Surface water looks cloudy. What is this? - Aquarium Advice

jm667 · 11-07-2009, 08:12 PM

I have a 50 gallon freshwater tank with flourite substrate, driftwood, and plants. 2-25 watt bulbs overdriven, and I dose flourish and excel. Plants aren't really growing too much, but seem to be remaining stable. Anyways, the algae has been kept under control pretty well, but I am just starting to get BGA. I remember treating that with Maracyn in another tank I had and once I did that, it never came back, so I think I will try that. I have been doing 40-50% water changes each week, mainly because it takes that long to vaccum everything.

Anyways, the water appears clear, it looks really clean in the tank. However when I am looking in the tank up at the surface of the water, it appears cloudy and green. It is clear in the area where the spray bar is, but the rest of it is cloudy like that. I have an Eheim 2217 filter on it which should be plenty for that size, shouldn't it? I have tried it with both the spraybar on and off, and it seems to agitate the surface more with the bar on so I put it back on. Any ideas?

mfdrookie516 · 11-07-2009, 08:22 PM

my 10g planted did the same thing, worse than any other tank ive had... i have an internal filter and it has a spray bar... i positioned the spray bar so that it was actually above the water squirting the water down and forward across the tank, after about a day, all the "cloudiness" went away and havent had the problem since. Also had pretty much the same thing on my other tanks, but simply having alot of surface agitation cured them. It must be something with the ferts or plants...

jm667 · 11-08-2009, 03:38 AM

So is your spray bar out of the water then? Where it actually makes noise from the water splashing into the tank?

mfdrookie516 · 11-08-2009, 03:41 AM

yes and no... its up out of the water, doesnt make much noise at all, i can barely hear it. same with my 150, had the same issue, not as bad though, and i bought a spray bar for it, which is 4' long and goes almost all the way across, fixed it instantly. If you cant do any of that, try taking a paper towell and holding each corner on one side, let the other side touch the water then just drag it across... it will remove it. its called bio-film i believe, nothing to worry about really, i just always worried about it effecting the oxygen exchange (though ive never seen that it would)