why is my tank cloudy?
i have a heavily planted aquarium. i have an aquaclear 50 filter, uv sterlizer, acuaclear 10 poweread, all on a 29 gallon tank. the tank has been up for 5 months, and it always seems to get cloudy. i only touch my tank to prune, and trim plants, and to propagate, i use EI fertliser, and i have plenty of water circulation. ive tryed useing seachem clairity, but i can never seem to get the water as clear as glass, or as clear as a show tank. i have a large pice of driftwood, been in there for quite a while, but the water was cloudy before i added the driftrwood, so i know it isent that. should i add another acuaclear filter, or should i think about the fluval canister filters?? is my problem a filter problem? i doubt its a bacteria problem because of the UV sterilizer. the plants all look healthy. also, the filter is runing smoothly and its flowing pretty good, however, its not geting all the little tiney particles floating around………what do you think my problem is?
7 cardinals
8 rummynose
5 blood fin teta
1 bristlenose
3 otos
3 rosey barbs
1 simese algea eater ( trying to find a home for him cause i dont have any more algea , havent had it in 2 months)…..this cant be green water cause of the uv sterliser, AND my plants take up the nutrients.
i have one large snail, severl babys. also some trumpet snails, also some baby ones.
also i do water changes every week, every saturday.
i doubt its a -bad water conditions-. yes, the tank is fully cycled.
i feed my fish every other day. again, every OTHER DAY. and i cant increse the water changes causeof my ferts…im useingg dry ferts.
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You need to change water more often like doing it 6 days and to get it not cloudy, you need to not feed your fish for 2 days.
Well you seem to have ALOT for just a 29 gallon tank, maybe its a bit overcrowded. Its usually one inch of fish per 1 gallon of water, and added to so many fish you seem to have a forest of plants.
You mentioned you do water changes but sometimes debris get trapped under sand or gravel so see if you can stir it up a bit.
Maybe you can move some fish and plants into a next tank. but if this isn’t possible then theres nothing more you can do.
UVSterilizer does nothing for bacteria here, it won’t kill off beneficial bacteria.
What is your water testing like? How often are you fertilizing the plants? Some fertilizers will cloud the wtater
Your water changes are fine once per week 25%. My guess would be either your fertilizer is causing the problem or your water changes are too large when you do change the water.
Are you using carbon in your filters? If not you could give that a try. In a heavily planted tank, any plant leaves that die or when you trim your plants, some of the organic material from within the plants could be getting released into your water, and this will give the water something of a cloudy tan or yellow appearance. Something like what you’d get from driftwood leaching tannins, but lighter.
Another possible explanation is that your ottos and bristlenose are stirring up some sediment around the bases of your plants where you aren’t able to siphon as effectively. Or you do some of this yourself if you plant or remove plants regularly. Instead of using the larger gravel vacuum, I’ve tried using the thin plastic tube made for the inside of the uplift tube for an undergravel filter and attaching a 6 foot long piece of airline tubing to make a spot siphon. There are good for cleaning fry tanks as well. You can also use a turkey baster to blow debris out, but you don’t want to disturb the substrate too much.
You mention having a UV filter, but how long have you had it? If over 9-12 months, have you ever replaced the bulb? These have a limited life, and yours might be past it’s prime depending on how long it’s been on. So you could be experiencing some free-floating algae, if there’s anything of a green or yellowish tint to the cloudiness. I don’t know that this would be a bacterial bloom, since your plants should be using the ammonia and nitrate your fish produce. A bacterial bloom would appear more grayish white.
Not knowing which plants you’re keeping, could you change to a liquid fertilizer, or have you noted any change in the cloudiness related to when you add new fertilizer tablets? That could also narrow down if this is related to something in the fertilizer itself, or it triggering algae growth.
If none of those suggestions work, you might want to give a canister filter a try. These work a little differently than hang-ons like you have now, in a canister, the water is forced through the filter media under pressure. If a hang-on filter gets clogged, the water either goes over or around your media, depending on how the filter is made, taking any debris with it. This can’t happen with a canister, all the water has to go through the media, so it will remove more from the water. There are special media pads that have smaller openings [micron pads, water polishing pads] that are made for canisters that would just get clogged and cause overflows that much faster in a hang-on.