# Cloudy Water after Water Change



## Steeners (Mar 28, 2010)

Hi all,

I feel like I keep messing things up with my aquarium, I guess that is part of learning how to keep fish.

I have no idea what I did but here it goes:

I changed my water this morning, and I think I changed way too much of it. I usually do a 20% change but this time I took water from my main tank to put in my QT and ended up doing a 30-35% w/c on the main tank. I do have an additional 6 fish (Boesemani Rainbows) that I added this week 4 days ago.

Everything looked fine after I set everything back up and then about 3 hours later, the water is cloudy. Not VERY cloudy, but definitely cloudier than normal. I don't think its aerated. My water usually is very clear.

I added some Sea Chem Flourish for my plants - but that had never made my water cloudy before (it's the same bottle) and I also added dechlorinator.

When I saw this I immediately checked the water params and all is well.
PH = 7.4
Ammonia= 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 5

Do you think it's just a bacterial bloom from taking out too much water and killing too much good bacteria? (I vaccuumed the gravel) and now the tank i playing catch up? 

Will the cloudiness go away? I just don't want whatever is going on to hurt the fish in any way.  

Thanks in advance for your help as always.


----------



## arc (Mar 11, 2010)

> I vaccuumed the gravel


You may have loose up some dirt or what not from the gravel when you vacuumed it. How often do you clean the gravel? Wait a few more hours and it may settle down.


----------



## Steeners (Mar 28, 2010)

Thanks arc. I do clean the gravel every week. I do one half of the tank one week and then the other half the next week.
I am using fluorite so it can be the sediment from that. When I move around with the python it still kicks up dust.
I'll keep an eye on it. I guess if the water params are good then the fish are okay?


----------



## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

You dont vaccuum fluorite. You only use it with co2 and the idea is it's so full of plant roots no vaccuuming is needed.


----------



## bae (May 11, 2007)

30-35% is fine. I sometimes do 75-90% water changes. As long as the temperature and other water parameters are pretty much the same, it shouldn't be a problem.

It's okay to vacuum the gravel even if you have plants, but it's not really necessary as long as the gravel isn't too deep or is full of roots. Don't vacuum in a way that seriously disturbs roots, however. Flourite and similar calcined clay substrates tend to be "dusty" for some time. A planted tank doesn't depend on 'sewage disposal' bacteria the way a tank without plants does, so you don't have to worry about losing bacteria due to vacuuming, water changes or filter cleaning.

Did you figure out what caused the cloudiness? The only thing I can think of that other people haven't mentioned is tiny air bubbles. Tap water is under pressure, and as it 'decompresses' and warms air will come out of solution.

Btw, flourite and CO2 have nothing to do with each other.


----------



## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

* Flourite and similar calcined clay substrates tend to be "dusty" for some *time.

The some time in the case of fluorite is forever . When you get in there with a gravel vaccuum you're crunching it up and making more dust. It's just not really built to take any kind of pressure.


----------



## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I do not gravel-vac in my planted tank. The most I would do is to put the gravel vac about 2" above the gravel, and plants and possibly "stir up" any debris on the bottom with my fingers moving above the gravel. Do not move, disturb, or "gravel vac" directly into the planted tank substrate.

In fact, in a properly snail-infested (grin) planted tank substrate, you can live without gravel vac for a long long time, as the snails will prevent anaerobic zones from forming. Without the anaerobic zones, what you actually have down there is an additional biological zone that also is providing nutrients.

In a non-planted tank, gravel vac is a key way to do "nutrient export" and guarantee your fish remain healthy. Nutrient and dissolved solids buildup in a tank, that are in the gravel, are not in the water column and are not directly stressing your fish, however, they do leach nutrients very slowly into the water, and thus for non-planted tanks, gravel vac'ing is important, but when using a planted tank substrate, you can skip this, in fact, nobody who spent 100 hours arranging their hardscape and plants is going to be very eager to disturb it.

Also, the deeper in the "planted tank" side you go, the more lightly you will stock your tank. And thus, there will be less "mulm". Mulm, a certain amount of it anyways, is actually a good thing. Even cloudy water is not by itself going to hurt your fish. It's just going to hurt your ability to enjoy the fish. People think clear water = clean water. Not always so!

W

P.S. I have no idea why, but what works for me when I get cloudy water is to dump a huge amount of plant clippings into the water. The plants do something biological, while under the tank lights, and may in fact be coated with beneficial bacteria, or something. Anyways, one hour and cloudy water gone, if I put enough floating plant matter into the tank. Hornwort, which is generally meant to float, is the best at this.


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I have to totally agree with bae that the water change was not too much. You do not kill bacteria with large water changes or cleaning the filter elements in tank water. Water changes can stir up small particulate matter.


----------



## bae (May 11, 2007)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> P.S. I have no idea why, but what works for me when I get cloudy water is to dump a huge amount of plant clippings into the water. The plants do something biological, while under the tank lights, and may in fact be coated with beneficial bacteria, or something. Anyways, one hour and cloudy water gone, if I put enough floating plant matter into the tank. Hornwort, which is generally meant to float, is the best at this.


Here's my hand-waving interpretation: Plants, and the complex mixture of microorganisms that form a thin film over their surfaces produce a lot of complicated long chain macromolecules. While I could handwave more about their names and composition, it's easier to just call this stuff 'goo'. Goo acts as a flocculant, binding tiny particles of sediment into larger blobs so they either settle, stick to the plants or stick somewhere in the filter.

Btw, I have some small tanks with turface (a calcined clay similar to flourite) as substrate, and they stopped developing dust after a few weeks despite periodic gravel vacuuming. These are breeding tanks with mostly non-rooted plants. I attribute this to the virtues of pure organic goo.


----------



## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

Hooray for Goo! 

W


----------



## Cory (May 2, 2008)

What dechlorinator do you use? I had the same problem with many of my tanks becoming cloudy a couple hours after h20 changes. I found out that the conditioner I was using didn't neutralize the ammonia produced from the chloramine and so I was experiencing cloudiness. I believe the Big Al's brand conditioner has the same problem. Others might as well.


----------



## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

That is another source of cloudiness, for sure. And plants that are receiving any light at all, do absorb ammonia readily, so that would explain it. I was told the BA's water treatment DID treat for chloramine, but I bet it doesn't, and that's the problem I've had. A 29.99 jug of the Big Als stuff is a much worse deal than a small bottle of prime, for $9.99, I have now learned. Because the BA's stuff is garbage.

W


----------



## Steeners (Mar 28, 2010)

Thank you all for your responses. I definitely learned a lot. The tank water is fine now - clear like usual. It's funny that you mentioned BA's dechlorinator because that is what I was using. Never happened before but they could be adding chloramine to the water now.
I do have a bottle of prime, and I heard good things about it, so I will start using it. I bought it for when I run out of the BA stuff.


----------

