Cloudy Tank

[sisyphus895]

I can't seem to get my tank to clear up. It has been a couple months now. It is a 200 gallon tank with Malawi Africans. I have been doing 50-75 percent water change every week to no avail. It has a good wet dry filter system pushing several hundred gph. The water tests fine and the fish are fine, it just doesn't look as great as it used to. Now I don't have any mechanical filtration, just biological. Could that be the issue? I have used flocculants and they help a little for a couple days. The cloudiness varies from a green hue to just a straight white cloudy. Any advice will be appreciated. Tanks in advance!

[Ken B]

Don't do a water change for a few weeks. Give the bacteria and other micro organisms a chance to stabilize. Cloudy only means there is a bloom of an organism and you keep giving it more fresh water to bloom in.

[Austy16414]

Is the tank established? Can you provide your water parameters? It sounds like you just need some mechanical filtration to pick up the floating particles, but as Ken is touching on, your tank also could not be fully cycled


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[ptran]

It sounds like the filter is not fully matured. Can you provide us with some background:

How long is the tank set up?
How many fish and their size?
What is your filtration system? (you mention a wet dry, but if that is all it probably not enough for a tank that size)
How often you clean you filter?
How often do you feed your fish?

[sisyphus895]

The tank is mature. It has been set up for about 18 months. I clean the filters every weekend and usually do a do about a 20-25% water change once a week. The fish get feed once a day, sometimes twice, but no food is ever left over. The wet/dry is well established and has been doing a great job. But as I mentioned, until now biological filtration is all I have used or needed. I did add 500ml of purigen in 2 separate bags about a week ago. Doesn't seem to have helped with the cloudiness yet.

[barrettsline]

Can you post a picture of the tank? You shouldn't need to clean filters every week. Cleaning them every week is breaking down your biological


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[sisyphus895]

I will post a pic later today. I only clean the sponge filters every week. I don't clean the bio balls and the other media I have in there or the wet/dry often.

[Austy16414]

Can you give us some water parameters?


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[barrettsline]

Keep in mind a sponge filters are nothing but biological filtration.


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[ptran]

Yeah a picture would help.

[sisyphus895]

Here are a couple pics.

[Austy16414]

I can't see the pics for some reason, so pardon me if one of the pics are of your parameters. Do you have a test kit that you can use to give us readings on ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate?

[sisyphus895]

Water parameters

0 Nitrates, Nitrites and Chlorine
150 Hardness
180 Alkalinity
7.6-7.8 Ph

[Austy16414]

What about ammonia? 0 nitrates can't be right, be sure to shake the bottle vigilantly according to the instructions. If your ammonia and nitrite are both zero, then you can rule out a bacterial bloom. If that's the case, then the solution to your problem is the addition of sponges/floss for mechanical

[sisyphus895]

I waited the full 5 min before taking the reading this time

0 Ammonia
20-40 Nitrates

All other test same as first reported