Cloudy water

[smartin78]

I have a friend that I have been trying to help cure a cloudy fish tank. It is a milky white. Everything that I have been reading states this is a bacterial bloom. I have trouble believing that because it has been like this for almost a year.

His setup
29G

PH Near 8.0
ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate (not sure I have asked him to measure this for me)
I am sure it is pretty low because he does weekly 25% changes

1 female severum
1 pleco
2 bleeding heart tetras.

Filtration
UGF with powerheads
HOB not sure what it is rated at but I do remember it was more than what was needed for his tank.

When he does water changes he only vacs half the gravel at a time and he rinses his filter bag in the dirty tank water as not to kill the bacteria. He recently added clay media to his HOB and also put it in the tubes of the UGF so there is more place for the bacteria.

He has tried this chemical that is suppose to clear the water up. He say it initially makes the water more cloudy then after a day or two it goes back to how it was before he added the chemicals.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

[Julie]

Ask him to test for Phosphate and test the source water for all parameters. Anything else he adds in..anything adding bacteria, Cycle products or such and what kind of water conditioner?

[TheOldSalt]

Well, if it's milky white after a year, then yes, we can probably rule out bacterial bloom.

It sounds to me like he used something in the tank that he really shouldn't have, like clay or crushed coral or something. He could also be experiencing mineral precipitation due to something really funky going on with his water chemistry. That pH of 8 is suspicious. What kind of gravel/substrate is he using?

The stuff he's using to try to clear the water..what it is exactly? There is one product called Geo-liquid which works very well, but it really hard to find anymore.

I have a feeling that simply using bottled water instead of tapwater will go a long way toward fixing this problem, provided the gravel or filter media isn't to blame. It's 58 cents a gallon at WalMart.

[smartin78]

He has the same water source I do but I am not sure what the phosphates are and neither of us have a test for that. I am getting into the Marine hobby so I will probably need to get one for that anyway so I guess it is time to purchase it. I would think if it was phosphates he would have an algae bloom though and as far as I can tell he has little to no algae.

The only thing he treats his water with is a chlorine/chloramine remover. I am not sure which brand though. As I stated earlier he has tried some kind of water clarifier but I recommend that he does not use that. I also recommended that he add some plants but with his lighting he is very limited. We are not sure but I am guesing he has a 20w flourescent bulb. I have some hornwort that I planned on giving him but I am battling some nasty ick in my tank so I told him to hold off on getting that from me. I do have a planted tank that I could give him some plants from but the plants in that tank that are ready for clipping require a higher light wpg than he can provide at this point.

[guppycat]

I had a cloudy water problem awhile back. we have well water here. but I realized I was doing water changes too often, and even white chlky particals were floating throughout my tank. so I changed the whole tank cleaned it entirely, then cut down on water changes.I have not had a problem with the cloudiness yet.

[Damon]

I'm leaning towards the UGF working much harder than the HOB. Sounds like a bacterial bloom then dieoff and repeat.

[smartin78]

Can you explain what you mean by that Simpte and how to fix the problem. Let me explain how his UGF is setup now. It was originally run by airflow. Basically a bubbler in each tube. When I pulled the UGF out of my tank a couple of months ago I gave him one of my powerheads. So he now has a powerhead on one side and a bubbler on the other. He recently packed the tubes with the clay filter media made by proquatics in an attempt to allow more surface area for the bacteria.

[flynngriff]

I'm not positive on this, but I believe you have to have equal pressure on both sides of an ugf for it to function properly. Having a powerhead on one side and an airstone on the other will likely cause problems. Powerheads are usually much stronger than air bubbles, so the water is probably being drawn down the air bubble tube and out the powerhead tube, instead of being drawn through the gravel as it should be.

I don't know if this could cause the clowdy water somehow, but I do believe this is a problem. It's probably throwing off you water flow, which could definitely affect your bacteria growth.

It might not actually be a major issue, but this would be the first thing I'd change.

[guppycat]

I have airstones for my UGF. that probably is the best way to go. I also have a aquaclear power filter. for good water movement. they work exceptional together. placing BOGwood in the tank keeps the PH balance good too.I have had guppies last up to 4 years with this filtering system.

[smartin78]

That makes perfect sence I never thought of it that way. I am sure that powerhead is out competing the bubbles. The cloudy water did start long before the UGF was done this way but this is certainly not helping the situation. Would you guys recommend pulling the UGF and throughly cleaning the gravel or should he fix the flow of his UGF. Is the a way to positivly identify the cloudiness as bacteria vs minerals or something else. I know he did a KH and GH test which he reported was higher than he expected but still in an acceptable range. I honestly do not know what the results were but if I remember correctly they were very close to mine.

[guppycat]

I wouldnt pull the UGF but its your choice. the cloudy water could also be calcium deposit problem . but thats hard to say also. I know when it happened to me I had to clean the entire tank and wash everything. but that could be too much stress on fish.

[smartin78]

This tank originally belonged to his brother. He just mentioned to me that when his brother did water changes he used old milk jugs. He thinks the milk jugs may not have been totally cleaned out and that is causing the problems. I tend to agree with this point.

[buddah101]

I would say that the water being forced through the clay substrate is causing it to rub together constantly causing very fine dust to be re deposited by the uplift tubes on that UGF. Get rid of that and buy an Aqua Clear 500 and you will be in buisness.

[Scuba Kid]

i dont think the milky white substance is LITERALLY milk

[LeafGoblinFish]

i would have to agree with scuba kid unles you are still using just emptied milk jugs that havent been rinsed out depositories of milk would only leave a small portion of ickyness on the tank or possibly a cloudyness that would effect an area of about 6sq in IF YOUR LUCKY i would try a %25 water change with some treated bottled water instead of tap and see if the cloudyness clears a little

[fishfreaks]

im agreeing with leafgoblinfish. using bottled water sounds like a good suggestion to me..