The Puffer Forum

how are you applying the floss?

I wrap my intake with it and sometimes remove some mechanical filter media ans swap it out for floss also. Change that pretty much every other day and it is reasonably clear in 1 week.

But that was before I got my diatom filters no going back now

Bacterial blooms are iffy for anybody to deal with. You never know what will help and what willmake it worse. If you have any spare filtration (mechanical only) such as Quick-filters or such, they can pull some of it out if rinsed very frequently - daily at least. If it is captured by the filter and rinsed away, it at least gets that much biomass out. That reduces the total load on the tank by at least that much. That process is my usual technic, if I don't just ride it out.

I don't really mind just riding it out - just as long as I know it will get better!

JP - I pack the floss fairly tightly in the second part of the filter. First there is spongey stuff to collect the larger particles.

Should I rinse it daily in tank water or change it completely each time do you think?

I made the rinse mistake and it clogged. Swap it out

It's so cheap, just replace it. With filter floss, the denser you compact it, the more it filters out. When I was using antique floss only filters, you had to make many layers of floss, some so teased out it looked like spider web, some barely transparent, and a fairly dense top layer to get the fine stuff. It was almost an art getting it right. In this case, you want just a dense layer, trapping the TINIEST particles.

bigfatfish wrote:Well, tank still cloudy. All readings are perfect. Have tested for phosphate now, & that is 0.5. Don't know what else to test for? Maybe I should just assume it is a bacteria bloom & it will eventually clear. I hope I don't get any visitors, cos the tank looks awful!

im just passin, any chance of seein ur tank
jokin, thats realy wierd though, as u no i had the same brown algue prob a while bac which has all setteled down now
but gues wat, i now have a realy bright green carpet over everything!!! bogwood rocks just green!
does anyone no if algues are affeted by outside weather conditions / times of year / or generally wats in the air or water??
as bigfatfish + i live fairly close 2gether, just seems funny we both get the same prob at the same time?

I've seen two types of "carpet" algae. One is Blue Green Algae (actually bacterial in nature) which can be nuked with antibiotics, if you are careful not to crash your tank. It's a very radiant light green and translucent.

I also had a dark green, more substantial carpet algae that was a real algae, gloppy but not nearly so translucent. Otos LOVED it, because it was so soft and easy to nom.

Yesterday I thought the tank was clearing a little after I did a water change, but today its as bad as ever - really cloudy. I have been changing the fine filter floss daily as was advised. Doing small (3 gallon) changes/per day & hoovering gravel. Normal big water change weekly, also hoovering gravel. Amm/nitrite 0, nitrate <10, phos 0.25, SG 1.012. Fish both doing fine, no signs of stress. Few ghost shrimp in there also doing fine.
Is this something I just have to wait out? Still appreciate any suggestions.

I had it happen to two tanks. Took about 6 weeks to go away.

Nick wrote:I had it happen to two tanks. Took about 6 weeks to go away.

Then I am in good company & I will wait it out!

Its been just over a month since this cloudiness started & its still going strong! Some days I think it looks better, then back to square one. We came to the conclusion that it is probably a bacterial bloom. I buy filter floss/cushion stuffing in bulk because I change it every day as instructed. Flash & Luigi are fine (& growing daily it seems!), so I really am sure that the general water quality is good. Amm/nitrite 0, nitrate 5-10 as they have always been.
Just feeling low that it still looks so horrible! Can't even be bothered to arrange the decs etc nicely. I'm having a fish tank depression!!

One day, you'll wake up & it'll be crystal clear.

Pufferpunk wrote:One day, you'll wake up & it'll be crystal clear.

Well, roll on that day!

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

i was just thinkin, iv got a nutrafin master test kit which does around ten diff tests, calcium etc,
u can borrow that if ya like just 2 see if it sheds any more light on the situation?
or have u changed ur salt recently? or gettin 2 the end of the bucket?