Water appears dusty/cloudy

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Kishore

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 21, 2015
Messages
153
Location
Tamil Nadu, India.
I had my set up for a few months. But yesterday, I stocked with quite a large quantity of fish.
10 X neon tetras
1 X ram (another died while stocking. poor thing fell out of my net and i didn't notice it for an hour)
4 X cories
4 X pearl gouramis

But the water now appears cloudy. I thought it may be a bacterial bloom. But the rocks that I have, also have a kind of dusty settlement. What might it be? Will it clear off or should i just siphon it all?
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It appears to be brown diatom algae as it sounds to have similar characteristics: brown, dusty looking, and it can cloud your water. There are a few solutions you can do. If it is true brown diatom algae it will have the consistency of flour or baking soda and can get"dusted off" of things which is good! You have three animal solutions: Otos, nerite snails, or shrimp. They will all eat it. You can have one or all of these in your tank together, the snails are not to worry either since nerve snails only breed in brackish water they won't over populate your tank.

However I'm not sure about your bio load so shrimp might be your best bet since they can be almost a negative bio load as they remove lots of excess nutrients.

If you don't want to do any of these You can do a few other things. It's important to note that diatom algae is usually caused by too much phosphate or silicates in the water. Throw in a live plant or two and wait it out. The plants will start to use up the excess phosphates and silicates and it will reduce the algae.

Or if you don't want plants, siphon it out.

You're tap water might have phosphates or silicate in it so doing water changes might not help the situation long term as well.

For best results add some plants and a "clean up crew" from the above mentioned.
 
It appears to be brown diatom algae as it sounds to have similar characteristics: brown, dusty looking, and it can cloud your water. There are a few solutions you can do. If it is true brown diatom algae it will have the consistency of flour or baking soda and can get"dusted off" of things which is good! You have three animal solutions: Otos, nerite snails, or shrimp. They will all eat it. You can have one or all of these in your tank together, the snails are not to worry either since nerve snails only breed in brackish water they won't over populate your tank.

However I'm not sure about your bio load so shrimp might be your best bet since they can be almost a negative bio load as they remove lots of excess nutrients.

If you don't want to do any of these You can do a few other things. It's important to note that diatom algae is usually caused by too much phosphate or silicates in the water. Throw in a live plant or two and wait it out. The plants will start to use up the excess phosphates and silicates and it will reduce the algae.

Or if you don't want plants, siphon it out.

You're tap water might have phosphates or silicate in it so doing water changes might not help the situation long term as well.

For best results add some plants and a "clean up crew" from the above mentioned.

I have some golden mystery snails in my tank. Will that do? Also, mine is a planted tank. My water isn't clouded. Just sediments on rocks and substrate. I think my bio load is not over the limit. It is a 200 litres tank (dimensions are 3 feet length X 1.5 feet breadth X 1.5 feet height). I heard the cories will eat that stuff. Is that true, cories eat that?
 
Please answer this.
Do cories eat brown diatom algae? And what about snails, do eat them?

My cories don't take the feeding. I know they are bottom feeders, so I offered them sinking pellets. They didn't seem to eat it. Have they been eating the algae???
 
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