Cloudy Water

[dalalhar]

Hi,

For the last month or so I have been noticing that the water in my tank is turning cloudy. I tried several things to change this...water changes, cleaning the tank, etc. But it still seems to be turning cloudy. The people at the fish store said it was just trying to go through a cycle, but I've had the tank up and running for eight months and this has only started happening recently.

None of my fish have died. I was able to successfully add fish too. I tried some drops to make the water clear, and those work, but I dont want to add in drops every day to keep the water clear.

Today I noticed that the plants in my tank are starting to lose the green from their leaves. I was wondering if this had anything to do with it in two ways:
1) the couldyness is preventing enough light for the leaves to create chlorophyll, or what keeps them green.
2) the leaves loosing their green is releasing something in the water to make it cloudy.

Appreciate the help!

 

[mgamer20o0]

is it white or green? green is algae white is bacteria.

 

[dalalhar]

The coudyness is white. The leaves on the plants are just turning clear.

 

[mgamer20o0]

well that might be two different issues. first thing i would do is some large water changes. have you tested the water also?

 

[dalalhar]

I checked the water about a week after it first happened and it was the worst it had ever been...I couldnt even see the back of the tank. I took the water to Petco and they tested it and everything was fine.

They suggested doing water changes. I did one large change, probably about 60-70%, but it was still cloudy. This was about 3 weeks ago.

 

[mgamer20o0]

what is fine? good idea is to get a test kit your self. Walmart.com: Freshwater Master Test Kit: Fish i would try some 90% water changes to at least manually remove the excess.

 

[dalalhar]

I have this kit at home and everything looked to be where it was supposed to. The test they run at Petco was with the strips you just dip in the water and they turn colors. They said everything was normal, nothing too high or too low.

I just added some clearing drops on Friday afternoon and seems to be holding up. If it gets cloudy again I will try the 90% change this week or the weekend.

Back to the tests - do you happen to know what I am talking about with the strips? It's something like this (Jungle Quick Dip Aquarium Test Strips at PETCO)
What is better - these or the drops. From what they told me at the store, the drops are more accurate which is better for salt tanks. Since I have a freshwater tank, it shouldn't make a big difference.

 

[mgamer20o0]

well they are half right. the drops or liquid test kits are more accurate. the dip strips are known to throw readings all over the place. test it again and give us some hard numbers.