Guess who is back!

[emilygupps]

We are all of the sudden having a problem with cloudy water the day or two after a water change. The first tank affected is our 30tall planted angel fish tank.

1 pair of angels are all that's in there.

Pressurized co2
Nothing has changed in over four months. This tank has been running for more than a year but was in the care of a friend from November to January because we were living in a hotel (long story).

We changed the water last night and added prime to to bucket of fresh water first.

Today our tank is yellow and cloudy. The levels are:
Ammonia: 0
Ph: 6.2 which seems low
Nitrite: less than 0.25 but more than 0
Nitrate: 160+

I also tested our 20 long admittedly over stocked until we can get the baby cories big enough for the pet store. It has one lone neon from a crash in the third tank, and 4 Khuli loaches, some ottos and lots of Cory babies +several adults. This ran the exact same as the cloudy 30 but looks beautifully clear also got a water change last night. And also has pressurized co2.

Any ideas what's going on? The only difference is the 20g stayed in our care running the our garage while our house was unlivable.


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[emilygupps]

We have been battling this problem for weeks in our third tank but we chalked that up to it being a new tank and/or having a curse. It's been up and running for 8 months and we get it to cycle but then as soon as we add fish something goes wrong and every thing dies. It's literally a box of death. The neon in the 20 is the lone survivor from our last attempt and lost a gill to the protein skimmer.

Currently the third tank is plants only and we are getting ready to start over. And change a bunch of equipment.

But now that the problem is spreading to the 30....I wonder if it's like a contagious bacteria? Our 55 is the only tank with normal levels.


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[ImACoolguy]

SWEET JESUS get some water changes doing on that tank ASAP! 160+ nitrate is toxic! This is coming from personal experience from when I was a newbie and didn't do water changes and it ended up giving me ich from their stress and killing everything. How often do you change water???


Caleb

 

[Brookster123]

Hello Emily!! Def get those trates down asap.. Is that a window I see behind the tank? Get direct sunlight??

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[Nils]

DO A WATER CHANGE ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what else to tell you but I agree with Brookster and Caleb, please do a water change for us, you and the fish.

 

[ImACoolguy]

Hello Emily!! Def get those trates down asap.. Is that a window I see behind the tank? Get direct sunlight??

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+1 to this.

Here's why it's cloudy:

1.Overstocking
2.Lack of water changes(unless the tap is really high the 160+ ppm proves this)
3. Sunlight, probably a bacterial bloom from the windows.


Caleb

 

[Brookster123]

Chill people, if I remember correctly she has issues with nitrates in the tap water..

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[ImACoolguy]

Chill people, if I remember correctly she has issues with nitrates in the tap water..

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Then it's time for RO mix to bring them down.

I reacted seriously because it is not common for nitrates to be that high and when they are it usually points to water changes.


Caleb

 

[emilygupps]

Okay guys calm down. We don't ever. Ever. Miss a water change. We just did one last night and I did an other one as soon as I finished the testing today.

The high nitrates are weird in that 30 tall. I wouldn't consider that tank over stocked with just two angels.

We've moved and sadly the nitrates are still the same, about 10 in our tap water but generally normal weekly nitrate levels are are around 40-60 in all of our tanks.

The windows in that room are never open, would the break through light be enough to cause algae bloom?


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[emilygupps]

Hello Emily!! Def get those trates down asap.. Is that a window I see behind the tank? Get direct sunlight??

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Brook!! I thought about you last week when I went to the zoo and saw some apistos in an enclosure!


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[bcarl_10gal]

It almost looks more brown at the bottom, or my eyes are deceiving me. Did you try any roottabs, new hardscape? What is your substrate?


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[emilygupps]

It almost looks more brown at the bottom, or my eyes are deceiving me. Did you try any roottabs, new hardscape? What is your substrate?


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We forget the brand but in September we put some kind of planted tank substrate and then capped it with sand when we rescaped back in January/February. The water was a nasty yellow/brown color. No new drift wood or anything. That's what I thought initially. With our 17g box of death. Now the same thing is happening in the 30g so I'm certain that's not the case.



Also the 20 long has both an hob and a canister so it's getting lots of filtration.

The 30 only has the HoB


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[emilygupps]

This is the after the water change picture.


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[emilygupps]

We narrowed it down, we think it was the fertilizer he was putting in every morning. After discontinuing that the water has stayed pretty stable and we found a dead khuli loach in the 20g that could have been contributing to the high nitrates.


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[Brookster123]

Were you dosing kno3?

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[emilygupps]

Were you dosing kno3?

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The bf says that's one of the things. I'm wondering if it went bad.


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[Brookster123]

The bf says that's one of the things. I'm wondering if it went bad.


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Went bad as in expired? That's potassium nitrate. I don't dose it as my fish create plenty.. seems to be the same over there, I'd shelf it.

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[emilygupps]

Went bad as in expired? That's potassium nitrate. I don't dose it as my fish create plenty.. seems to be the same over there, I'd shelf it.

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I think we have an api test for that. I'll check our box of liquid test kits and check that out. We haven't used it in any of the tanks with fish since this happened but he was still dosing the plant only tank and we still had that brown cloudy water on and off.

We used to keep it in the refrigerator but he started leaving it out, I'm wondering if it's spoiled.


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