My tank its insanly cloudy !!!!! Help ASAP

[Yuki Rihwa]

Buy some BB booster to speed up the cycling or you will have to deal with a lot of issues next 6 weeks

 

[Pataphysicist]

Buy some BB booster to speed up the cycling or you will have to deal with a lot of issues next 6 weeks

Added some seachem Stability as my booster. Will be adding the rest of the bottle by the end of the week ? Also added a brand new ac110 today, stopped by Petsmart and to my surprise they had them on sale for $59.99, packed it with Biohome and a big 200G rated Chemi Pure Elite on the top

 

[Drstrangelove]

My low PH is, 5.5 reading which can possibly be a bit lower its actually starving my beneficial bacteria, which results in them dying.

Low pH causes the BB to go into hibernation. They don't eat during hibernation because they don't need to eat as they are in virtual stasis. They don't starve while in hibernation unless perhaps we are talking months. So they aren't dying, although the population is neither growing nor assisting with converting nitrogen.

That is why my water is cloudy, my tank its cycling all over again . Which does it very often, always kind of cloudy. I need to raise my PH ( do bigger water changes ) so my bacteria don't starve. I just finished a 50% water change, poured water straight from tap into the tank. I made sure to condition the tank before water started pouring in. Results? 7.0- 7.2 PH , 1-1.5 Ammonia, 0 Nitrate , 0 Nitrite . ill test water in 3 days to check if the test is just detecting Chloramine . A guess a bit of water chemistry schooling could of fixed my headache long time ago. Fish seem to be more active in just under an hour, they are cruising around looking for food, as if their appetite suddenly increased.

It seems to me that if you have a nitrate reading of 0, your tank was not cycled in the first place. Also, when you have very low pH AND ammonia simultaneously, the low pH is chemically "neutralizing" a lot of the ammonia. Raising the pH rapidly without removing the ammonia allows the ammonia to become dangerous to the tanks inhabitants unless the ammonia is neutralized in some other fashion,

Based on your descriptions, you now have your fish in an uncycled tank, so feeding them before addressing that may lead to undesirable consequences.

 

[Pataphysicist]

Low pH causes the BB to go into hibernation. They don't eat during hibernation because they don't need to eat because their biological processes are in virtual stasis, so they aren't starving. So they aren't dying, although the population is not growing either.



It seems to me that if you have a nitrate reading of 0, your tank was not cycled in the first place.

I dont think i ever let it cycle properly with my constant messing with the tank, adding fish, taking fish out, adding more, taking some more out, 20% water change every 3 days , then went to 10% every 3 days, than a random 50%. Always so worry about the tank looking as neat and spotless as possible, i would see a piece of poop on the bottom too large for it to disappear immeditly and i would scoop the thing out. Guess i just have to lay back and let the darn filters do what they were made for.... here is a shot of the tank atm, water is clear and fish happy for now

 

[Drstrangelove]

Nice looking fish. Would certainly want to keep them around for many years to come.

I would suggest drastically reducing the feeding (down 75%) until it's fully cycled, using some of the products that are out there and that people have suggested to boost the BB and to neutralize the ammonia/nitrite peaks, and taking daily readings. You now have fish in the tank, and unless you have another place for them, you'll perhaps need to carefully cycle the tank while it has them living in it.

Others may have better ideas as I've never cycled with fish in the tank (that I planned to keep), much less large fish.

 

[Pataphysicist]

Nice looking fish. Would certainly want to keep them around for many years to come.

I would suggest drastically reducing the feeding (down 75%) until it's fully cycled, using some of the products that are out there and that people have suggested to boost the BB and to neutralize the ammonia/nitrite peaks, and taking daily readings. You now have fish in the tank, and unless you have another place for them, you'll perhaps need to carefully cycle the tank while it has them living in it.

Others may have better ideas as I've never cycled with fish in the tank (that I planned to keep), much less large fish.

Thank you, and ive been fortunate to have very hardy fish. They don't seem to be bothered by my mistakes. Will be doing another water change friday 25% and adding the rest of Seachem stability ( rated for 400 G left in bottle ). I feed almost nothing as it is since my biggest pig is the Golden Clown Knife , my gars can go over a month without eating, my flag tail has the driftwood he loves sucking on. And my Faranah Bichir eats 3-4 Tilapia filets and he wont eat again 2-3 days later. Thank you all for the quick responses !!