Milky Water

[mrnitz9]

I have a 55 gallon freshwater tank that was up, running and had a good cycle going. All of a sudden the water became milkly. I have continued to do regular water changes and the levels are all fine. Any clue as to why the tank remains milky?

 

[jsoong]

Hi and welcome to AA!

More info will be helpful:

How long is the tank set up?
What are the inhabitants?
What exactly are the levels?
How long is this going on?

Take some of the tank water out, put it in a white and a black cup (inside color) & look under good light. Are there white particles? If so, likely a bacterial bloom. If the particles greenish, likely algae. Finally, if the milkiness disappear after sitting out for a while, that would likely be fine air bubbles.

 

[mrnitz9]

The tanks has been going for about 3 months. It has sword tails, guppies, silver dollars, and some other community fish. There are about 18 fish in the tank. I dont have the levels at hand, but there is no amonia, ph is around 7.4, and the other levels are good as well.

If it is a bacterial bloom then what? If fine air bubbles then what?

 

[jsoong]

Bacterial bloom usually happen in new tanks that is cycling, and usually settles on its own in a few weeks as the bio-filter gets established. At 3 months this is less likely. A possibility is that you have ots of accumulated decomposing matter (or perhaps a dead fish) that caused a mini-cycle ..... in that case a good gravel vac might help.

If fine air bubbles, you will need to find the source ... usually something in the filter - eg worn o-rings in canisters, some levels not set right in a HOB, etc. <But of course, air bubbles don't hurt anything, it is just looks ....>

Algae would be a totally different story all together....

 

[mrnitz9]

So I checked in the water in a cup and it looks like little white pieces of dandruff floating. The water looks very clear, but you can see a few specks of white.

 

[Lowryder]

Sounds like a bacteria bloom. What kind of substrate out of curiosity?

 

[William470]

Sounds like a bacteria bloom. What kind of substrate out of curiosity?

Is this something you would see on any cycle. I am fishless cycling my 29 gallon tank. I think I messed up my first attempt at it by adding to much ammonia. I was getting a lot of bubbles forming on top of my water. Which I read somewhere might be by adding to much ammonia.

Did a 90% water change. Got my level close to 4 ppm. Just curious about this topic as to what to look for while cycling.

Bill

 

[mrnitz9]

Sounds like a bacteria bloom. What kind of substrate out of curiosity?

pardon my ignorance, but what is substrate?

 

[DragonFish71]

substrate is gravel or sand. Whatever you use as the "bottom"

 

[mrnitz9]

OK, so with some more digging I am convinced I have a bacterial bloom. Not too long ago we had a series of power outages in a short period of time each of which lasted a few days. I think that was the beginning of the end.

In any event, from what I have read, it seems that I should give the gravel (old fashioned small, uncolored stones) a good cleaning and do about a 25% water change every few days.

Anything else?

 

[jsoong]

Power outages lasting days certainly can kill off your bio-filter and give you a min-cycle. <Or a full blown one if it is bad enough.> That can certainly explain the bacterial bloom.

In addition to cleaning & pwc's, I would suggest monitoring ammonia & nitrites levels for the next while to make sure they don't get into toxic range. <More pwc's if that happens.>

 

[mrnitz9]

thanks. Query == "pwc" equals periodic water change?

 

[mrnitz9]

one more thing ... how long should it take for the milky look to disappear once my levels are good?

thanks ever so much

 

[corrado33]

thanks. Query == "pwc" equals periodic water change?

Close enough. PWC is partial water change. You change "part" of your water.

And I don't know how long it'd take for the water to clear up. Sorry!