Cloudy water

[Skibum98391]

I am hoping you can help with cloudy water....15 gallon tank is 2.5 months old, fully cycled and stocked. It has been planted since the beginning. The plants were struggling with leaves yellowing, brown spots etc. all I had was cheapo incandescent lights, so earlier this week I changed them to 6k cfl daylight bulbs. I gave that a few days and then today I put in a few API root tabs. Within an hour or two the water is cloudy. By cloudy I mean a whitish haze (not green). I immediately tested the water, all good ammonia 0' nitrites 0, and nitrates 20. I did a large 70% water change, swished out the filter and added a little filter floss, only a little because it backs up the water and it flows through the bypass which is a little annoying because I had hope to put a bunch in there. So my question, do the root tabs cause cloudy water like that? Oh yea, and the lights I have been running only six hours. Also I have started to get diatoms, not bad. Because of this I added a mystery snail yesterday. Thank you in advance for any help you can offer....

 

[fort384]

Root tabs can cause water cloudiness if not properly buried. This sounds more like a bacterial bloom to me though, since it is white in color. It should clear on its own in a few days.

 

[aqua_chem]

Also considering relative newness of the tank, a bacterial bloom seems likely. Give it time and it should clear up on its own.