When good tanks go bad... [pics]

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grimlock3000

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jun 29, 2003
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maine
My tank was all fine and dandy for a while and I decided to upgrade the cansiter filter media to some better media. My canister had been up and running for over three months with no issue and I always had some very clear water. Sometimes it looked a wee bit cloudy, but my tap water is nasty anyway so it was no big deal.

I swapped out 1/3 of the bio filter media and waited two weeks. Nothing different happened and the tank was OK. I had another filter, so I just assumed that one took over plus I should have plenty of established bacteria in the gravel. Then I changed the rest of the bio media... Right after that, my tank started clouding up and brown algae began taking over. I have slowly been getting the brown algae to be replaced with green algae, but the water is nasty. All of the water parameters test OK, so the bacteria in the water and on everything is eating up all of the ammonia and nitrites in the water I think. I fully expect all this to clear up once the filter media gets re-established, but it stinks to look at now.

The plants are getting most of the nastiness. Every so often I catch my Pleco eating algae off the small purple plants with leaves, but nothing can get at the stuff on the bristly plants. It is hard to tell from the pics, but the small purple plants hardly have anything on them. I am going to let the brown stuff take over the blue plants and get different plants once the water clears up.

Before:

tank.jpg


After:

tankbad.jpg


The algae looks pretty green here, but is more brownish in person.

Luckily, my 10g tank is a gem, the water looks perfect and the only algae in the tank is there because I leave the light on a lot to make sure my Oto can eat:

stank.jpg
 
Oh what a PITA. Here you were, making a positive change and lookit what you have to go thru; bummer.

Are you sure its not an algae bloom? Mine looked like that initially (and I hadn't made any filter changes, although I *think* I may have changed the filter pads); but after 2 weeks it was clearly an algae bloom. 2 weeks later (and 2 weeks of trying everything in the book) I couldn't see the fish anymore. I wound up borrowing a diatom filter from madasafish to clear it up.

Oh, and btw, I see the knitter in your life is slacking *grin*
 
It could be an algae bloom, but I am going to have to wait to see what happens. If I need to, I am going to pull out my HOT Magnum and run the micron catridge and some DE powder to clear it up. I hate that HOT Magnum though, so I am going to try and clear it up without using it.

"Oh, and btw, I see the knitter in your life is slacking *grin*"

I could have taken a picture of that knitting pile last year and it still would have looked the same :D
 
Oh heck; even if you loathe it get the HOT Magnum out and use it now LOL Why waste time trying all sorts of stuff when that will likely solve the prob?
 
You think I should try it with just the micron filter? My father has the DE powder, I do not feel like going over there because I always get stuck there for a few hours.
 
I hooked up the HOT Magnum, it is still a piece of crap. Even with all replaced O-ring seals, it is sucking in air like crazy through the D-ring now... I will give it an hour and see what happens...
 
why not try having your lights on for less time? My tank went green at one point. It was all over the rocks and on the plants. I started switching hte lights on at about 4 in teh afternoon when I got in and switched them off at about 10. It soon cleared up. Good luck.
 
I had the same problem, I added a Magnum 350 Canister with the carbon filter, cleared it right up. Then I used the micron for polishing, made it really pretty again. Good luck!
 
I went to borrow a Vortex and ended up with a Whisper Diatomagic filter. My father said the Diatomagic was a lot easier to use so he got it. No idea what happened to his Vortex. The Diatomagic goes right into the tank and its freaking huge. Seems to be starting to clear up the tank, I will snap some pics in a couple hours. I might pick up one of these for polishing if it works well.

I feel kind of cheap using a filter to clear up the cloudiness, oh well :)
 
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