Another cloudy water problem

V

vmahaffe

AC Members
Dec 10, 2006
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Rochester, MN
Ok, let me give you some history. I have a 180 gallon planted tank. I had mostly stem plants. I decided to change it up and pulled almost all of them and replaced them with swords and vals. My water started getting cloudy after about 2 weeks. I quit fertilizing and turned up my CO2 thinking maybe it was an algae bloom. It never went away until I finally did a complete blackout for 5 days. After that it was clear. Then I moved.
Once I set my tank up again, it started clouding. I did the blackout again and it worked until I ran my CF's for about 2 weeks. I did a water change Thursday and it clouded 2 days later and today it is almost a brown color.
Any ideas? Could it be bacteria? I only feed 2x day and not very much. Weekly water changes, no ferts kH 17 with pH about 7-7.1. Everything else is where it should be. The only solution I can come up with is start planting stems again and hope they out compete whatever is in there. All the plants currently pearl like mad, so there must be some good stuff in the water.
Thanks.
 
Yes, but it turned brownish before I added the driftwood. Not too worried about the brownish, more about the cloudiness. I am out of ideas. I don't have anything wrong with stems, they just don't fit into the layout I am looking for.
 
vmahaffe I had a similar problem. 1 weekend I broke the tank down. It wasn't until the next weekend that I set it up. Then a week later I moved some of the substrate back, with inhabitants and plants in the tan, to put more sand down. I used nutrifin clear 3 days and it cleared up. I usually don't trust chemicals but I figured iit might help bind the dust so the filter would obsorb it better.

I have read that this normally happens when a tank is cycling.

I have to say I am fearful of blackouts for read that plants can die from lack of light. Did it cause you to loose any plants?
 
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My plants came out just fine from the blackout; I had similar concerns. The tank was running for about 5 months when the cloudiness started the first time and about a month now since I first set it up.
I was going to ask, does eco-complete leach nutrients into the water column? I did stir a lot up when I pulled stems and it is all mixed with my sand now after the move. If it does, then that would explain a little.
 
Another couple water changes later and my water isn't as bad, but still has a haze. I tried using Clarity from Seachem, but it didn't work.
Would a UV sterlizer clear it up?
Also, does eco-complete leach nutrients into the water column? If so, that would explain the cloudy water.
 
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