Cloudy water, not sure why

[Scott A Giorgianni]

I have a 55g tank which currently houses 12 fish (tetras, pleco, danio, swordtails) and only artificial plants. It has two HOB filters and three air stones. I had been having some issues, I think due to overfeeding, and some fish unfortunately passed. About two weeks ago I modified the amount and frequency of food coming from the automatic feeder, and on Monday (three days ago) I changed the gravel completely in part because of the debris and because it had been a long time since I'd done a gravel change. When I did the gravel change I temporarily disabled one of the HOB filters because it appeared to be not working properly.

Admittedly, I have not water changes as often as I should and that's something that will be rectified going forward. I use Prime water (from the dispensers outside grocery stores etc.) and have been using such water for several years now. The tank lives at my workplace.

This morning when I came in the water was completely clouded. I assumed it was a bacterial bloom. At the time that I did the gravel change I added live bacteria from a bottle although there was already media etc. with established bacteria. I then noticed that the filter, a Fluval 70, was not running because it was not plugged in. I'm not sure if this happened during the gravel change or after; I periodically check the timers and when I did so yesterday it might have been dislodged then. I have now reinstalled the other HOB filter as I was able to get it working properly. So now both filters are running and I'm not sure if the water will clear up, i.e., if the absence of filters caused the cloudy water, or started a bacterial bloom which clouded the water, or whatever. It's also noteworthy that I didn't rinse the new gravel as thoroughly as I should have. Part of the reason is timing; I work in a daycare and I couldn't have things all out and about at a certain time.

I'm sounding like a terrible pet parent, I'm afraid, but I do care regularly for this tank. I'm trying to determine right now what to do. Picture is attached. It seems to have improved a little since I plugged the filters back in, but I've read some nightmarish stories about cloudy water not going away. There is no dead/decaying organic material in there and when I changed the gravel I did about a 50% water change. Ideas?

 

[JustAFishServant]

White cloudiness = bacterial bloom
Green cloudiness = algal bloom

Bacterial blooms are caused by too much bacteria or sometimes, dead bacteria floating around. If some fish died and you overfeed, I'd guess you have too much live bacteria. If it's gotten worse from the bottled bacteria you've added, either the bacteria's dead (very common) or you just added so much live bacteria that the bloom could last for up to 2 weeks.

How do you fix a bacterial bloom? Wait. How do you fix a prolonged bacterial bloom? Reduce feeding and wait. DON'T do water changes!

 

[ruud]

Adding zombie bacteria just causes organic waste, which then causes heterotrophic bacteria to bloom, which then feeds a microfauna, which causes the cloudiness. The one thing that helps is keeping oxygen levels up, by lowering the temperature a bit and stimulating the water flow.

 

[Scott A Giorgianni]

This is a late thank you, but thank you for your suggestions and perspective. The tank was back to normal soon. One of the filters was actually malfunctioning, which I didn't notice initially, and when corrected the water improved within 24 hours.