White cloudy water

[xxStLxx]

I have a ten gallon tank that houses a clown pleco, red swordtail, and 2 painted platies. The tank has a 20g marineland pump and activated carbon filter on it, 10g air pump, and a 18" 15w 10,000K oceanic floresent bulb on it. The tank has been set up for 7 months now and everything water quality was going perfect until I added 2 java ferns and a type of mondo grass to the tank. The pleco has a huge piece of drift wood to hide behind, but I boiled it for an hour before placing it into the tank to prevent discoloration of the water. Since I placed the plants in there the water has turned a milky white color and has not changed for a month now. Thought it was a bacteria bloom but idk anymore, really need help.

 

[JonB]

i had this when i had my 30G FW but mine was PH Buffer. Have you used that?

If not i would keep washing out your first filter, it should be catching all of the milkiness in the water and slowly get rid of it and keep doing PWC.

Hope that helps.

 

[xxStLxx]

I have a 7.5 ph buffer that I add when I do water changes monthly. The ph has balanced out at 7.2 +/- .1 I'll try cleaning the filter in the back regularly and see if that helps out.

 

[JonB]

I would clean the first filter out everyday and see how much thats taking it out and if that doesnt work do 20% water changes every week.

Let me know how you get on.

 

[DragonFish71]

Ok, so first things first, the mondo grass is not a true aquatic plant. It will rot and foul your water.

Second, when you clean your filter, do it in tank water not from the tap. The tap water has chlorine which will kill of beneficial bacteria.

Third, do water changes more than monthly. Small tanks are not as forgiving about maintaining ideal water parameters.

Fourth, get a testing kit. API liquid kits are the ones mainly suggested. Don't get test strips, very inaccurate.

Fifth, plecos are high bio-load producers. In other words, they poop A LOT.

Sixth, that clown pleco can get 5 inches full grown. That means you should get it a larger tank so it can have the room it needs or look into re-homing at some point. The 1 inch per gallon rule is a farce.

 

[mom2reds]

When I had a 10 gal. set up I did weekly sometimes biweekly water chages of at least 50%. I love clown plecos i hope you will beable to get a bigger tank soon they are a great fish and then you could add more. IMO the bigger the the tank the easier they are to take care of, they are more forgiving. What is your ph if you don't add the adjuster. Most of the time it is not needed and will just mess things up. Most fish will adjust to whatever your ph is just fine.

 

[xxStLxx]

I'm going to get the API FW master test kit today. I'll go ahead and take the mondo grass out and clean the filter in the tank water that I siphon out. Should I be doing weekly 10 or 20% water changes or more often than that, and do I siphon out the gravel every time I change the water? New to the whole fresh water thing, used to have salt water with a sand star and other inverts that cleaned the bottom are there things like that for FW

 

[TheCrazyFishLady]

Weekly 25%-50% changes are recommended. I do roughly 30% a week on my two 10gs.

 

[roydooms]

What I did with my driftwood is I boiled water and poured it in a big flat aluminum square(7-10"H) with the wood in it(too big to boil it) for 14hours. Constantly changing the water with boiling water when it gets really brown or the water cooled down. So far I don't have a problem with the water quality or turning brown(tannin) or fuzzy white like your case. Maybe you need to boil your driftwood a little longer.

 

[DragonFish71]

The white fuzz on a new piece of DW isn't cause for alarm. It's a normal occurrence that is easily remedied if one wants to take the time of scrubbing the DW with a brush. If not, it will go away on it's own, or some fish will nibble on it.

 

[xxStLxx]

The driftwood isn't the problem. I boiled it for 6 hours every 30 mins of boil time would switch the water with new water then repeat for a total of 6 hours. I think it's a bacteria bloom because of the white cloudy water.

 

[reefdiver]

what kind of water treatment do you use?

 

[xxStLxx]

I add in API proper ph 7.5 when I do water changes. I add API stress zyme once per week and API leaf zone once per week. That's it as far as stuff that I add to the water. And I did a full water test today. My ph is 7.3, ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, nitrate is 5 ppm, GH is 150 ppm, KH is 180 ppm, chlorine was 0 and the temp of the water is 75 deg F