Tank turned from clear to completely milky in <2 hrs

["stephan Mifsud" <valerandi at nextgen_net.mt>]

I've seen this phenomenon twice, and both had the same
explanation although I treated them differently. The first
time was when I filled up the yeast sugar reactor too much.
The froth produced was sucked into the aquarium, and within
a few hours the water turned milky white with the fish at
the surface. The reason was that the sugar caused a
microbial bloom in the aquarium. It was'nt the yeast that
did this. The bacterial bloom in the aquarium used up the
oxygen in the water which caused the fish to gasp at the
surface. I acted quickly putting the filter outlet above the
surface so that a large number of air bubbles were
introduced. With the introduction of O2 The fish recovered
quickly and dissapeared into the mist below. Considering
that only a little sugar must have been introduced I left
the aquarium like this for 24 hours. The bacteria used up
all the excess carbohydrate and left without food they died
off, so that the water turned completely clear again. At
that point I lowered the filter outflow below the surface
and reintroduced the CO2.
The second time was when my daughter threw in some sugar in
the aquarium! Again the water turned milky white and the
fish started gasping at the surface. 24 Hours oxygenation
was not enough. I had to introduce a second bubbler to avoid
fish at the surface, but after 24 hours the water stayed
milky white. I'm sure that enough bubbling until the
carbohydrate would have been depleted would have got rid of
the milkiness. After all this is how sewage treatment works.
But I did'nt want to wait and I knew that the plants were
not receiving enough light. So I did a 90% water change,
oxygenated for 48 hours. That got the tank back in place.

Did any of your work colleagues think that the fish would
like some sugar in their coffee?

regards

Stephan




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