A warning to new Aquarists...

[FlyAnglerFishKeeper]

Everything was going fine, until...

I tried to clean out my filter media so the filter would work better instead of buying a new one AND I did a deep clean on the gravel. I now have cloudy water for the first time ever.

Yesterday I read that was a no-no ( doing both of those together). Tomorrow I buy a new filter to put in next to the old one until it has some gunk on it ( alot of good bacteria is on the bio-wheel, right?) and I do PWC's for a while.

*sigh....

It was soooooo easy up until yesterday. LOL

I'm sure the fish woke up this morning and looked around like " Is it foggy in here today or just me?"

 

[Zimmanski]

Haha. It happens, keep checking your parameters and do PWC as needed and I'm sure you'll be fine. Good luck! Cloudiness should clear soon

 

[FlyAnglerFishKeeper]

Thanks Zimmer...

I just tested everything and as expected the nitrates are a tad high, but thankfully just barely - and the ammonia is a little high, but hopefully a few water changes and an additional filter pack will get it back to normal. It did kinda freak me out at first - but testing made me feel better.

To compound the "freak out" portion of this lesson, I started feeding them less than I had been on Wed. and by today they are very, very active looking for food I guess?! Every time I walk into the room, the platys all swim toward me. LOL

But after testing, I think they must just be in hungry mode, not panic mode.

 

[eduguy]

Don't change filter cartridges in your old filter. That will make it worse. Why are you buying a new filter?

 

[Zimmanski]

Haha I would say hungry mode. Little piggies haha. Seeing nitrate is a good sign though, means BB is working, but yes your ammonia is just something to keep an eye on. Side note have you tested your tap water for how much ammonia is in it? When I first started I ran into a problem where my tap water had a bunch of ammonia in it so when I was freaking out about my "ammonia spike" I did a bunch of water changes only to figure out later that I was just keeping ammonia levels up! Should have just sit back and let BB do its thing

 

[FlyAnglerFishKeeper]

Because you're supposed to change them out? Aren't you? I've got a Marineland bio wheel 150 on a 20g tank. I've had it a while, but I cycled with one fish - so I didn't change it out like i should have.

Or do you think that's not part of the problem? I thought you were supposed to change out the cartridge part every 2-4 weeks? I tried to clean it, but then - that's when the cloudy water appeared (again, with a gravel cleaning that was over due as well)

As for the changing cartridges, there's room for 2 in the unit. I was going to leave the old one and just add one. Not the right way to go?

Whatcha thinking?

 

[FlyAnglerFishKeeper]

Haha I would say hungry mode. Little piggies haha. Seeing nitrate is a good sign though, means BB is working, but yes your ammonia is just something to keep an eye on. Side note have you tested your tap water for how much ammonia is in it? When I first started I ran into a problem where my tap water had a bunch of ammonia in it so when I was freaking out about my "ammonia spike" I did a bunch of water changes only to figure out later that I was just keeping ammonia levels up! Should have just sit back and let BB do its thing

I use Prime with every pwc, dosed accordingly. Either these fish are in hungry mode, or they're panicked. I guess we'll know soon enough - even though all the readings were normal or very, very slightly abnormal. I dunno. Time will tell...and more PWC's.

 

[Zimmanski]

Because you're supposed to change them out? Aren't you? I've got a Marineland bio wheel 150 on a 20g tank. I've had it a while, but I cycled with one fish - so I didn't change it out like i should have.

Or do you think that's not part of the problem? I thought you were supposed to change out the cartridge part every 2-4 weeks? I tried to clean it, but then - that's when the cloudy water appeared (again, with a gravel cleaning that was over due as well)

As for the changing cartridges, there's room for 2 in the unit. I was going to leave the old one and just add one. Not the right way to go?

Whatcha thinking?

The awesome thing about the bio wheels is you can have multiple cartridges. Most of your Bb will be in the wheel but you should have 2 carts in there and change them out in an alternating pattern, say the front on in 2-3 months then the rear one in 3-4 months. If you only cycled with one fish there shouldn't be any need at all to change the pad yet but you can

 

[Chris7495]

Because you're supposed to change them out? Aren't you? I've got a Marineland bio wheel 150 on a 20g tank. I've had it a while, but I cycled with one fish - so I didn't change it out like i should have.

Or do you think that's not part of the problem? I thought you were supposed to change out the cartridge part every 2-4 weeks? I tried to clean it, but then - that's when the cloudy water appeared (again, with a gravel cleaning that was over due as well)

As for the changing cartridges, there's room for 2 in the unit. I was going to leave the old one and just add one. Not the right way to go?

Whatcha thinking?

He's thinking you should not waste your money on cartridges you dont need to buy. Just buy some filter floss and make your own, you can cut it too the right size and add media to it. The filters really should not be changed just cleaned in aquartium water, i usually do it when i vacum my gravel and dont have a problem.

 

[Zimmanski]

He's thinking you should not waste your money on cartridges you dont need to buy. Just buy some filter floss and make your own, you can cut it too the right size and add media to it. The filters really should not be changed just cleaned in aquartium water, i usually do it when i vacum my gravel and dont have a problem.

Actually the marineland carts are pretty cheap in my book, not as cheap as using filter floss for years but cheap for filter pads. A lot of people say just to use filter floss but I choose to still use the carts because I just can't stand having something in my tank for so long when it's purpose is to catch free floating crap haha, grosses me out. I don't change them every month like packaging says, cause that's not needed, but I replace half of my carts when they just gross me out too much. This is all the choice of the user, there's no right or wrong answer to filter pads in my mind

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Sounds like you could have thrown the tank slightly out of balance causing a bacterial bloom by changing the filter cartridge and/or the deep clean of the substrate. The cloudiness should clear on its own in a few days - weeks.
http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/246850-bacterial-blooms-explained/
This explains bacterial blooms.

Changing the filter media isn't really needed unless its falling apart. By changing it your just throwing out much needed beneficial bacteria.

 

[Lt.]

What does PWC mean

 

[Mumma.of.two]

PWC = partial water change.

 

[Zimmanski]

What does PWC mean

Partial water change

With two filter pads though its not that big of a deal to throw one out and use the other to seed a new one, and do that in an alternating pattern, I do it and works great. But yes you're right, if you only had one in, changed the pad, vacuumed the substrate and added fish it is almost definitely bacterial bloom and doing all this at one time can cause problems