# cloudy water, somewhat



## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Hey guys and girls,
This isn't so much an emergency as much as a problem i cant seem to get rid of.
My water is hazy i guess you would say. So give an idea i have a fake mopani tree in the tank and it gives off an aura. Its tannish white and gives the tannish white aura off it. This has been happening for the last month or so.
I do weekly water changes, clean the algae off the glass, clean the gravel just to disturb the algae growing, as i have plants.
My water tests yesterday came up with 0 ammonia or at least not readable, 0 nitrites and about 10ppm nitrates. Ph is about 7.6 and water temp is around 76-78*. It seems i clean the tank, about 2-3 days later the algae starts growing on the glass and starts making the tank look gross. After cleaning it yesterday i still get the hazy water.
Some background...the tank gets hit by full sunlight now due to the sunrise and different area of rising and is hit by full sun for about 1/2 hour. I have 40 watts of lighting and also have DIY CO2. I don't overfeed if anything its just enough or underfeeding as somedays are skipped from feeding.
When i clean the tank i leave the filter (penguin 330) untouched for about a month before i clean the slime away inside and as for the filter it is just the polyfil and i take that out, rinse it in the removed tank water and put it back so this polyfil is about 1-1.5 months old. I used to have the brown algae but now that the tank is 9 months old the green algae has started and i know that is the process of a tan kand im cool with thaty but just want my water it self the way it used to be, which was basically crystal clear.

Any ideas?


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## werebat (Jan 27, 2012)

I would try adding carbon in the two pockets in the back of the penguin 330. See if that helps. I have a 330 and a 250 HOT on my 75gal. I love those back pockets on the 330.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

I have gravel in the back pockets right now. I have it in there for extra beneficial bacteria. Maybe i can remove one and add carbon to it. 
JCC, yea i have an inline counter that captures all the junk that may pass from the bottles. Ill try the feeding to and ad less each time i do. I just dont know anything else that may cause it.


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## ocsnapper (Jul 7, 2011)

I had clouding myself for a wail tried lots of things, then I installed a UV light and with in a week the water became crystal clear. Don't know if this will work for you but it did for me.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Another thing i noticed. I f i look thru the tank the long way (20 gal--24 inches thru) the water looks green so maybe im looking at green water. The thing is i did almost a 75% WC yesterday to see if i could get rid of whatever is in there, but it is all green again but nothing on the glass so its in the water. I guess i could do a lights off for a few days...?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

You will have that problem as long as the sun is hitting it. Sounds just like green water. Either a uv filter or a 4 day blackout will get rid of it, but it won't stay gone as long as your are getting sunshine on it.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

i thought it was just a cloudiness and then looking at it last night with the lights out it had that green to it. I have a blanket on the tank now to stop the sun. Should i keep it on all day or just when sun will hit it. Also should i stop feeding and if so for how long. Summer is coming and i will get more sun so i will have to block the sun for the time it would be hit. Happened last summer but the tank was so new it didnt effect really.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

should i pull some of my plants. I have a dwarf lily, aponogetons, horn-wort and water wisteria. I know the black out is not good for plants so would pulling them and putting them in another tank be overkill or a good idea


Edit: Was looking up UV sterilizers. Would this help too? Correct me if im wrong on it working but it passes water by an UV light (duh) and that kill that algae.? Once thru it has less and less to kill until it is all clear. DO you leave these in all the time? Also does it only help for green water or does it also help on other types of algae that grow on glass, rocks, substrate and plants?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

It will help and with the situation of the window you would need to run it all the time and run through a lot of bulbs which are expensive.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

unfortunately its in the dining room which has a row of windows across from it and i half circle window to the left of it up higher which gets sun after the row of windows. What i might do is put a curtain up on the half circle and then cover it every night so it doesn't get hit in the morning. That would void it of any sunlight then the UV i could use if i see the water looking bad. So what your saying is running the UV 24/7 is not the norm?


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

ok here goes then i post back say, Sunday


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

ok so i took off the black trash bag just hoping to see crystal clear water and nada. A little better but not what i expected. All the fish seem to be ok some plant leaves dead and a lot of dead remnants but the water is only a little better. I ll do a WC (what % do you guys recommend). I thought it would look great but again looking length wise it still is hazy cloudy. Now what are my other courses of action?

It looks like it killed some of the algae on the gravel and on the plants. The plants although leaves are rotted or gone the live one look like the algae died off of it and are nice green again. So something good did come out of it but the main problem still persists...


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Ok so i just did a WC of a little more than 50%. I cut and removed all the dead stuff which makes the tank look almost bare now.. The water does look a lot better but still not perfect but definitely clearer. Water was pretty close in temp and all is running again. I made a cover to cover that tank sides. It will cover the whole front, the left side and half the right side out of card board so i can cover it when i go to bed so the sun doesnt get it at sunrise and for the mid day period in the half window. Should i start the lights again or let the natural indirect light be it for now? Also feed them sparingly before the WC too


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

15 minutes now after the WC and and the water looks almost, almost close to what it used to be. Hoping some more time will help it be even better (fingers crossed)


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

so its been a day and it looks good straight on but length wise still could be clearer. One thing i was curious on. Would having CO2 help rid the murky water. My explanation of the ? is this. Having plants they need the co2 and need to out compete the algae. My CO2 has been acting weird. I used to get tons of fine fine bubbles but it seems my last mixture was not good cause even a week in the bubbles are like the co2 is at the end of the road. I use 2 3l bottles tied to one line going into the tank. Would having the 20 gal with 56 watts total and the co2 not pushing what it should make the algae just take over, whether it is green water algae or algae on the glass or plants. Im gonna get some more sugar, maybe even brown sugar and redo my recipe. I think ill just take a good 2l mixture and multiply everything by 1.5....


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

i think i have conquered the sunlight issue. Some cardboard box cut up to cover the glass at the sun time and only now it gets light from the room and lights themselves. I just need to figure how to clean this water. My only other option is a uv light i think..


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Why so much lighting? I have 1-24W T5HO on my 20g and my plants go crazy. Of course they aren't demanding plants. If you're unsure if it is green water and you have the outdoor blocked (a mild case) you could probably just reduce your lighting to just a few hours at most per day and it would have an effect.

The CO2 will help keep algae off of the plants maybe, but I don't see it doing much else for the tank.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

i had it getting 20 watts previously (1w/gal) and they did good. I had before about 3.5 w/ gal and they did awesome but the algae was coming quick. SO i did the 20 watts and it was good so i upped it to the 2+ w/gal and wanted to see what it did. It def made a difference in growth and color. But i think it brought along with it the algae again. I may just decrease the time from 8 hrs to about 5 and see how that works.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

This is T8 lighting?


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

no its those spiral cfl's mine is. 
On a side not i redid my co2 and used brown sugar instead of white. Within 2 hrs im starting to get bubble. i have to wait overnight usually with white sugar to see anything happen. I like the brown so far...


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

well its coming back. I have noticed since it got better looking the other day the water is slowly getting green again. This morning it looks like it is just gonna go the same route as it was. Im really not looking to do another BO as it seems the first one didnt do the job and it was BO'd for 5 days as well. Any other suggestions..?


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

would you recommend a uv sterilizer or the powder stuff or stay away from all that


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

what other things can i check for to see what is causing this. I figure ill do another WC tomorrow. What other type of things can i do along with the WC to help beat this.


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Well after the water change on the 15th which i did at about 70-80% the green water is back. Really getting annoyed as i can usually solve these problems quick but this has got me boggled. I really dont want ot do a BO again as my wife gives the.." you always have problems get rid of it" ..which i dont always have problems. But i need to figure this out. I had removed the poly fill and put new stuff in as it was over a month old and wanted to keep the beneficial bacteria. So it stayed "clearer" longer which wasnt really clear by the meaning. Would doing daily or every other day WC and filter changes help at all.....ugh


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