Cloudy Water

[lmw80]

I have just transported a 46 gallon fish tank from a friend's house to mine. There was no time to let the tank cycle without fish. The fish seem to be doing fine, but the water is cloudy and has an odor. My ammonia level has just dropped to 2.5ppm and my nitrites have jumped to 60. Is the cloudy water and odor part of the bacteria cycle, should I do a water change, or is there something else I don't know about? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[Biggen]

The cloudy water and odor is due to a bacteria bloom. But it is not the beneficial bacteria causing the bloom. Most new tanks go through this "phase". It will normally go away on its own in a few days or so.

How long have you had the tank running for? I did my first water change 3 weeks into the cycle and then every week thereafter.

 

[lmw80]

The tank has been running for one week now. So you think I should wait a little longer to change the water?

 

[Biggen]

So you think I should wait a little longer to change the water?

That depends on how high the ammonia level is. I cycled my 29 gallon tank with 5 zebra danios. It took about two weeks before I got an ammonia level to register with my test kits.

If you are getting an ammonia level over 2ppm and you care about the fish in the tank, go ahead and do a 25% water change. Otherwise, wait it out. I didn't do my first change until I hit the 3 week mark.

 

[d9hp]

If you have fish that you are really worried about, change the water ASAP, if not I would proceed as Biggen did.

 

[lmw80]

Ok, here is an update. We changed the water 25%. The ammonia is down, the PH is fine, but the water is still cloudy!! My nitrites are still high, however and the tank sometimes smells pretty bad. Any thoughts?

 

[Biggen]

Are you overfeeding and how often do you feed? Feed the fish only what they will eat in about 3 minutes time. Also, I would cut back to feeding once a day until the the white haze goes away.

I know I originally said that it should go away with a few days or so, but some people have reported that it can take up to a maximum of two weeks to completely clear.

But I bet if you cut back on the feeding it will clear up extremely fast.

 

[Electrobes]

has the subrtae been vacuumed when you got it. When I got a new tank from another person the substrate was absolutely filthy, stuff in there from the 80's! - try doing a minor vacuum and pray it isn't that (because if it is, its going to be a job to take out that yuckiness)

 

[lmw80]

The person I got the tank from basically stopped caring about the fish, so everything was DIRTY! We cleaned out the whole tank....scrubbed a lot of green spot algae out...we replaced the rocks, filter and heater.

We just started cutting back the feeding to once a day. Since we did a 25% water change last Saturday, we figure we will wait till next Saturday to do another one...