Cloudy water; filter question

[nikipate]

The water in our aquarium has turned cloudy in the last couple of days. It has a kind of greenish tint but there not really much algae on the surfaces. Since our tank is planted we took the carbon out of the canister filter and I was wondering if this is why the water is cloudy now. We medicated once for ich but all the water parameters were fine when I tested the water today. We have been doing every other day water changes to treat the ich so that shouldn't be the problem. The only other thing is that we have had the temperature up to around 82 to help with the ich.

Does anyone has any suggestions on why the water seems to be so cloudy and what we can do to fix it?

I was also wondering about the filter we have. When we were buying all the equipment for the tank we didn't know about the "double" filtration thing... as in for the 150 gallon tank we have we really needed enough filtration for 300 gallons. The filter that we bought is a Rena Filstar XP3 which says it will handle 175 gallons. Due to a bunch of newbie mistakes we are down to 24 community fish in this 150 gallon tank. With this relatively small number of fish in the tank, should this filter be able to handle the load? Or is this just way too little filtration? My husband has been told by several different people that we could buy another filter exactly like the one we have and hook the two of them together so that we don't have to have two intake pipes and two outflow pipes. Has anyone ever done this? I'm having nightmarish visions of hooking two filters together and firing them up and having a flood underneath the tank.....

I would appreciate any feedback that you guys can give me on this one...

[Chrona]

That filter is fine for that bioload. Canister type filters only have a limited capacity, so your tank would not overflow. As for the cloudy water, if it's green, it's just an algae bloom. Leave your tank lights off for 24 hours and cover the tank with something if it gets indirect sunlight. If it's white, then it's a bacterial bloom. Check your tank parameters for ammonia and nitrites.

Also, what kind of ich med and how long did you treat it for?

[nikipate]

I did check the ammonia and nitrites and they were at 0. The nitrates were at 5.0. I used the Tank Buddies brand of ich med. I only treated it once and that was on March 6. Since then we have been doing the non-med type of treatment by doing water changes daily or every other day along with Stresscoat and keeping the temp up.

Will just turning off the lights and covering the tank to protect from sunlight take care of the algae bloom or are big water changes helpful too?

The “flood” I was worried about with joining two filters was if it didn’t hook up just right I’m afraid it will leak out of the filters or something. I was hoping maybe someone else has already done this……

[Chrona]

I did check the ammonia and nitrites and they were at 0. The nitrates were at 5.0. I used the Tank Buddies brand of ich med. I only treated it once and that was on March 6. Since then we have been doing the non-med type of treatment by doing water changes daily or every other day along with Stresscoat and keeping the temp up.

Will just turning off the lights and covering the tank to protect from sunlight take care of the algae bloom or are big water changes helpful too?

The “flood” I was worried about with joining two filters was if it didn’t hook up just right I’m afraid it will leak out of the filters or something. I was hoping maybe someone else has already done this……

If you go out and buy the proper hosing with clamps and all, you will not have a leak. The algae bloom can only be taken out by using chemicals or cutting off all light for 24 hours. It will multiply faster than you can take it out even if you do daily 50% water changes.

[nikipate]

If you go out and buy the proper hosing with clamps and all, you will not have a leak. The algae bloom can only be taken out by using chemicals or cutting off all light for 24 hours. It will multiply faster than you can take it out even if you do daily 50% water changes.


Okay, thanks so much for the info..... you always come through:thumb:

[Chrona]

Oh and one more thing, make sure the combined outlet/inlet hoses are of a larger diameter of course. If you use the same diameter for everything, the drives in the filters may burn themselves out trying to push all water through.

[nikipate]

Oh and one more thing, make sure the combined outlet/inlet hoses are of a larger diameter of course. If you use the same diameter for everything, the drives in the filters may burn themselves out trying to push all water through.

Glad you added that... I wouldn't have thought of that. I'll tell the hubby cause he's the handy one around here. Thanks again...