cloudy water...hagen fluval customer service rep said my tank is cycleing?

[ianab]

If you had a cycling problem you would be seeing traces of ammonia or nitrite in the system, but you dont and your water quality seems almost perfect.

One possiblity is that something in the new water is feeding a bloom of micro-organisms is the water. Silica, phosphate etc, something thats not usually tested for.

What you could try is skipping or reducing the water changes for a couple of weeks. Wont matter is the nitrate goes up to 15 or 20. See if the water clears up. Then do a water change and see if it comes back.

The filter will not be doing anything useful for random cloudyness. The diatoms or algae are too small for the filter to remove. This goes for any common filter media so it wont be a problem specific to your filter.

Possibly smaller more frequent water changes will reduce it?
Can you get an accurate water analysis from the water company? That may give more clue as to what is happening.

Good luck with sorting it out.

Ian

 

[BettaFishMommy]

yep, mini cycle/bacterial bloom. the fact that your tests are showing a nitrate reading of 5 means that there is bacteria there and it is doing it's job.

keep testing and keep doing water changes, your tank will cycle. have faith! lol.

 

[ddlbrooks]

I've been fertilizing and I just added extra ferts. It's the dry fert that you then mix with water and the direction said 1 - 4 tsp. each day. I had been doing 1-2 and just jumped it up to 4. I'm now thinking possibly it could be that. Should I just stop all ferts and see what happens?

 

[tyler79durdan]

I put the Bio Max and Pre-Filter which are both ceramic rings, along with the polishing filter which is like the poly floss, although the directions say put it on the bottom basket, and I then have cabon in the top basket. I can pull it out tomorrow and change things around. The filter works great and the out put is awsome. This is why I called customer service, I figured I was packing the filter wrong. Can I get the Bio Balls Blue Media from any Pet Store?

Do you think it could possibly be still be cycling? I've only done two changes with the filter, once each month but both times I took it out completely and rinsed all the media and emptied the dirty water out. Should I not be doing this? I know this problem has to be what I'm doing I just need help figuring out what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks

When I do maintenance on mine, I take the trays out and immediately place them in 5 gallon buckets(perfect fit) filled with tank water. Then I systematically swish/rinse bottom tray media first, and squeeze and rinse the foam pads in the same water. You should know that I always keep water in the filter so when I reinsert the trays, they go right into established water. Then I do the second/middle tray, then the top tray...

Easy peazy!

I change water via vacuum and buckets and not my fluval. Although if im not vacing the gravel, I will use the extra valve connected to a 1 inch flexible hose, to pump out gallons, FAST! It works in reverse also. Fill your buckets with new de-chlored water the pump the water back to the tank.

Im pretty sure you can get the bio-balls from a LFS

Thats them

 

[ianab]

Should I just stop all ferts and see what happens?

I would try that.

You may be fertilising the algae and diatoms if you are adding too many nutrients for the plants to take up.

Ian