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Re: Really Cloudy Water, additional questions



Bill, thanks for your response, I have some additional comments and q's

> If the cloudiness gray and not green (and that is sometimes hard to
> determine), it is almost certainly due to one of two things: a bacteria
bloom
> brought about by excessive nutrients, or by suspended particulate.

I was kind of wondering about this, cause it looked like a normal cycle that
just didn't want to go away!  It had a green tinge to it, but more grey then
anything else.  After a few days of just letting it go, seeing if perhaps it
would right itself, the cloud slowly started turning green, so I figure
whatever nutrients are in there are being taken up by the cloud and turning
into algae.  I've since dropped the light time from 12 hours down to 10,
hoping that will help.  I also dosed with some clearing agent that cleared
it in a matter of hours, but this is how I was taking care of it in the past
and I'd really rather not have to do that every two weeks.  After the cloud
cleared my Mag 350 filter was pretty gross.  I use a regular pleated filter
with those blue sleeves and I stuff cotton around that.  I pulled out the
dirty cotton and replaced it with new clean cotton and left the remainder
in, hoping there may be some colony in there that would keep up cleaning.

> Bacteria can be dealt with by reducing the amount of food that you add and
by
> keeping a scrupuously clean tank.  They will die off in time.

I feed them 1 cube of brine shrimp just about daily, occasionally I'll drop
in a chunk of blood worms for the angels.  The fish eat it right up...all of
it.  I was concerned that the cloud may have happened because of the food,
but there is litterally nothing on the gravel when they're done feeding, and
whatever happens to be there is grabbed by mostly the earth eater.  I also
do weekly vacuuming and water changes to help it along.

> Gray cloudiness that is caused by suspended particulates can be remedied
by
> rigorous mechanical filtering.  Be sure that the enriched substate isn't
> leaking back into the water column.

How would I check this?  I rinsed all the gravel and laterite before putting
it in.  It was also suggested to me via email that the laterite or gravel
was being stured up by the earth eater, but I think he hardly does that
amount of agitation.  Also, there is no hint of red in the cloud, so I've
factored out the laterite.  Side note, there is about 3" of gravel before
the laterite, is that too deep to be benificial?

> Green cloudy water is caused by suspended algae that are the result of  a
light/nutrient inbalance.  The best solution is to have a lot of rapidly
growing plants, maybe stem plants or floating water sprite to start.  Using
a diatom filter or UV will also get rid of it, but that probably wouldn't be
a permanent solution.

Please suggest some plants.  The only luck I've had are with the walmart
bulbs (walmart and petco both sell them) and some red leafed stock plants
(just looked at a database, looks very much like, if not exactly, Ludwigia
inclinata, or also likely Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanevig').  They rooted
very easily in the #1 gravel, btw.  The others I've had, and really like but
won't grow seem to be rotalas, not sure though.  It also seems to me that
the labeled gravel was misleading.  It said #1, but its definately not sand
box sized grains.  I used fillpro #1, 50lb bags.  Also, if you have a good
site, like a HUGE data base of tons of aquatic plants with pictures, I would
be grateful.  I've found a few, but they all seem sparse enough that I could
easily misidentify some species.

> BTW, number 1 sand (sandbox sized grains) is generally felt to be too fine
> for aquatic plants.  It packs too closely, making it hard for roots and
> nutrients to penetrate.
> Another thing:  Cloudy water and "the nitrogen cycle" are not related.
You
> can have a fully cycled tank with water so cloudy that the tank is opaque,
> and you can have a perfectly clear, uncycled tank.

I thought they were almost one in the same, the nitrogen cycle (or whatever
startup cycle it may be) presented itself normally with a white-ish cloud in
the water.  It would make sense that it doesn't since if it was the cycle it
probably would have begun to balance itself out and the water would have
gotten clearer, instead of more cloudy.

TIY,

Dave