Orange cloud??? What did I do???

[shawmutt]

OK, I have never heard of this. I don't know what I did or what caused it. My fish are ok so far but I'm worried about it.

As some of you know, I did a major overhaul to my tank recently. I wanted to avoid cycling so I took it easy. I just replaced the gravel and did a pwc and left it at that. There was still cyano on the back and sides of the tank. The next water change would be when I moved the tank to the new house.

Well, I moved tanks today. The 10 gallon went great, no issues, the single yellow lab was spooked for a bit but was eating and normal by the time I left. The problem is with the 30 gallon. I saved ~20 gallons of water, moved the tank and filled it up. The time from emptying the tank in the old place to filling it up in the new was about 1 hour. I used some tap water to top off the tank.

Quick info about the tap water in my house. It's a well, there's no chlorine in it. The water tasted a bit hard (I'm a bit of a water connoisseur Wink), but I figured it wouldn't hurt the fish to just use it to top off the tank. It is a brand new house, brand new well, and was just tested by the health department. The water out of the tap was perfectly clear. I went off to move some other stuff, and then checked back to check out how my little guys were doing.

Here's the weird part--the cyano patches were shrinking before my eyes and emitting some weird orange cloudy stuff! Has anyone ever seen or heard of this? What did I do??? I didn't want to do another pwc, in case it was the tap water that caused it. It stopped in a few hours, the last time I checked the fish were acting perfectly normal but there was a definite orange tint to the water. I'm just worried that I'll come home to a dead tank when I go back to the house tomorrow Crying or Very sad.

[TCTFish]

Cyanobacteria does contain gases and perhaps what you were seeing was a chemical reaction to something in the tap water mingling with those gases. Just a thought. Speaking of thoughts...

Have you ever thought of getting a RO filtering unit? It'd not just benefit your fish, but you and anyone else in the household. It's a worthy investment.

[JDogg]

Originally Posted by TCTFish

Cyanobacteria does contain gases and perhaps what you were seeing was a chemical reaction to something in the tap water mingling with those gases. Just a thought. Speaking of thoughts...

Have you ever thought of getting a RO filtering unit? It'd not just benefit your fish, but you and anyone else in the household. It's a worthy investment.

has the water been tested for iron? might be oxidizing the dissolved iron in the well water...just a thought

[shawmutt]

The iron tested normal, but the cloud was rust colored orange. With both thoughts, they are a possibility, but wouldn't either just turn the water orange? I mean, the cyano was literally dissolving and this stream of orange was just pouring off it. I wish I had pictures of it.

I'll be going back to the house in a few hours so I'll post updates.

[Devilishturtles]

And RO units run wells dry fast. I've had to ditch my RO unit for my sw tank, because it would run the well dry every 15 minutes.

It could also be possible that your tap is contaminated with antibiotics. This would be more likely if you were in a very agricultural area, or near a large water supply. I wouldn't think this possible since your well is so new...but I suppose it could be

Are you still going to college? Swing by your microbiology lab and see if the school has or will provide you with the tests available to test your water for the antibiotics? Or if your health department can do it, do you know if it was already tested for?

If the cyano is dying, make sure you do a water change. You don't want it polluting your water as well when it dies off.

Just a thought.

[shawmutt]

Went and saw the fish, they were fine. All the coloration is gone. Still the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I'm going to buy some water first thing tomorrow and suck out all the dead cyano.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I've noticed with hair algae, if you remove it from water and allow it to dry out, then put it back in water it turns a bright red (probably why it's said to be red algae).. I wonder if the cyno was killed off by exposure to the air, then when you added water you saw it (already dead) dissolve aws it hydrated.. just a thought..

Would have been cool to see a vid or timelapse photos of tho

[TCTFish]

And RO units run wells dry fast. I've had to ditch my RO unit for my sw tank, because it would run the well dry every 15 minutes.

What was the gallon capacity of the RO unit? There are now low capacity units available...as low as 25 gallons per day and it can be used just when it's needed for the tank. I understand what you're saying about it running wells dry. I've never had to deal with well water. Didn't really think of it.

[Devilishturtles]

Originally Posted by TCTFish

What was the gallon capacity of the RO unit? There are now low capacity units available...as low as 25 gallons per day and it can be used just when it's needed for the tank. I understand what you're saying about it running wells dry. I've never had to deal with well water. Didn't really think of it.

TCT, my unit was a 110 GPD unit from Ebay. A GREAT deal, but was not doable for me. That just my experience however. If you have a much larger well in an area that isn't as bad for water as I live in, I'm sure it can be done.