David593

Today is my 55 gallon tank's two week birthday (sice it has been cycled) It now holds 5 rummynose tetras and a common plec (5 inches). Yesterday my tank water a little cloudy, it was time for a wc so I did a 20% wc. Today the water is still a little more cloudy. It is kind of whit-ish so I am jus guessing it is a bacterial bloom due to being a new tank. It has been a week and a half since I put in the rummy-nose tetras and I wanted to get 5 more today. Here are the questions:

~Is the tank just going through this bloom because it is still new
~Could this mean that adding the next 5 rummy-nose tetras could possibly crash the system?

ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-10

jdhef

I would wait another week or so before adding any more fish. You are probably going thru a bacteria bloom right now. Plecos are huge waste producers, and you bacteria that formed during your cycle is probably a little overwhelmed. So I would just keep a close eye on your water parameters, and if the are good after another week and your water is clear, it would probably be okay to add additional fish.

sirdarksol

Agreed with jdhef. This was the reason I showed up here in the first place. My aquarium water was cloudy as heck, and I could not figure out what was wrong. There comes a point where the bacteria grow faster than the ammonia production can support, and the water becomes cloudy. As the bacteria die off and get cleared out of the water, the situation will resolve itself. Definitely don't want to add any fish until about a week after the cloudiness goes away. The aquarium will be more stable by that point.

David593

ok. I'll wait a little more. The water parameters have been perfect ever since day one of the end of the cycle. I've never had an ammonia problem with the fish in the tank. However, I think it would be best to wait until it clears up.

sirdarksol

Yeah, the cloudiness happens in almost every tank, and it's not necessarily a sign of anything wrong, but it does show that the tank is still a little bit unstable, and could become dangerous if the cycle was overloaded by too many fish being added.

David593

ok. I read that you should wait about a week and a half or two between adding fish, but the plec does play a big part in the bioload. When i did the wc yesterday, I couldn't beleive how much waste he produced in only a week.

sirdarksol

They are very messy fish. Fish that are primarily herbivores or primarily carnivore seem to produce larger quantities or more concentrated waste than fish that are middle-of-the-road omnivores. I don't get it.

David593

lol Luckily for me, I changed his diet and now his waste is darker and harder to see. So I only really notice it when I Gravel vac. Thanks for the advice on the bacterial bloom.

David593

Well I think I found out what was wrong, checked the filter out of curiosity and found that I forgot to turn it back on after checking it yesterday. Have it running now...

gmen4life

lol i did that i turn my HOB down o feed