Weird Cloudy Tank

[Anglerman]

My in-laws have a 10g. with about 6 small tetras(neons, and some phantoms) as well as a small frog. This tank has been running for almost 6 months. They have also lost their share of fish, as they just added fish right away. The tank is apparently cycled now, according the LFS testing. I have never tested their water, maybe I should.
Anyways, the point is that the water is always cloudy. They do weekly water changes, adding the required chlorine/chloramine remover. I have learned that they have been vaccuming the gravel every water change. I learned of this a month ago, since then they have been doing it monthly.
I have no idea why it's cloudy? Could it possibly be a bacteria takeover(bloom)?

 

[Drekkyk]

Maybe overfeeding?

I'm not sure if temp matters but I noticed my tank seemed to be cloudy for longer then I had expected. After verifying I wasn't overfeeding I dropped the temp from 79 to about 76 and it is clearing up. (Depends on fish of course)

 

[earwick]

Pry a alge bloom but im not sure.

 

[Watcher74]

Does the water look greenish when the lights are off, but whitish when the lights are on?

 

[Anglerman]

The water is definetly greenish, I looked at it in a white bucket.And it looks cloudy white looking at the tank with the light on. Algae bloom huh? So what should they do?

 

[OrionGirl]

Cleaning the substrate weekly is not a bad thing--in fact, it's a good thing, since it removes more of the wastes that feed algae. More frequent water changes would be the first step. Reducing the daily feedings would also help.

 

[Watcher74]

I had the exact same algae bloom in a 10 gallon a couple months ago. I did no water changes for three weeks and the water cleared up perfectly clear at the end of the three weeks in 48 hours amount of time.

I've read that sometimes these algae blooms can be prolonged by water changes, because the algae may be using the nutrients in the tap water as a food source. I don't know if that's true, but if it happens again I will do a large water change every week to see if it takes a shorter or longer amount of time for the bloom to disappear.

 

[OrionGirl]

Depends on what's causing the algae bloom. Here, it sounds like the tank is new, and the sudden decline in cleaning provided more food for the algae. Ideally, add a scoop of mulm from a healthy planted tank, if it's available. This will introduce microfauna that will compete for the nutrients currently being used by algae.

In some cases--ie, lightly stocked setups with minimal introduced nutrients, water sources that are rich in nutrients--letting the tank go without water changes will reduce the introduction of nutrients and starve out the algae. I don't see anything to indicate that is the case here.