Hey!
Having a bit of a crisis with my 55 gallon fresh water. It's been cycled and set up for about six months now. I have ten different plants, shrimp, clams, snails, and about ten different breeds of peaceful fish. The water was pristine, tested every other day, and no mortalities whatsoever.
Four weeks ago I put in a couple clown loaches. They went into the isolation tank first, and were cleared after a few weeks. Two days after I put them in, Bang! An Ick pandemic swept over the fishes. Despite immediate medications, I lost all my Rainbows, half my tetras, a gorgeous little zebra cat, three quarters of my Gouramis and one of the loaches.
The remainder of my fish seem to be okay now, the Ick being gone for two weeks.
The problem now is that the water is cloudy. No, not cloudy; so murky that you can't see the plants in the middle of the tank through the front. It's been this way for three weeks, and I can't clear it out. I've tried full water changes and it's cloudy again in a few hours. I've recycled the bacteria with bottled stock, still cloudy. Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia are all ZERO, with a neutral pH. I've even run a diamond scrubber for two days and it came out perfectly clean, but the water was unfazed. When I think the water looks white like a bacteria bloom, I suddenly think it looks more green and might be an algae outbreak, and vice versa.
So as my final recourse, I'm going to put in a UV sterilizer. I run a Magnum 350 pump, with a flow rate of 350 gph (that's advertised, I think it might run at half of that).
Anyhoo, if the pump runs at 350, and the output is split between the discharge and a Bio filter, if I were to split it once more (three total), I'd need a sterilizer rated at 120 gph, right? Or... if I split the output line for the discharge tube, I'd only need one rated at 87.5, no?
Any advice or info would be MOST appreciated.
Thanks!
David
Having a bit of a crisis with my 55 gallon fresh water. It's been cycled and set up for about six months now. I have ten different plants, shrimp, clams, snails, and about ten different breeds of peaceful fish. The water was pristine, tested every other day, and no mortalities whatsoever.
Four weeks ago I put in a couple clown loaches. They went into the isolation tank first, and were cleared after a few weeks. Two days after I put them in, Bang! An Ick pandemic swept over the fishes. Despite immediate medications, I lost all my Rainbows, half my tetras, a gorgeous little zebra cat, three quarters of my Gouramis and one of the loaches.
The remainder of my fish seem to be okay now, the Ick being gone for two weeks.
The problem now is that the water is cloudy. No, not cloudy; so murky that you can't see the plants in the middle of the tank through the front. It's been this way for three weeks, and I can't clear it out. I've tried full water changes and it's cloudy again in a few hours. I've recycled the bacteria with bottled stock, still cloudy. Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia are all ZERO, with a neutral pH. I've even run a diamond scrubber for two days and it came out perfectly clean, but the water was unfazed. When I think the water looks white like a bacteria bloom, I suddenly think it looks more green and might be an algae outbreak, and vice versa.
So as my final recourse, I'm going to put in a UV sterilizer. I run a Magnum 350 pump, with a flow rate of 350 gph (that's advertised, I think it might run at half of that).
Anyhoo, if the pump runs at 350, and the output is split between the discharge and a Bio filter, if I were to split it once more (three total), I'd need a sterilizer rated at 120 gph, right? Or... if I split the output line for the discharge tube, I'd only need one rated at 87.5, no?
Any advice or info would be MOST appreciated.
Thanks!
David
