Considering tearing down/restarting existing 10g, Advice?

[Epicenter]

I'm encountering some odd clouding issues with my new 10g that seem to crop up everyday even with daily 50% water changes, I'm not thrilled with my gravel selection now that I am opting for heavily planting this tank, and am thinking that tearing down the tank, removing the fish, refilling it with a better substrate for plant growth, putting in my plants and some new ones and then adding the fish again. A fresh slate approach seems like the best one since it seems like my pH/Ammonia levels are kind of screwed up and not recovering easily.

Current fish in the tank are 6 guppies, 1 betta and 5 zebra danios, also about 8 ghost shrimp. The tank has a pretty powerful filter, one I think meant for 20g's, even...

I wonder though what is the best order to be doing this in, how should I be treating the water (I was using Aquasafe with tap water, and letting it sit for a few hours during water changes; original filling was all tap water + aquasafe, with the heater running and filter going with no cartridge to circulate it for ~12 hours. Are there special considerations I need to be making for plants? In particular I'd like to at least have some short grass-like plants growing on the bottom of the tank as a source of protection for guppy fry and/or danio eggs should they decide to reproduce, it also looks fantastic that way, as well as some leafy taller greenery.

I'd like to promote the natural nitrogen cycle as best I can but my resources/space are limited and I can't really be buying fish to cycle the tank only. I wonder if I can do fishless cycling with the water from my existing tank somehow? I'd also like to minimize setup time and time the fish are out of the aquarium as I do not really have a good place to keep them in the meantime besides a pitcher, some glasses or my sink! I don't think they will be terribly happy with the accomodations. (I wouldn't be.)

I realize this is a VERY broad post, pardon my slight noobishness on the more advanced aspects (planting, cycling) as I've always just operated my tanks by treating the water, adding the fish and filtering the water, and never run into any clouding/ammonia issues even with higher concentrations of fish. Not as much luck this time though. So, any scattered advice anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated-- substrate type, order of setup, water treatment methods, rate/order of adding fish, cycling in the least amount of time, so forth. Thanks.

 

[maxwell1295]

Has this tank been cycled?

How long has it been established?

What color is the clouding?

What are you water parameters? pH? Ammonia? Nitrite? Nitrate?

What kind of lighting do you have?

What filter are you using?

BTW, you do realize that you probably have too many fish for a 10 gallon tank, especially if you have male and female guppies. Also, keeping a male Betta with guppies might not be the best thing...

 

[Epicenter]

It hasn't been cycled due to lack of resources, e.g. I can't be going out and buying mollies I won't be keeping in the tank. I didn't honestly assume it would be that crucial (never needed to cycle a tank before for success really) so I wasn't able to justify spending weeks playing with ammonia, strange Japanese-printed containers of mystery bacteria and test kits. You'll probably think poorly of me for that, but that's just an unbelievable amount of work/money spent for a 10g tank, not a 100g one.

It's been running about 2 weeks.

The clouding is white. While not severe, it waxes and wanes erratically.

pH bounces between 7 and 8. Ammonia, Nitrate/Nitrite I can only give ballpark figures since I have test strip sets. I'd use a liquid test kit, but all local pet stores are Japanese and their packaging is unreadable (to me anyway). Nitrates/Nitrites measure as 'Safe' while Ammonia measures between 'Safe' and 'Stress'.

Lighting was 2 25w Incandescent bulbs. I just changed to 1 flourscent tube, though I will be changing that to a different hood with 2 such bulbs, as this one does not fit correctly.

The filter is a Tetra model, non-biowheel, that hangs off the tank. The number of the model is '45', which is in a system I am unable to righly identify-- cubic centimeters or some other such strangeness. If I had to compare to US sizes, I'd estimate this filter was made for a 10g tank and the '60' model was made for a 20g+. Maybe I should upgrade to that model? I sort of doubt it since the filter cartridges rarely become brown and visibly dirty. I've been changing them about once a week so far.

I'm basically imitating the fish from a previous tank I had that was successful (which had a lot of baby guppies as well). I didn't have any clouding or ammonia issues in that tank. As for the Betta and guppies, I've been cautioned about that before, but have never encountered an issue in the past. The bettas generally just seem to establish a territory and he leaves the guppies alone/they leave him alone. Haven't observed any fin-nipping behavior. The only issue is I need to feed him separately since the guppies/danios will happily eat the betta food.

 

[Purrbox]

Okay. The clouding issues that you are seeing are the result of a bacterial bloom. Since your tank hasn't finished cycling yet (two weeks isn't enough without jump starting the tank using established filter material or the like) and your tank is overstocked, your bio filter is racing to try to catch up. Keep up the water changes if they are necessary to keep your Ammonia and Nitrite levels below 1ppm, which I suspect they are with that high of a bioload. In time the bacteria will find it's way into your filter (as well as the other surfaces of your tank) and you'll cease to have clouding issues. Also you need to stop changing the filter cartridge until your tank has finished cycling. Each time you change it you are effectively throwing away a major chunk of your biofilter. In the future you'll want to run a new filter cartridge with the old one for a few weeks before throwing out the old one so that the bacteria can get established on the new cartridge.

In the past you did cycle your tank, you just didn't monitor it and got lucky that it went smoothly. You can cycle with fish that you want to keep, the key is to stock slowly and start with the fish that aren't highly sensitive. Even better is to plant heavily from the start and do a silent cycle. With the high plant mass and slowly increasing bioload it's possible to completely avoid the Ammonia and Nitrite spikes.

Wait until after your tank has finished cycling to upgrade the lighting and add plants. With such a high bioload, you undoubtably have high Ammonia levels which would just fuel a major algae outbreak if you were to increase the lighting right now.

As for substrates EcoComplete and Aquasoil seem to big the most popular. You could also stick with a fine gravel or a course sand. There are lots of other options out there, but I'm not sure what would be available in Japan. If you read the link on Substrates in the Sticky at the top of the forum you'll find lots of great information on substrates.

 

[7Enigma]

I would get a bunch of plants now. I would not increase the lighting, but would add the plants. They will have the beneficial bacteria on them, as well as being able to use some of the ammonia being produced. I think you might get an algae outbreak in either case.