Cloudy water in my 100 galion fw tank.

[Lauderdale45]

My wife recently has become active in our tank care after seeing how much my 3 yo daughter loves and has learned from helping me with every aspect of caring for our tank and fish.
She decided to clean our hob filter while I was at work. I was surprised when my 3 yo met me at the door and told me they had cleaned the filter. Unfortunately she cleaned all the filter media and filter with hot tap water. (not knowing about the beneficial bacteria would be killed by strait tap water) about 2 days after she cleaned it now my once crystal clear water is cloudy. My question is could it be a bloom of bacteria since a lot of the bacteria in the filter was more than likely killed off. I checked all my levels with my test kit and they are within normal ranges. I done a 40 % pwc to try and clear it up but no luck yet. Any suggestions on what to do to clear the water up would greatly be appreciated

 

[Mark388]

It's most likely when she put the water back into the tank it displaced waste that was on the bottom. The filter should clear it up and rest settle within a day or two.

If you have another filter on the tank don't worry to much about the bacteria it will grow back fast. If you have hardy fish don't worry. If you want take some filter media from your second filter and place it in the first cleaned one. That will help it establish the bacteria faster.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

It sounds like a bacteria bloom. They can happen when something's out of whack in the tank - in this case the filter was over cleaned. Nothing you can really do except wait it out. it will clear on its own. Keep a very close eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels over the next few weeks and do a water change if it's over .25ppm.
http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/246850-bacterial-blooms-explained/

 

[Lauderdale45]

The only other filter is a under gravel filter with three power heads. She did say that when she took the filter media out a lot of brown water ran into the tank from the filter which was more than likely algae and waste from around the sponge . Should I bag up a scoop of gravel and place in the hob filter with the sponge and ceramic media?

 

[Mumma.of.two]

The hob will seed again on its own. The undergravel filter will have a large amount of bacteria growing in the gravel so assuming it working correctly you might not see any spikes.