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cloudy white water



Hello everyone!  I posted a message back in December about having black dots
on a couple of my plants.  I want to say thank you to all of those who
helped me and emailed me with advice.  I removed the plants with the algae
and have added more watts of light and more plants.  Problem solved! :)

Now, I have another problem and I am at a loss at what to do about it. For
about a week and  a half, the water  has been a cloudy white.  I looked on
“The Krib” and a posting suggested that maybe my filter needed cleaning and
that I have some sort of algae bloom.  I had purchased an Eheim about 4.5
months before, so I cleaned it.  No change.  I also did 2 water changes per
week as per one of the workers at a local Vancouver, BC aquarium store.  No
difference.

Here are my current stats (which have been quite stable for a while now):

-	48 gallon aquarium
-	Eheim professional series canister 2224
-	120 watts of fluorescent lights (1 powergrow and 2 fluorescent plant
lights from Home Depot)  Lights are on about 14 hours per day.  I also get
very limited indirect light from an eastern window
-	Temperature 78 F
-	pH fluctuates from 6.6 - 7.0, but today it is 6.2 (after adding ph balance
a week ago) I can’t seem to keep it up to 7.0.
-	Ammonia is 0, Nitrites are 0, Nitrates are 12.4 ppm (same as always)
-	ph, ammonia, nitrites, kH, gH are from Freshwater Master Test Kit
(Aquarium Pharmaceuticals).  Nitrate kit is Tetra.
-	kH is 3, gH is 1 (always about the same)
-	C02 injector (DIY brown glass jug jobs.) It lets off bubbles at about
1-2/second.  I change it every 2-3 weeks, even if it is still bubbling.
-	There is some green algae starting on some of the driftwood that I have in
the tank
-	Water is a cloudy whitish colour, but not like pea soup (I’ve seen that
before…where I had ammonia build up due to loss of biological cycle)
-	I use a little laterite in each area where a plant is growing
-	I fertilized with a no name brand of aquarium plant fertilizer, but
switched to Tropica Master Grow recently

My Flora and Fauna are as follows:

-	About 25 to 30 plants ranging from Java Fern to Wisteria
-	5 Clown Loaches
-	3 SAE, 2 CAE, 1 Pleco
-	2 Weather Loaches
-	10 Neons
-	5 Rasboras
-	3 High Fin Tetras
-	3 red ball Mollies
-	2 very big Black Skirt Tetras
-	4 Lemon Tetras

I should say that since I added the 2 extra fluorescent bulbs, my plants
have taken off!  I often see the water almost “boiling” in the evenings from
the oxygen coming off the plants.  The fish are all in excellent condition
and are disease free.  They are fed the proper amount to keep from eating
too much of my plants.  I haven’t lost a fish in ages.  The only real
difference is that the cloudiness was a week after I added the new plant
fertilizer.  Could this be it?  The bottle says to add 5 ml/50 l of water.
I have made 4-5 changes since adding the fertilizer and haven’t added any
more - still I have the white water!

Should I try to raise the kH, gH and pH more?  Should I reduce the hours of
light?  Is there anything else an almost Newbie like me could be missing
such as phosphate testing, etc?

Grant Miller
grantmiller at home_com