Water Clarity

[bigfatfish]

I no what u mean, it does get u down, but remember it's all nature, we can try 2 recreate it, but can't control it totaly.
Like pp said it will all b ok. Maybe a good rearange of the tank+a few new shrimps will get u goin again!!
It works 4 me!! Give me a shout if I can help

Thanx chillyfish. Think today, that its looking clearer though, so fingers crossed that its the beginning of the end of cloudy water.

[Chillyfish]

lets hope so

[bigfatfish]

Woo Hoo! I can see the back of the tank today. It has taken 8 weeks for this bacterial bloom to clear - well, it will probably be another week or so before it is properly clear. Been changing out the fine filter floss on a daily basis as advised by a couple of people on here (PP, where is RTR??) & it is finally working. Maybe it would have cleared on its own - who knows. Just pleased that its all looking a little better & thought I'd share!

[Nick]

I believe that the floss helps you deal with the tank along the way, and advertises a bit early the coming clear, rather than just the "poof, clear" after a water change, as has happened to me.

[J-P]

does the floss turn beige / brown rather quickly?

[Nick]

Annoyingly, when I have white bacterial blooms it doesn't color the floss much at ALL, maybe a light gray. I wonder if his turned or not?

[bigfatfish]

Annoyingly, when I have white bacterial blooms it doesn't color the floss much at ALL, maybe a light gray. I wonder if his turned or not?

HERS! turned slightly grey/green some days, but mostly nothing to see.

[J-P]

if there is nothing to see you can slow down the swaping to maybe 2x a week. Keep an eye in it. Sorry I hadn't been following the thread straight through. If it is indeed a bacterial bloom (whitish?) then it will not be noticed on white floss, and I doubt that the floss will do much at all. When we origionally posted about the floss we were talking hazy water and not bacterial bloom.

The bacterial bloom should leave eventually and the tank matures.

Gray green is good because it is helping to eliminate some of the debris floating in the tank

[bigfatfish]

Oh no, I'm having to re-open this thread!
Having got through the bacterial bloom & had lovely clear water for several weeks now, I hope it is not coming back again? I noticed that there was a "film" on the surface of the water initially, so I re-directed the flow from the filters to agitate the surface more, in the hope that if it was particles of debris, then it would get filtered out. This has not worked & the film is still there.(to try & describe it - it is a goldy/brownish colour & when you put your finger in the tank, it sort of breaks the film up a bit?) Now I notice that the tank has a hazy look again.
Just to remind you, I have:
55 UK gallon BW tank with 2 small GSPs (& about 8 ghost shrimp).
I have a Fluval 305 External & a Fluval U4 Internal Filter
Amm/nitrite both zero & nitrate 10.
SG 1.014/15
I do 40-50% water changes weekly (religiously!) & change the fine filter floss twice weekly (it was daily when I had the bloom)

Any bright ideas?

[J-P]

did that film look like an oil floating on the surface? Kind of multi colored when the light shone on it?

if so, that is a film produced by the protein breakdown of the food (also dumping the thawed food in there without straining / rinsing it first). I invested in a skimmer and that solved the problem rather quickly. Currently I have that problem because my plant growth inhibits the surface agitation (time to trim .. when I get a chance).

I have a feeling that the problem lies in the fact that most filters don't draw that top %5 of the water down to where the current is. It just pushes it around.

[bigfatfish]

You might have something there J-P. Now I think about it, this started when I started feeding snails from the local beach, that had been frozen & thawed. The shells are very hard, so I crush them a little - this must leave alot of residue in the tank. I will try rinsing or crushing them on absorbent kitchen towel to soak up any excess liquid.

[Pufferpunk]

RTR is having some sight issues.

library/water-filtration/aquariummicrobespart2/

[Lil' Swimz$]

It could be a protein build-up. Increased agitation will help.

But I've also heard of a type of cynobacteria that produces the film as a waste?

[bigfatfish]

Well, the film on the top of the water has gone since I pointed the filter towards the surface. Just left with the cloudy tank again.

[J-P]

you know what to do

water change and diatom