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cloudy water - what is it and how to fix it?

2K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  yippee 
#1 ·
We set my gfs 10 gallon up no too terribly long ago. it has sand, decorations, and a penguin filter. it has been running fishless since we set it up. I washed the sand very very very well. I also set her 5 gallon up before that and it looks perfectly fine and has been housing 3 zebra danios. for some reason the 10 has gotten cloudy water. I was going to start doing daily partial water changes, but decided i didn't want to waste water treatment until i knew what it was. It could be a bacteria bloom - but what causes it and why? What else could it be? And how do i get rid of it? Thanks.
 
#5 ·
A water sample would tell us a lot, if you can't make time to get to your LFS, you could always run in and pick-up a API Liquid Test kit, will save you countless trips to the fish store for water samples....

have you added any chemicals or anything to your tank? or is fresh "out of the box" and running with nothing really going on? get back to us
 
#6 ·
I have the API liquid test kit and use it on all of my tanks. I just haven't had time to test the water.

The tank was set up with water conditioner (to take the chlorine and other chemicals out) and hasn't had anything else done to it. We rinsed the tank well, the sand, and decorations. Put them in. Filled with water and added conditioner. Rinsed the filter and let it run. We set up her 5 the exact same way and haven't had any problems what so ever. I used all of the same stuff on both tanks as i do my own. This is the only one that ever went cloudy. Other than what i described nothing else has been in it or done to it.
 
#7 ·
I don't have the exact numbers as i left them at her appt for further testing tom. So far the water in the 10 gallon reads high on everything. ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are all high. I remember nitrates being 5, but the others i will have to look at. Testing the water straight from the tap the ammonia tested high (either .25 or .5) nitrites were 0 and nitrates were 5.

Does this tell you anything? Again the tank hasn't had anything in it.
 
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