SWfreshmen31

The water in my 26 gallon bow-front has been cloudy and there is like a green tint to the tank now. i did a water change yesterday and tested the water and the results are:
ammonia: .5 PPM
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 5ppm
pH:8.4ppm
i am getting a new caister filter soon, maybe even tomorrow if petsmart has it hoping it will help.

KyWildFish

Sounds like u have three possible issues

1st. You have an algae bloom. This is caused by over feeding and/or too much light. Cut back on the feeding, vacuum the tank and check the levels again.

2nd. The ammonia shouldn't be there at all. If your not using liquid tests, it's common to get a false read with ammonia. Before you drop a chunk of cash on a filter get a liquid test kit, that is if you don't already have one. If you do, your cycle is messed up and you need to read up on fixing that.

3rd. As stated above your tank might not be cycled or it could have started over. How old is the set up and what method of nitrogen cycling did u use?

KyWildFish

Dur, ur running a salty. My advice is likely wrong, it only applies to freshys as far as I know. My bad.

aquarist48

Hello SW. I'm not a salty either but you may find this link helpful or at least interesting to read if you haven't already seen it:
Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
Best of luck. I hope you can share some photos with us sometime.
Ken

SWfreshmen31

The filter we were going to get anyways and I recently chnged from a 15w 50/50 buld to 2 24w t5 bulbs.

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SWfreshmen31

i got a uv srerlizer and it cleared it up in 2 days and now its clearer than ir was when it first started.