overnight cloudy

[puffernuke]

I left my house for a few days Friday, and came home Saturday night to find my water almost cloudy enough that I cant see through it. I also noticed that there was a layer of what looks like silk on top of the sand and rocks. params fine. any ideas??

[Boxermom]

I left my house for a few days Friday, and came home Saturday

You left for a few days on Friday and came back the next day?

Bacteria bloom?

[Tihsho]

Sure its not film on the glass?

[The Fisherman]

That happend to me a really long time ago when my heater broke and overheated the tank, all the fish made it though.

sounds like whatever your tank has is different though, just thought id say this. have you checked the temp?

tisho is right, it could just be a film, maybe a nuisance algae. ( or bacteria bloom)

what color is it? on one of my old tanks, i had iridescent red "silk" covering the entire inside, turned out to be an algae bloom. alot of scraping and it eventually cycled out.

[puffernuke]

it is the water that is colored. white. the temp is normal 77 degrees to be exact. the stuff on the rocks is a tan color and is not attached to the rocks or sand at all, if I blow water on it, it blows off. like a layer of "dust"

[puffernuke]

Did a water change, helped a little, but woke up this morning and it was just as bad. GSPs are a little stressed, but doing fine.

[Phaedrus]

What was the last thing you changed in the tank before this happened? Can you touch the silt? is it gritty, squishy, powdery?

Are your filters functioning properly? Try polishing the water with some filter floss and carbon. Your filter should be removing it if it's a large enough particle.

If the water is milky, as if something is disolved in it, you should start doing some large water changes and trying to vaccuum out as much of the silt as possible.

The cloudiness sounds like bacterial bloom, but the silt sounds like something else entirely. Does anyone else have access to the tank?

[Pufferpunk]

Parameters?

[Phaedrus]

Yeah, and you be a little more specific than "fine" ? How long has the tank been set up?

[puffernuke]

1 year nitrites 0 nitrates <5, ammonia 0

filter working fine. I have not changed anything in over 3 months. and that was just adding a few large rocks, I tested the rocks by soaking them before they went into the tank and they didnt change anything.

as I said before, I did a large water change, between 50% and 75%, it helped but the cloudyness was full force the next morning. I'll see if I can enough salt left over to do another.

[Tihsho]

I have had a cloudy water issue on a tank that persisted for about a month. I got rid of the cloudyness by putting some purigen into the filter and putting some micron pads inplace of the sponge for a few weeks. The water cleared up really well (though left a little cloudyness in there.) A friend let me borrow his diatom filter and it cleared the rest of that junk up.

The thing from my tank was most likely due to it being a new tank and me using flourite (it was a white cloudy not the muddy cloudy.)

[Boxermom]

Tested the rocks by soaking them? Soaking them in what?

[Tihsho]

Also test your rocks for high calcium levels by taking them out and pouring a spoonful of vinegar on them to see if they fizzle. If the calcium levels are high it will contribute to cloudy water.

[puffernuke]

test a new rock by soaking them in a spare tank for a few week to see if it contains anything that will throw off your water.

Tested for calcium before they went into the tank and it showed none (didn't fizz)

also I touched the layer of silt on the bottom and it felt powdery

[Tihsho]

Hmmm, powdery do you say? Was the silt white? If so check around the tank for loose drywall (that is if the walls are not made out of another material.)