# New substrate, cloudy water.



## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

In my 55gal, i had gravel, then i had play sand and now i have gravel again.. I decided the sand was what was making the water cloudy and also was a pain to keep clean and decided to go back to regular gravel, to see if it helped with the cloudy water.. Sand was rinsed, gravel was rinsed and then an hour after, we did a 50% water change both times. I thought maybe to give it a couple days and see if it settled. We did it Saturday and it is now Tuesday and it looks exactly the same. Any ideas on how i could fix the problem? Everytime i clean my saltwater it gets a bit cloudy, but the darn thing looks so freakin clear all the time, no one even pays attention to that cloudy tank over there


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Sounds like you may be getting a bacterial bloom. Did you change anything in the filter? Or cleaned it to good, causing a mini cycle?


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

I put new media in the filter to try to get rid of the cloudy water.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

Does anyone else want to help me out with this, tank is still cloudy...


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## aquaman (Feb 16, 2009)

I think you messed up the your cycle. New Gravel +clean filters with no BIO-media = problems. What are your water peramiters?. Keep doing daily water changes 20% and add some gravel from an old friends tank to help kick the process off again. Good Luck


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

Sounds like mini cycle to me as well with you changing out both the gravel and the media at the same time. A little late now but you could have left the old media floating in the tank during the process.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

i have a charcoal canister and i kept some of the old stuff and mixed it with new stuff. water parms are good, so i guess mini cycle is what it is...i guess i just wait


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## aquaman (Feb 16, 2009)

Nicole85 said:


> i have a charcoal canister and i kept some of the old stuff and mixed it with new stuff. water parms are good, so i guess mini cycle is what it is...i guess i just wait


That shoud help & if you got an old filter. Let it soak in a stocking in the tank.


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## aquaman (Feb 16, 2009)

Nicole85 said:


> i have a charcoal canister and i kept some of the old stuff and mixed it with new stuff. water parms are good, so i guess mini cycle is what it is...i guess i just wait


That shoud help & if you got an old filter let it soak in a stocking in the tank.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

UPDATE: I waited and waited and waited some more, but no amount of patience was helping.... so we took the tank down, with the fish in a bucket and cleaned everything and put in new water... the result, well worth the work... oh and we are trying out live plants.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

Ok, so the cloudiness is coming back, my boyfriend said maybe some sand got into the canister filter and messed up the impeller, is this waht could be causing the cloudy water, should i spend the $30 to replace it? Any advice would be good!!


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

I did some research and found that is might be exactly what my problem is, so i'm going to give it a try, stay tuned


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

ok....so here's what we got......you broke the tank down, cleaned everything and then filled it back up. No problem there. However....in doing so, you have also eliminated your BB (beneficial bacteria). Once again, your tank is going through a cycle since there are no BB in there to munch on the goodies. The cloudiness is a result of this. The BB is just trying to catch up with your stocking levels. Patience needs to be stressed here so it can catch up. If not, each and every time you do this, whether it be swapping out media, substrate or such, you're only setting back the tank.


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## aquaman (Feb 16, 2009)

You should have not broke the tank down to clean. Even though this is a quick fix to the cloudy water, after a few days the water will return cloudy. All you really did was kill off the remaining BB. Now you have to let the hole tank cycle again.


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## spawn (Sep 21, 2009)

do a parial water change of 40% unless it becomes clear...


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

Nicole:

tank looks awesome above.

Kill the lights and stop adding food until it clears. (usually 2-3 days but can be a week or so). Then continue with less duration lighting and less feeding.

FWIW I have some coudiness in most the FW tanks I setup and have to do the above. Sometimes it just takes time for the system to balance out so it stays clear. 


my .02


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

beaslbob said:


> Nicole:
> 
> tank looks awesome above.
> 
> Kill the lights and stop adding food until it clears. (usually 2-3 days but can be a week or so). Then continue with less duration lighting and less feeding.


This is a bacterial bloom not an algae bloom. *#3


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

James0816 said:


> This is a bacterial bloom not an algae bloom. *#3


killing the lights and stopping feeding will clear up that tank even if it is a bacterial bloom.

my .02


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

OK my filter was broken, i had given my old HOB filter to my mom, when we bought the canister filter originally, she had since bought a better one.... we got new media for it and no more than 5 minutes after it started the tank went back to crystal, crystal clear... i need a new impeller for my Marineland Magnum 350 Pro, but it's $30 plus shipping, i am going to run this one till i have some extra money... thanks for all your help anyway!


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

I love this tank so much but tim says why not just do another saltwater


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## BlueSaphire (Nov 3, 2009)

Hope everything works out! being a betta keeper I don't have alot of expereience with filter or community tanks so i'm afraid I am no helo LOL.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

beaslbob said:


> Nicole:
> 
> tank looks awesome above.
> 
> ...



Ok so i tried everything, and forgot to check back here. I am now going to try your idea, i have not taken the tank down since this last time, and the tank is still cloudy, it cannot be my tank still trying to cycle, this has been months... so i am going to try to go lights out and no food for a couple days and see if this works.


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## cmarti (Feb 26, 2010)

If you're using cheap flake food it will cloud your tank too. I found that out the hard way.. 

I was using some tetracolor walmart brand tropical flake food and the water clouded up. I switched to aqueon tropical flakes, also cost a bit more, but it doesn't cloud the water up. On the back of the package of aqueon it says that it won't cloud water when fish are fed as directed. I also have a couple of catfish that keep the bottom of the tank pretty clean.

So even though this cleared my tank up I switch between flakes and blood worms each day.


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## Nicole85 (Aug 17, 2009)

cmarti said:


> If you're using cheap flake food it will cloud your tank too. I found that out the hard way..
> 
> I was using some tetracolor walmart brand tropical flake food and the water clouded up. I switched to aqueon tropical flakes, also cost a bit more, but it doesn't cloud the water up. On the back of the package of aqueon it says that it won't cloud water when fish are fed as directed. I also have a couple of catfish that keep the bottom of the tank pretty clean.
> 
> So even though this cleared my tank up I switch between flakes and blood worms each day.


wow i never even thought of that, and those are exactly the kind i use! OK, going to the fish store ASAP, THANKS!


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## cmarti (Feb 26, 2010)

No prob...


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