Holy Cloudy Water!!!

[emh111171]

I set up a 20 gallon bow front 10 days ago to transfer some of the army that my daughter's fancy guppies are building. My goal is to get all males in the downstairs tank. The water tested fine and was clear for the first 10 days. Then I added a large, a medium and three small plants along with a nice piece of driftwood. Hours later the tank was clouding and today I can barely see anything unless it's up against the glass. Not sure what to do to correct this... I'm afraid if I do a water change it's only going to cloud again.

Here's the tank pre-plants and wood...



Shortly after adding the decorations...



And today when I got home from work!!!



ANY guidance is appreciated!!!

Erik

[ScottishFish]

Your tank is cycling, you can read up on it in the beginner freshwater section

[BigPoppa]

Possibly some of that is from the driftwood releasing tannins. You can take it out and soak it in a bucket of water for couple weeks.

The tannins will not hurt your fish though.

[bignellm]

Looks like a massive bacterial bloom from the beginning of your tanks cycle. I would test for Ammonia and take action on a water change if the results were higher than 0.5ppm

Also, tannins make the water look well, tannish. But as stated above, won't hurt anything.

[emh111171]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I removed the driftwood and I'm boiling it now. I read that this will help to remove the tannins. After I boil it for a while I'll leave it in a bucket for a couple weeks.

The test strips I have apparently don't test for ammonia, but most of the other readings look OK to me. I'll have to pick up a test kit for the ammonia...

nitrate 10 ppm / safe
nitrite 1.0 ppm / stress
total hardness 150 ppm / hard
chlorine 0 ppm / safe
alkalinity 80 ppm / moderate
pH 7.2 / neutral

Again, thanks everyone for your input!!! :)

[Cliff]

Your readings (ie.. water quality) should be better than that. Your nitrite should be below 0.5ppm (0.25ppm is best). I would suggest a large water change now, and a second later on tonight.

I would also suggest getting a liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and PH. They are a lot easier to get a more accurate reading as compared with the test strips.

The cycling with fish thread here explains the process your tank is going through right now. There's a link to it below in my sig

[bignellm]

You can bet your Ammonia is spiked too, if your Nitrite is up like that.

Just wanna make sure these links aren't buried, with me posting a response.
Fishless Cycle
Cycle with Fish

I completely agree with Cliff on his remarks. You need a large Water Change, perferably 50% minimum.

[PhillipOrigami]

Is that plant to the left a live Madagascar Lace plant? If so, I suspect it won't do well at all in what you are providing.

[emh111171]

I think my nitrate reading is off... Probably from using strips. I stopped in at the aquarium supply on the way home and they were out of liquid test kits but they did have one for just ammonia so I picked that up for now. Thankfully it's not ammonia. I think I just have a tannin problem, which is annoying since the girl at the store I went to this weekend knew I never used real wood or plants and failed to mention boiling or soaking. I boiled the wood for an hour last night and the water was solid brown. It's sitting in a tote in the basement now and the water is between yellow and brown. I'll keep changing the water in the tote until it is clear. As for my tannin filled tank, the feedback I've received so far is that I should start over - which i'd rather not do, but will if there's no way to get the water clear again.

As for the plant Phillip... It is a Madagascar lace and I hope I don't lose it - it cose me $20!

[PhillipOrigami]

I heard it will only grow in very high light and nutrient rich substrate-Namley heard success mainly dirted. And they get very, very big.