be honest I think I currently have a power glo, sun glow, and two 10000K (came with ballast)...probably a big part of the issue.

[nacra99]

your tank looks like mine. I installed a UV sterilizer and poof! Within 48 hrs it was crystal clear!
But like i said before it's a band aid. The blackout should help confirm if it is algal or bacterial.

[megdaig]

Nacra99.......

Did you pinpoint your primary cause?

I'm attempting to figure this out but I do have a UV sterilizer on order...mainly to clear this thing up for when I have company over ;P. We all want to be able to boast our beautiful tanks to our friends.

[nacra99]

For me it was definitely a nutrient issue.
The first thing i did was do a blackout. You will notice the corner of a heavy towel draped over the tank in the pic above. After 48 hrs, the cloudiness was greatly reduced, but returning it back to its normal lighting schedule made the cloudiness come back, confirming that it was microalgae.
Next to pretty everything up, i installed a turbotwist UV sterilizer and within 2 days or so, cleared everything up.
To address the nutrients, i loaded the tank with fast growing stemmed plants (notice the clump of hornwort in the pic above and red ludwidgia) to suck up the nutrients while waiting for my newly planted glosso and amazons to take root and grow to a point where they themselves are capable of removing a good amount of nutrients. As my plants took off, i gradually removed the hornwort. There came a point where the glosso exploded and started carpeting the tank fairly quickly, then i totally removed the stemmed plants.
Eventually the tank looked like this....


have a look at this thread. It's old, but the info in there helped me out a lot.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...een-water.html

[nacra99]

I just noticed you said this....

- 60 lbs of the Eco-Complete substrate came from my tank that was established for 3+ years.

I'm suspecting that this might be the issue. Old substrate even when throughly washed tends to still contain a fair amount of nutrients carried over from the last tank and is slowly leeching back into your water column. Which would explain the really fast growth of your hairgrass (and microalgae) even though you are not fertilizing nor do you have any fish load. I'd say keep up the water changes while letting the fast growing stemmed plants take care of it over time. The UV will help for whenever you have company over for dinner.