Overnight cloudy water?

D

dondro

AC Members
Nov 9, 2006
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Hello everyone!

I set up my 15gal tank last night, and everything seemed to be fine. I treated the water, added a bit of aquarium salt, and let it run through the filter for a while before adding anything. After it ran for about an hour, I added my plants, a java fern and a cabomba. Again, I let the tan sit for about an hour.

Then I added my fishy, a single male Betta named Metatron. I as worried about how he would interact with the filter, so I watched him for about 30 minutes, and he seems to absolutely love the filter. He'll swim into the undercurrent and dive down, and then resurface and repeat forever, then when he gets tired, he goes and rests under the cabomba.

Here is my problem:
The water was fine from when I set it up, to when I went to bed (6pm to 3am), then I turned off the light, and went to bed. I woke up and turned the light on and bang! cloudy water. I don't understand, as I only fed him once yesterday, and it was fine earlier, and the only difference was a frothy little bubble nest in the corner.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I think it might be my filter. I'm using an old hagen dynaflo1, with a filter cartridge that wasn't even for that filter. No bio-wheel or anything. I think I will pick up a penguin 150, but I wanted to get some expert advice!

Thanks, and I apologize for the long post.
 
if you get a penguin 150 bio-wheel with activated carbon in the media, the water will clear up
 
how many live plants just a couple or is the tank fairly well planted?

typically cloudy water that fist is an imbalance. could be bacterial bloom..which will clear in a few days.

if you have a few live plants you may not want activated carbon..it removes stuff from the tank the plantsuse.

if the tank has quite a few plants..it changes the parameters of the cycle. live plants consume ammonia.
 
Only two plants, the java fern on one side, and the cabomba on the other.

If it is a bacteria bloom, would getting the penguin help? Isn't the bio-wheel supposed to give the bacteria something to cling to?

Can that filter be used without carbon?
 
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if you JUST set up your aquarium cloudy water is NORMAL, Thats why you run your Aquarium for 24-48 HRS before adding any fish, The cloudy water is just harmless bacteria growth and should dissapear naturally.
 
the cycle is different in planted tanks. you may want to consider adding more plants.. depending on your lighting.
if you have 1.5 wpg then find more 'low' light plants crypts, anubias, java fern to name a few.

it probably is a bacterial bloom..in which case it is harmless and will work it's way out in a few days. just to be safe it is a good idea to get a test kit and keep the ammonia(if you get any) nitrites and nitrates in check.

do it withpartial water changes. if ammonia appears try to keep it at .25 or less.
like I said in a planted tank these will read different.
 
In my oapinion, and of course this is mine only, that you really don't need to cycle a 15 gallon tank with one betta in it. With that much water and one fish there isn't going to be a huge bioload on the filter. I temporarily had to house one betta in a 2 gallon unfiltered bowl. I changed the water 2x a week and only rarely got an ammonia reading of .25. With 15 gallons of water to work with I doubt as long as you are changing the water weekly you'd ever get an ammonia spike.

Jackie
 
It was bacteria

Just letting everyone know that it was bacteria, and it has worked itself out, and everything is great!

Clear water + happy fish = pleased me
 
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