HagenKB

Cloudy Water

I have a 55 US gallon tank, never had a problem before till I have to move to a new house. Now the water is cloudy, all the tests I have run show normal. The pet store we deal with recommended something called P clear (particulate water clarifier) by Nutr

I have a 55 US gallon tank, never had a problem before till I have to move to a new house. Now the water is cloudy, all the tests I have run show normal. The pet store we deal with recommended something called P clear (particulate water clarifier) by Nutr
The first action is to identify the type of cloud, usually by colour.

I am guessing that the cloud looks like someone poured a glass of milk into the aquarium leaving a whitish cloud. I will discuss this later. Another type of cloud would be green in colour and is caused by a bloom of single celled plants called algae. This is normally the result of an extremely bright room where the sun can strike the aquarium, since P-Clear did not work, I am guessing this is not the case.

The milky cloud is normally caused by an explosion in the population of heterotrophic bacteria in the water column. This is often the result of excess organic materials becoming dissolved in the water and promoting an explosion of fast replicating bacteria in the water column. The density becomes so heavy that you can see the bacteria as a milky cloud by the naked eye. Organic compounds can be dissolved in the tap water that you add to the tank in the beginning. Usually this phenomenon occurs about three days after setting up the aquarium form new water and is a result of the municipal water plant delivering water high in organic compounds dissolved in the water. When the water is dechlorinated, these organic nutrients allow bacteria to explode in growth because they have all the food and more than they need to develop.

A second way that excess organics can become available to these bacteria later in the aquarium life cycle is from overfeeding with excess food being left to rot on a regular basis. The same problem occurs, but the tank is past the three day age.

We have a bacterial preparation that goes into competition with the suspended bacteria called B-Clear, it is not immediate, but it will tend to remove the nutrient source from the water and force the bacteria to die off over time. P-Clear is a flocculent that is able to clump particles such as algae cells together into bigger lumps that is easier to remove by filtration, bacteria do not clump the same way and are often quite invulnerable to flocculates. The B-Clear works by eating the same nutrients that the heterotrophic bacteria in the water column eat, and tend to clean up wastes and sludge accumulating on the bottom before they become dissolved for the bacteria in the aquarium water to eat.

I tend to not treat this problem, rather to go for the actual cause, which is nutritionally dependent. In either case, from new water to overfeeding, I suggest stopping the feeding routine for three days. This allows the bacteria time to start to eat away the reserves dissolved in the water and force the population to peak and slowly die off. They are natural in any body of water and are never completely gone, but the visible cloud readily reduces to a density that is completely invisible to the eye and is quite normal. Once the three day catch up period is over, I suggest feeding fish once a day as much as they can eat with nothing hitting the bottom. I do realize this might seem extreme, but remember that fish are poikilothermic - cold blooded - and use much less energy than we need to heat our bodies internally. If the fish are fed the way we eat, and in the same quantities, the fish will not get all the food and it will rot - that is the cause of later clouds in many established aquarium systems.

B-Clear will work on wasted food and other biological materials, decaying them to their most basic components and reduce the ability for things to dissolve onto the water itself. They incorporate these nutrients into their biomass and prevent them form being available for bacteria in the water. B-Clear's bacteria are not suspended, they create colonies on the hard surfaces of the aquarium and cannot cloud water. This is a slow but relatively sure way to ensure the suspended bacteria are kept in check

By doing 1/2 water changes, if the source of the food was from the actual water supply, changing the water that much would tend to dilute them initially as they are physically removed from the aquarium, but the dissolved nutrients in the water would tend to promote the repopulation much faster, so water changes may be actually part of the problem here. I would ensure that the water stays the same through the three day fast and see if the water begins to clarify when no further additives are entering. There is no guarantee that the bacteria will clear out that fast,, but the amount of nutrients available should be much less and the peak should be over. Assuming rational feeding afterwards, the cloud should slowly but surely reduce after that. As mentioned previously, B-Clear will help speed the process somewhat by reducing new nutrients entering the water solution.

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