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niawomad

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 19, 2023
Messages
37
Location
UK
Hi guys, recently having a few issues with the tank and had some questions about my filtration. Over the last couple of week the tank has had a lot of small debris floating around the tank and I cant seem to get rid of it after doing water changes, using gravel vac etc. Yesterday I added bio balls into the filter and this morning the water is quite hazy so I presume those caused that, is it normal and how long does it take to remove that if at all?

Questions about the filter:
I was reading that the filter should do 5-10x litres per hour of turnover of the tank which is 150L and is planted with a mix of sand and aquasoil substrate. Is this true? The filter does 600L/h so is the filter not good enough for the tank or is it dependent on stock etc ?

According to the brand the bio filter shouldn't be changed for 140 and I haven't reached that amount of time yet so haven't touched it.

The chemical filtration I replaced a few days ago along with the guidelines of the brand which is Ciano and the chemical filtration is called water clear.

Sponge filters have been cleaned and readded to the filter using old tank water.

I have a pre filter sponge on to prevent fish going in it but also when I do remove that they seem to struggle a bit with the flow so I keep it on, could that be causing issues with the efficiency of the filter?

Sometimes when I restart the filter after cleaning it, it releases debris into the water.

I have noticed this morning that there is a bit of film that has started growing over one of the pieces of wood which I think is normal when the tank is new and cycling but I haven't seen that for quite a while so maybe that indicates something?

PH 6.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 5ppm

Stock - 9 Gold Barbs, 10 Rummy nose tetras, 2 Rams

Any help/ideas is appreciated, if I am missing any info needed let me know.
Thanks

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There are lots of metrics to how big a filter is sufficient.

Flow rate is one of these. You probably want to turn over the water 3 or 4 times per hour. So based on that 600 litres is sufficient. But the quoted flow rate is based on the filter being empty, with minimal head differential, and well maintained. This wont be the case. So a filter rated to turnover all the water 5 to 10 times per hour will in practice be needed to turn over the water 3 or 4 times per hour once these other factors are taken account of. This turnover is to ensure that the flow has enough power to draw in all the detritus and circulate water around the tank.

Another metric is filter capacity. An amount of media will support an amount of microbes which will in turn consume ammonia. The more volume, the more filter media it will hold, the more filter media the more ammonia it can deal with, and the more fish your tank can hold and keep the water safe. I work on 1kg of biomedia for every 100 litres of water for a fully stocked tank.

What this all comes down to is most filters are good for half their rated value. A filter rated for 100g will be good on a 50g tank. Different manufacturers are more honest about their capabilities too. Eheims ratings are more reliable than fluval for instance.

Your tank is showing no ammonia, so presumably it can handle the cycle side of things, but the flow rate doesnt serm enough to keep the water clear. The water is hazy which could be an indication that the bio filtration isnt quite cycling out the ammonia quick enough. It might still test zero, but there might be low levels hanging around to cause some bacterial bloom and hazyness. Is it a milky white hazyness or fine particles?

Never change bio media unless its falling apart. Good quality bio media should last decades. Ive never had to change biomedia.

The water clear stuff is activated carbon, and probably isnt doing anything useful. Carbon removes organic chemicals. This usually means tannins given out by driftwood and makes water a brown tea like colour. Or medication after a course of treatment has ended. And it removes phenols which cause smells. Tannins eventually leach out, medication is a short term thing and water changes will remove medication anyway. If you keep up with your water changes a tank shouldn't smell. If you arent dealing with any of these issues carbon isnt doing anything and is just a waste of money. It needs changing every 2 or 3 weeks, its expensive, and most of the time its not doing anything. Use it for its intended purpose, once its not needed any more stop using it. The manufacturers will tell you its essential just to part you with your money.
 
Plastic Bioballs won't make the water cloudy. It's most likely caused by a chemical filter media or a dirty filter. It can also be caused by the substrate, especially plant substrates.

-------------------

If you only have a few small fish like tetras in the tank, then turning the tank volume over 4 times an hour is fine. If you had big predatory fish, then you want the tank turned over more often and the same with marine fish because they live in water with a high pH and any ammonia they produce is much more toxic in the high pH. You also have to look at what fish are being kept. Tetras and gouramis come from slow moving water and don't like lots of current so having the filter turn the tank over 4 times an hour is better for those types of fish compared to a filter that turns it over 10 times an hour. There would simply be too much water movement for those fish.

-------------------

Filter media/ materials like sponges, Bioballs, ceramic rings, etc, should not be replaced unless they start to break down (fall apart). Things like carbon (black granules) and Zeolite (white granules) are not needed in aquariums and should be removed and replaced with some sponge. You can buy sponges for different brands of filter and use a pair of scissors to cut the sponge to fit in your filter.

Companies that sat you need to replace the filter media every month are ripping you off and just making you give them your money.

Don't add chemicals to the water. The only thing you want to add is a dechlorinator to new tap water if the tap water contains chlorine or chloramine. You can contact your water supply company by phone or visit their website and look for a water analysis report. It will tell you if they use chlorine or chloramine and list everything else in the water. Chlorine and chloramine are treated slightly differently so you need to know what is in the water.

If you have problems understanding the water analysis report, post it here and we can go through it for you.

-------------------

A sponge on the intake strainer won't affect the filter as long as the sponge doesn't block up and stop water getting into the filter. If you clean the sponge each week, it should never cause a problem.

If you have gunk coming out of the filter after it is turned on, then you need to clean the filter case better. You can rinse the filter case under tap water. You should also rinse out any tubes that go from the tank to the filter.

-------------------

The white slime on driftwood is usually fungus. Take the wood outside and hose the white stuff off. Then put the wood back in the tank. You might need to do this a couple of times but the wood eventually stops producing it.

Sometimes the fungus can affect fish, shrimp and snails and kill them. Unfortunately there's no way of telling if the wood has good or bad fungus growing on it. But if the fish start acting strange or start dying and the water quality is good and they don't have a disease, then take the wood out and do a 90% water change. Leave the wood out and see how the fish go over the next couple of weeks.
 
There are lots of metrics to how big a filter is sufficient.

Flow rate is one of these. You probably want to turn over the water 3 or 4 times per hour. So based on that 600 litres is sufficient. But the quoted flow rate is based on the filter being empty, with minimal head differential, and well maintained. This wont be the case. So a filter rated to turnover all the water 5 to 10 times per hour will in practice be needed to turn over the water 3 or 4 times per hour once these other factors are taken account of. This turnover is to ensure that the flow has enough power to draw in all the detritus and circulate water around the tank.

Another metric is filter capacity. An amount of media will support an amount of microbes which will in turn consume ammonia. The more volume, the more filter media it will hold, the more filter media the more ammonia it can deal with, and the more fish your tank can hold and keep the water safe. I work on 1kg of biomedia for every 100 litres of water for a fully stocked tank.

What this all comes down to is most filters are good for half their rated value. A filter rated for 100g will be good on a 50g tank. Different manufacturers are more honest about their capabilities too. Eheims ratings are more reliable than fluval for instance.

Your tank is showing no ammonia, so presumably it can handle the cycle side of things, but the flow rate doesnt serm enough to keep the water clear. The water is hazy which could be an indication that the bio filtration isnt quite cycling out the ammonia quick enough. It might still test zero, but there might be low levels hanging around to cause some bacterial bloom and hazyness. Is it a milky white hazyness or fine particles?

Never change bio media unless its falling apart. Good quality bio media should last decades. Ive never had to change biomedia.

The water clear stuff is activated carbon, and probably isnt doing anything useful. Carbon removes organic chemicals. This usually means tannins given out by driftwood and makes water a brown tea like colour. Or medication after a course of treatment has ended. And it removes phenols which cause smells. Tannins eventually leach out, medication is a short term thing and water changes will remove medication anyway. If you keep up with your water changes a tank shouldn't smell. If you arent dealing with any of these issues carbon isnt doing anything and is just a waste of money. It needs changing every 2 or 3 weeks, its expensive, and most of the time its not doing anything. Use it for its intended purpose, once its not needed any more stop using it. The manufacturers will tell you its essential just to part you with your money.

Thanks for the help so if the bio filter isn't cycling out the ammonia quick enough is it a case of just cleaning it up and rinsing with with used tank water or is there something else I should be doing with it?

It is more of a white haze across most of the tank than particles but there are some small particles floating around as well but i think those are mostly bits of debris.

Thanks for clarification on the water clear I bought it because the tank was as it is and thought that could be the issue.
 
Plastic Bioballs won't make the water cloudy. It's most likely caused by a chemical filter media or a dirty filter. It can also be caused by the substrate, especially plant substrates.

-------------------

If you only have a few small fish like tetras in the tank, then turning the tank volume over 4 times an hour is fine. If you had big predatory fish, then you want the tank turned over more often and the same with marine fish because they live in water with a high pH and any ammonia they produce is much more toxic in the high pH. You also have to look at what fish are being kept. Tetras and gouramis come from slow moving water and don't like lots of current so having the filter turn the tank over 4 times an hour is better for those types of fish compared to a filter that turns it over 10 times an hour. There would simply be too much water movement for those fish.

-------------------

Filter media/ materials like sponges, Bioballs, ceramic rings, etc, should not be replaced unless they start to break down (fall apart). Things like carbon (black granules) and Zeolite (white granules) are not needed in aquariums and should be removed and replaced with some sponge. You can buy sponges for different brands of filter and use a pair of scissors to cut the sponge to fit in your filter.

Companies that sat you need to replace the filter media every month are ripping you off and just making you give them your money.

Don't add chemicals to the water. The only thing you want to add is a dechlorinator to new tap water if the tap water contains chlorine or chloramine. You can contact your water supply company by phone or visit their website and look for a water analysis report. It will tell you if they use chlorine or chloramine and list everything else in the water. Chlorine and chloramine are treated slightly differently so you need to know what is in the water.

If you have problems understanding the water analysis report, post it here and we can go through it for you.

-------------------

A sponge on the intake strainer won't affect the filter as long as the sponge doesn't block up and stop water getting into the filter. If you clean the sponge each week, it should never cause a problem.

If you have gunk coming out of the filter after it is turned on, then you need to clean the filter case better. You can rinse the filter case under tap water. You should also rinse out any tubes that go from the tank to the filter.

-------------------

The white slime on driftwood is usually fungus. Take the wood outside and hose the white stuff off. Then put the wood back in the tank. You might need to do this a couple of times but the wood eventually stops producing it.

Sometimes the fungus can affect fish, shrimp and snails and kill them. Unfortunately there's no way of telling if the wood has good or bad fungus growing on it. But if the fish start acting strange or start dying and the water quality is good and they don't have a disease, then take the wood out and do a 90% water change. Leave the wood out and see how the fish go over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for the help also, Colin. The only things I put in the water is seachem prime when doing water changes and I was putting in leaf zone plant fertilizer once a week.

Here is an image of the water report, looks like they use chlorine.
248db2133b5f32cf5913edfdef0676b2.png


I have been removing and washing the sponge on the intake when I do water
changes each time.

I will clean out the filter again and make sure it is cleaned properly. Thanks again.
 
Thanks for the help so if the bio filter isn't cycling out the ammonia quick enough is it a case of just cleaning it up and rinsing with with used tank water or is there something else I should be doing with it?

It is more of a white haze across most of the tank than particles but there are some small particles floating around as well but i think those are mostly bits of debris.

Thanks for clarification on the water clear I bought it because the tank was as it is and thought that could be the issue.
They put things like carbon in with the filters so you will use them and then continue to use forever more. Its just a way of getting you to spend your money.

Bio filtration needs time to establish. Cleaning things wont help very much. If the hazyness is a milky cloud this is called a bacterial bloom and is normal in newly establishing tanks. It bacteria feeding on excess nutrients and growing in numbers to such an extent they are visible. They normally clear up after a week or so.

From your previous thread you was doing a fishless cycle? How did that go?

Personally i think leave things alone for a week or two and see if the cloudiness clears up. Make sure you arent over feeding, maybe skip a days feeding and see how things look with no ammonia going in for 48 hours.

What filter do have specifically? You might want to consider an airstone if you dont already have one. Denitrifying microbes need oxygenated water.
 
They put things like carbon in with the filters so you will use them and then continue to use forever more. Its just a way of getting you to spend your money.

Bio filtration needs time to establish. Cleaning things wont help very much. If the hazyness is a milky cloud this is called a bacterial bloom and is normal in newly establishing tanks. It bacteria feeding on excess nutrients and growing in numbers to such an extent they are visible. They normally clear up after a week or so.

From your previous thread you was doing a fishless cycle? How did that go?

Personally i think leave things alone for a week or two and see if the cloudiness clears up. Make sure you arent over feeding, maybe skip a days feeding and see how things look with no ammonia going in for 48 hours.

What filter do have specifically? You might want to consider an airstone if you dont already have one. Denitrifying microbes need oxygenated water.

The fishless cycle was fine, I didn't have any issues with it got to the point where the ammonia was being cleared in less than 24 hours and added fish. The water was clear, I didn't have any haze and haven't had the debris issues up until the last 10-14 days I would say. I haven't added anything different to the tank than what I was previously doing.

The filter is internal and came with the tank it is called CFBIO XL. Here is a link to the tank equipment.
https://ciano.pt/en/produto/emotions-pro-80-2/

I am also running an airstone and have been for a while. The air pump that I use is the Eheim air 400.
 
Just another question around this. If I disturb the soil in the tank is it likely to release ammonia? The way I have been trying to clean that is just using a siphon and a turkey baster by disturbing it slightly and then siphoning out what I can, but I was thinking maybe this is also causing an issue if I'm not going into the soil at all? No idea if this is true or not just a random thought that I had as I had seen somewhere in the past that aquasoil can release ammonia so wasn't sure of the context of it and didn't want to start messing with it.
 
What is the soil? A lot of these planted tank substrates arent soil based, dont contain nutrients, but are good at trapping detritus which the plants can use as nutrients.

Disturbing planted substrates can release nutrients including ammonia. Disturbing any substrate can release nutrients. Whenever i do anything that disturbs gravel or the filter my tank goes like yours for a few hours.

Just do what you are doing. Try and suck up anything that is sitting on your surface while leaving the substrate alone. Looks like you have part planted substrate and part sand so you dont want to be going into those.
 
I wouldnt vacuum into that. All you will end up with is a bucket full of muddy water and no substrate left in the tank. Same goes for the sand.

Ive heard of people attaching a chopstick to the syphon hose with an elastic band so you can swirl detritus up off the substrate so the hose can then suck it up. Don't know how well that works.
 
Ye I'm actually doing something similar but with the turkey baster, attached that to the hose with an elastic band blowing into the substrate and then sucking out what comes up basically. Another thing what came to mind is I have floating plants and some of them don't look great so if they are dying I am presuming bits of that could be floating around everywhere also so I'm going to just remove them and see how it goes going forward.
 
Just an update on this, I removed the floating plants and the wood that was growing something on it and started feeding less than I was and its already clearing up and looking a lot better than it was so something out of those has worked. Thanks all for the help.
 
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