Cloudy water syndrome

So I have had several successful tanks in my past. Unfortunately, I hadn't had any tanks for about 10 years until my gf decided she wanted a fish tank for my girls. 10 gallon Aqueon led kit, Fake plants, pink gravel, SpongeBob decoration...you know, the usual...

So here's the story, I told her if she got it that I'm not taking care of it. Well, I got her to actually cycle the tank (thank god). She went out and got 3 glass catfish. Tell her she needs to change the water some at once a week. All 3 fish died within a week. I did some tests find out the water is hard as a rock. Ask her what water she used and of course it's the water from my well.

Fast forward today, she(I) put in purified water cycle it over again, she stocks it with 5 glofish tetras, a pleco, and an angel...there's no reasoning. She got the green cloud(still no water changes), the angel had killed 3 of the glo tetras, a second bout of green cloud after a 4 day black out and 50% water change.

So apparently, its my tank now. I've taKen the liberty of adding a timer to the light so it's only on for 6 hours a day. I pulled the filter cartridge out of the quiet flow 10, turned the basket around, dumped some bio rings from a friend's tank in the front and some poly fill out of an old pillow on the side. I'm now doing 2 gallon water changes every week.

If you're still reading this, I thank you and promise I'm almost done.

I've never had a tank this small and its still have cloudy water issues. Not green anymore but it's still cloudy. I'm thinking it's the bioload but the nitrates are still pretty low. 5-10 is what I'm getting on an API test. I don't know though because I've had cloudy water either. I'm thinking some carbon would take care of it as well but there's no room in that tiny HOB<--see what I did there?

If there's any question about the angel, I've become quite attached to Violet and I have a 29 gallon I'm looking forward to making a planted tank and she'll be moved into there once it's ready.

 

Unfortunately a 10 gallon is too small for any of those fish..not just the angel.
What are your exact readings for ammonia nitrite and nitrates?
I recommend moving all the filter media over to the 29 gallon and move the fish over asap

 

Welcome to the forum

Agreed with the above. However, you may want to rehome the tetras if your angel has been eating them. Further, they are not temp compatible as angels need it at 79-80 and your tetras need it at 74-75. What kind of pleco do you have?

Can you provide the numbers for pH, KH and GH out of your well water? While it's fine to use the purified water, fish still need the minerals for proper osmotic functioning so unless you're re-mineralizing the water with additives like Seachem Replenish, it's best to just use the well water or mix the two.

Also, the cloudiness is most likely a bacterial bloom which is common in cycling tanks.

Here's a thread of what you can stock in a 10g:

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/stocking-list-for-10-gallons.207629/

 

Unfortunately a 10 gallon is too small for any of those fish..not just the angel.
What are your exact readings for ammonia nitrite and nitrates?
I recommend moving all the filter media over to the 29 gallon and move the fish over asap

Today:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5

Prior to the wate change over the weekend nitrates were 10

Welcome to the forum

Agreed with the above. However, you may want to rehome the tetras if your angel has been eating them. Further, they are not temp compatible as angels need it at 79-80 and your tetras need it at 74-75. What kind of pleco do you have?

Can you provide the numbers for pH, KH and GH out of your well water? While it's fine to use the purified water, fish still need the minerals for proper osmotic functioning so unless you're re-mineralizing the water with additives like Seachem Replenish, it's best to just use the well water or mix the two.

Also, the cloudiness is most likely a bacterial bloom which is common in cycling tanks.

Here's a thread of what you can stock in a 10g:

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/stocking-list-for-10-gallons.207629/

My dKH test didn't turn green until like drop 20. My well is also loaded with iron due to the amount of clay in the area.

 

From my understanding, the higher the KH the better as that is what holds your pH stable. What about the pH and GH?

 

From my understanding, the higher the KH the better as that is what holds your pH stable. What about the pH and GH?

I stopped at drop 20. There's a farm behind and there's so much iron leaching into my well that it turns my toilets, sinks, and bathtubs/showers, orange after a while. I'm just not comfortable using it for fish tank water. My parents' well, that's another story lol I guess I could fill up the empty 5 gallon containers there hmmmm....

Sorry, My pH was 7.5 last night. Somewhere between 7.4 and 7.8. I hate apI kits.

 

That is really high. I guess if your parents' well water is at a decent GH, you could use that if it's not too inconvenient to carry containers of water back and forth or you could still mix half your well water and RO water.

 

I'm 35 years old with 2 kids in school and work well over 40 hours a week. Probably won't happen lol. What I have been doing is putting a small amount of water conditioner in the 5 gallon jug of purified water prior to any water change. What I haven't done is used water conditioner with my well water. I'd probably use prime with that and it might soften it up a bit?

 

No, Prime wouldn't do anything to lower the hardness of your water.

Maybe CindiL can help guide you on the best way you can use your own water. She's our cycling and water guru on the forum.

 

Hi, welcome to fishlore

Do you have a water softener? Also, do you have RO in your kitchen tap or were you thinking of purchasing a unit or just buying at the store?

Here are some of my thoughts on your options. If you have a water softener, that would remove a great deal of the iron unless you have so much that you need an iron curtain. It would bring your GH down to 0 which isn't good and then you'd have to use Replenish to get the GH back up to at least a soft level. The problem with this is then your TDS will be way too high for your angel.

SO, that kind of rules out using softened water for her.

You could try using half well and half RO water which would get the GH down to a good level but there is the iron issue. You could try dosing or even double dosing Prime to remove the iron. The nice thing about mixing the two is you wouldn't have to add in a buffer or mineral salt additive.

Your last option would be to use all RO water and then add in Seachem Alkaline buffer, Replenish and Fresh Trace to re-mineralize the water.

Also, on the Aqueon. Is it the 10 model of the filter also or is the 20 model that came with your tank? That is a super small filter if its the 10 and not much of anything will fit in there. If its the 20, its pretty small too but I think you could fit in a small pack of carbon on the left side and a little bit of ceramics and a foam/sponge on the right. The fluval C4 fits almost perfectly with just a little trimming.

Be happy to help you out if you need it

 

Hi, welcome to fishlore

Do you have a water softener? Also, do you have RO in your kitchen tap or were you thinking of purchasing a unit or just buying at the store?

Here are some of my thoughts on your options. If you have a water softener, that would remove a great deal of the iron unless you have so much that you need an iron curtain. It would bring your GH down to 0 which isn't good and then you'd have to use Replenish to get the GH back up to at least a soft level. The problem with this is then your TDS will be way too high for your angel.

SO, that kind of rules out using softened water for her.

You could try using half well and half RO water which would get the GH down to a good level but there is the iron issue. You could try dosing or even double dosing Prime to remove the iron. The nice thing about mixing the two is you wouldn't have to add in a buffer or mineral salt additive.

Your last option would be to use all RO water and then add in Seachem Alkaline buffer, Replenish and Fresh Trace to re-mineralize the water.

Also, on the Aqueon. Is it the 10 model of the filter also or is the 20 model that came with your tank? That is a super small filter if its the 10 and not much of anything will fit in there. If its the 20, its pretty small too but I think you could fit in a small pack of carbon on the left side and a little bit of ceramics and a foam/sponge on the right. The fluval C4 fits almost perfectly with just a little trimming.

Be happy to help you out if you need it

Thanks for suggestions but as of right now no we have no water softener or ro water anywhere in this house. We are actually tryin to get ready to sell so I won't be upgrading anything like that right now. The purified water seems to working to keep the green cloud out but I can't seem to get rid of this white cloud.

My gf bought a kit so I'm not positive as to what hob came with it but it's pretty small. Currently I have the filter cartridge turned backwards and some dried out live rock put in it and as much polyfill I could fit outside of that.

 

Cloudy water is often due to either over feeding, or excess food in the substrate that's not being vacuumed out, the filters not being cleaned often enough in old tank water or excess organics in the water source. When there is a lot of organics in the water, the heterotrophic bacteria (which multiply every 15-20 minutes) go crazy with all the food to consume, multiplying and that is the cloud you see. As organics go down the cloud should go away and some of those bacteria die off. Its easy to know if its heterotrophic because after a water change the cloudy water is usually back within a day. If you feed less often or less food, and get any excess food out of the tank, it will clear up on its own if its a bloom like that (which most often they are).