what causes cloudy water?

[sweetsuvvyb]

Hey guys...

Some of you may remember, I set up a 10gallon for my 2 goldfish in June. The tank cycled fairly easily, but with the addition of a "gift" pleco, and with my goldfish growing like weeds, my tank is walking the line of being overstocked. To compensate, I clean, clean clean...which threw off the cycle (I try to do a 10-15% change with vac 3x a week...checking levels and the filter at the same time).

My levels have been pretty consistent for several weeks with ammonia at zero, usually a small amount of Nitrites (although sometimes none)...haven't seen more than 0.2ppm since the 1st cycle. I need to replace my nitrate test...but I hadn't seen anything more than 20.

The past week or so, however, the tank has gotten very cloudy. Kind of a white particulated cloudy. Nothing's really changed, and I haven't really acted on it...figured it would sort itself out...but this morning it had gotten worse! Any ideas on what this might be? The filter looks fine, the levels are fine (ammo and ites tested at 0 today), and most importantly the FISH are fine...but this cloudy stuff sure isn't pretty!

any thoughts? bacterial, mineral...is the water just plain dirty?


Thanks so much

 

[e-cat]

its probably a bacterial bloom, due too, too much feeding or an over populated tank, which is probably the case with 2 gold fish, 1 pleco in a 10gallon and all 3 being messy fish.what kind of gold fish and what kind of pleco do you have?
most common plecos will out grow that tank and same with the fancy gold fish, and gold fish are cold water and plecos are tropical unless you have a hillstream loach AKA cold water pleco or butterfly pleco

 

[SixFootDaisy]

e-cat is right.

Your tank is pretty well overstocked.

Plecos do get huge, and goldfish do get large as well. What kind of goldfish do you have?

It is also unwise to mix coldwater and tropical...

but the good news is... You can get a bigger tank! Try to keep one tropical [for the pleco which needs at least over 30 gal] and one for goldfish!



Good luck!

 

[sweetsuvvyb]

well, some of you prolly read the story, but y'all prolly didn't see it so here's the recap.

My goldies are both small yet...both well under 2 inches. I purchased them from a nat'l chain, who told me they'd be "just fine" in a 2 gallon novelty tank. Right. So I had to make the upgrade to the 10 gallon, and until the pleco "arrived" tank conditions were good.

The pleco was not something i purchased, but rather, a "gift" from a well intentioned friend, who didn't know better. Can't really just flush the guy because of circumstance, you know? He's only 2 inches tops at this point, but i'm well aware he's gonna get bigger.

My goldies certainly haven't outgrown their tank (yet!), and because I'm in a tiny studio apartment...it is, and won't be, feasible to get a larger tank.

Right now I'm making due as best I can...always looking for a home for the pleco...but nobody wants the lil guy

Sometimes you just have to deal with the situation you have...I am responsible for these fish, and I'm making due as best I can, despite the misinformation I recieved, and the poopin' pleco.

I keep the tank impecably clean (my brother, who has kept oscars for years, said he was feeling guilty after comparing our tanks). It's all I can do at this point.

I know i'm on the defensive here...but it's just because I KNOW my tank is overstocked, I KNOW the pleco doesn't belong in there....I'm just trying my damndest to give these guys a happy home until I can figure something out.

what i don't know is what this cloudy stuff is

thanks guys.

 

[e-cat]

the clowdy water is a bacterial bloom, if you want you might try calling a lfs and see if they will take your pleco, dont take the earlyer post the wrong way im sure that no body buys fish that are not ment for certain tanks on purpose.

 

[sweetsuvvyb]

No worries...i'm mostly frustrated that I can't give my guys the big tank they deserve!

I called all my lfs right after getting the pleco, but none of them could take them...maybe it's time to call again, though (I did have someone with a pond respond to a post on another forum page...but I don't think he'd survive outside)

as per the bacterial bloom...will salt clear this up? Should I even bother?

thanks again

 

[e-cat]

just give it time or you can get some chemical that will help trap the minute particals, i cant remember the name of it, there seems too be a chemical too do every thing, but its best too just let the tank get over it all by its self,it might take some time, just cut down on the feeding, the same thing happened too me a while back.

 

[sweetsuvvyb]

I'm not real big on chemicals either, they just seem to throw everthing off balance.

Guess I'll just keep an eye on the parameters, and keep on keepin' on...

 

[Allivymar]

Water changes/gravel vacs; tis the best thing to do to rid a tank of a bloom. The chemicals which "clear" water only clump the floating stuff into bigger bits so the filter can catch em. Thing is, most of it winds up on the bottom instead.

I did a little research on cloudy water and bacterial blooms. What I gleaned from the info seems to indicate the bacterial blooms generally don't consist of the nitrifying bacteria, but rather the heterotropic bacteria. Heterotrophics eat ammonia (not nitrites) but only when there is no organic debris around. If there is lots of organics, they go for that instead and boom. Bacterial bloom.

Theres a bit here on them: http://www.bioconlabs.com/autoheterobac.html although theres no discussion on cloudy water. For some reason, the research paper I bookmarked about it is no longer available. I should have printed it *sigh*

 

[Techboy]

dust in the water can cause cloddy water of fish wast