Lionfish17

My boyfriend and I have a new 20 gallon tank. We have had it for about 2 weeks now. We have 2 silver tipped sharks, 4 green tiger barbs and a little ghost shrimp. We are having a major problem with cloudy water! We are beginners with these types of fish and everyone we have talked to so far told us that we shouldn't have started a completely new tank and put sharks in there! A kid at a pet shop in Portland told us to put a bacteria starter in there and now the water is super cloudy. It has been a week since we have done that. My boyfriend has done a complete water change, he boiled the gravel, he got new carbon filters, and even a chemical to make the water clear. Nothing is working!
Please help, we are very discouraged and he is starting to lose hope. He wants to give up

lilsoccakid

welcome to fishlore! we should be able to settle this problem.

-it says you dont know about the aquarium nitrogen cycle, please read this.
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

-the cloudy water was the start of the benifial bacteria building up. these bacteria are extremly important, because they turn fish-killing ammonia and nitrites into less harmfull nitrates, which are removed with regular weekly water changes

-these bacteria grow in the filter and gravel, so you never wanna change these out unless extremly neccesary. if so, wash them with used tank water, because chlorine will kill the bacteria u worked so hard to develop.

- until the tank is cycled, daily 50% water changes are a must, or the fish will not survive the cycle.

-the bacteria will eventually settle in the filters and gravel, and the cloudy water will go away on its own

-i would reccoment looking at a product called tetra safe-start. they sell it at most fish stores. this is bacteria that is already to go, and will instantly cycle the tank. i would only use either bio-spira or tetra safe start (they are the same product, bio-spira is the old version that has to be kept refridgerated, but they recently put the product tetra safe start out, which does not need to be kept cold, which lowered the price dramatically, and made it easier to find)

-if you cant find this, just keep up the daily water changes, and if you can find the water conditionor PRIME, it will temperarily detoxify the ammonia and nitrites, so they are still in the tank, but cant hurt your fish, which is essential for making it through the cycle.

keep researching, keep up the water changes, and you should be alright

good luck!

Lionfish17

Thank you so much!! We are going to give that a try. He is just a bit worried because we have never had cloudy water stick around for this long.

ThisGuy

Do you have a water testing kit? If you don't i would recommend the API master test kit its liquid so its very accurate and it will allow you to see the changes in the water. Right now the ammonia levels are probably really high then you will see a spike in the nitrates. Without a test kit you won't be able to tell if it cycled properly. Don't get discouraged once the tank cycles the cloudy water will go away.

Good luck

Ryan

sirdarksol

Welcome to Fishlore!

I had super-cloudy water (I couldn't see the back of the tank at its worst) for about a week and a half at the end of the Nitrogen cycle. Maybe not normal, but not a horrible thing. Actually, it's a sign that the nitrifying bacteria have reached what I consider to be critical mass. They are reproducing in a huge burst, which is good for helping the cycle along.

Lionfish17

we have got a testing kit and a recommended chemical. this is the test strip results:
nitrate: 0
nitrite: 5
Water hardness: 120
Alki: 300
pH: 8.0

Im guessing those are really bad!?

sirdarksol

Not sure about the hardness/alkilinity, but I generally don't pay attention to them, anyway.
pH is a bit high, but mine's higher, and I've got fish that generally like low pH that have survived for over a year. In the end, as long as it's stable, pH doesn't mean terribly much to most fish.
Nitrite is bad. That's one of the ones you want as "0"
It's odd for a tank to be at the cloudy stage and not have any nitrates at all.
Lastly, I don't see an ammonia reading. Does your kit not have an ammonia test?

So, short-term, water changes are your fishes' friend. I'd do 25% a day. Test immediately before doing the change. When you have zero nitrites and zero ammonia, along with some sort of a nitrate reading, you can scale them back to once or twice a week, changing enough to keep the nitrates under 20ppm

Lionfish17

How can we get the nitrite to go down/away?? We are going to go get the API today. We have been told numerous times, strips don't work between my last to posts, so im thinking that is some very good advice.

Lucy

You should do daily water changes while your tank is cycling with fish, this will help control the ammonia and nitrites.
As the cycle nears the end, the nitrites will begin drop.
You're aiming for readings of 0 for ammonia and nitrites with some nitrates showing.

A big yes on the API mater kit, I mention it in your other post.

Good luck

Lionfish17

Thank you. we are going to the pet shop when they open

Lionfish17

Another question for our 20 gal... there is a whitish, clear looking slime that has started to develop. what is it and is it bad?

sirdarksol

Is it on the top of the water? If so, it's just protein buildup. Figure out a way to agitate the surface (most HOB filters turned on full blast will do this anyway), and it will go away in a few days.
In one of my tanks, I just take a cup, dip it in, and then pour it back into the tank once a day, and that keeps the surface clear.

If it's not on the surface, we'll think of other possibilities.

Lionfish17

its on the bottom, its appearing on the plants, decor, and driftwood.

sirdarksol

Hmmm... Probably just part of a bacterial bloom. I've had Mopani wood with a white slime growing on it. Can you vacuum it up when you're doing water changes?

Lionfish17

yet to find out if it will vacuum, but we will today

sirdarksol

Sounds good.

Lionfish17

OK, so now we have a huge outbreak of ICH. The sharks are covered and it has spread to the barbs. We raised the temp, added salt, and we are going to get meds for them. Anything else we can do?

lalynya

Rid-ich works miracle...haven't had too much success with podered ich meds so That's whta I would recomend..Ich for somereason is the only fish disease that I can get and keep under control..Just be carefull cuz if they have ich they can easily get a secondary bacterial infecttion that can leed to bacterial fungus.

Lionfish17

noted. thank you we'll give that a try

Shawnie

raising temps to 83 for two weeks will cure the ich...make sure you do daily water changes tho as warmer water has less oxygen...vacuum the gravel as ich spores bore into the gravel as well...goodlucl!

J J Indy

The ich is from the water being poor during the cycle sharks are really prone to this because the dont have scales its more like skin and I have never had much luck with getting rid of it before my sharks died. My tank during its cycle got really cloudy for a week or two even with water changes and one day I came home from work and it was all cleared up I tested the water and found that my cycle had ended everything has been fine since. If you try to treat the ich during the cycle as I did it makes it worse and a longer cycle as you usually have to remove your carbon during medicating because carbon will absorb the meds. Hope this helps good luck.

P.S. I did everything wrong during my cycle and got ich so I know the feeling.

Lionfish17

Sadly, we have lost everything in the tank. We came home to a dead shark, and a dead barb. Within 24 hours the remaining shark and the 3 barbs, were dead. Lessons have been learned. We will be starting out with tetras until we can get the hang of this

Lucy

I'm so sorry you lost all of your fish, you must be devastated.

You're not the first to learn the hard way and won't be the last, but now you know about cycling and researching before adding fish and you can look forward to having a healthy happy tank in the future.
As you found out, most fish stores won't tell you about these things.

Again, I'm really sorry, good luck and keep us up to date.

Shawnie

im so sorry!! alot of us have been thru this but it doesnt make it any better.....at least you know how to cycle and doing it fishless will be so much less worrying for you all...goodluck and sorry again about your fish