Cloudy water.

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elbeasto

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
24
I've just added some API accu clear to my tank since it has been cloudy for about 2 weeks, even after regular water changes and not overfeeding and not over stocked.

The accu clear seems to have made things worse, it's now more cloudy than before! How long does this stuff take to work? (it's only been in the tank for about an hour.)

I'm pretty sure the tank is cloudy because I had to cycle with food, clear/pure ammonia is really hard to get in AU.

Any suggestions for a cloudy tank? If it's bacteria, it's taking a really long time to sort itself out.

thanks.
 
I'm not familiar with the product, but I suspect that it will just bind particulate matter so that the resulting larger particles can be filtered out. So give it some time. If it is a bacterial bloom, it can take 6+ weeks to clear.
 
I noticed my smaller tank went cloudy like this just before an algae explosion. Could it be algae causing things like phosphates and silicates?
 
Take a small sample of water in a glass and hold it up in strong light against a white piece of paper. If it's a green tint, it's algal. If it's whitish, it's bacterial. The phosphates and silicates will provide algae with food, but typically the first indication will be diatoms which will feed off the silicates until they are depleted and then it will subside and evetually disappear altogether. Phosphates (and Nitrate) are the primary food sources for just about everything else so there levels should be kept at a minimum.
 
You can also use a white plastic glass to check the color of the water. Bacterial blooms will go away as the tank get settled as mentioned.
 
I think I might have worked it out. I've been using API stress coat to condition the tap water, it is a dechlorinator but it also has aloe vera in it. The aloe vera makes the water cloudy.

I remember running out of the aqua sonic dechlorinator then buying the stress coat. That's roughly when the water started to go cloudy in both tanks!

I'll go get a different dechlorinator tomorrow and post how it goes.
 
Yes, I agree on the Prime. HN1 and I both used it even before we were married! LMAO!:D
 
Ahh yes I have got a bottle of Prime. I haven't been using it because it's so concentrated and I've only been changing about 20ltrs at a time. I'm not sure how much to put in each 10ltr bucket because 5ml does about 200ltrs!

...and yes, Prime is very good.:)
 
Hmmm.... I can't remember the exact conversion for liters to gallons, but I do know that Prime dechlorinates using 2 drops per gallon. Prime is great stuff and if you OD it a little there will be no ill effects whatsoever. Case in point, HN1 and I do 50% water changes on our 120 gallon and 75 gallon FW tanks per week. We use a Python, so we dose directly to the tank just before filling with the Python. Due to our anal-retentive nature (LOL!), we give a 150 gallon dose to the 120 and a 100 gallon dose to the 75. No problems ever, only healthy fish. :)
 
I think 4ltrs is roughly 1 US gallon, so if I put 4 or 5 drops per 10ltr bucket I think that should be ok.

Yep the guy at the LFS said that you can't OD with dechloriator, (within reason I guess).

Thanks for helping me work that out, you've saved me a trip to the shops! :)
 
Prime states on the bottle that it is safe up to 5x OD. You have to be quite careless to get to that point IMO. :)
 
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