New set up gone cloudy.

Chrispo1972

Hi there, I'm new to tropical fish keeping and have just set up my first ever tank. Its 110l tank with real plants and bog wood. I used de-chlorine and bacteria starter to setup and put 3 frogs (African dwarf). I then checked the water and everything was ok (ph,ammonia, nitrite and nitrate all good). So I added 5 juvenile guppys from my brother in laws tank and some fertiliser for the plants.
It's been fine for 4 days until last night when the water had gone really cloudy/milky looking. I checked all the levels and everything had gone up. I had a look on the internet and got very contrasting advice but decided to get a couple of buckets worth of water ready for a partial water change. I left the water overnight to de-chlorinate and reach room temp.
The weird thing is the water has gone back to looking ok again and the fish seem healthy and full of life. I haven't tested the water again yet. Do I need to do a partial water change or is this quite normal as some websites have suggested?
The tanks only on its 5th day of set up and I may have been putting too much food in. Now some sites suggest that I've put fish in too quickly and others don't and I did check with the local tropical fish shop and they said it was fine to introduce fish with my set up, so too did my brother in law who has 30+ yrs of fish keeping experience.
Was this a bacteria bloom as I've read up about?
Anyway any advice given would be much appreciated as the startling variation in advice given by different websites can be very confusing to a newbie like me.
Cheers
Chrsipo1972

marshallsea

Sounds like a normal bacteria bloom. In a new tank with fish you should be doing frequent water changes, as the water can be unstable and go bad on you before you know what happened. What type of test kit are you using? Can you give specific numbers of the results? Be very careful with feeding amounts. You didnt say the amount of plants you have, the more the better for your water. If you dont have alot of plants you need to do daily water changes for a while.

Chrispo1972

The test kit is an Interpet easy test with broad range PH test. results are PH 6.4, Ammonia 0.4, Nitrite 0.25, Nitrate 10.

Tank has 6 live plants in it, 5 guppys (3 week old) and 3 african dwarf frogs.

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cameronpalte

Ammonia= 0.4
Nitrite= 0.25

Since you have some nitrates it actually seems like your tank is cycling extremely quickly since it's only on it's fifth day. However you always want to keep your ammonia and nitrite levels at 0 and while your current levels may seem low it's actually still hazardous for the fish.

First you should go and do a 50% water change.
Second go test your tap water (the water your choosing for your changes) for nitrate, ammonia, and nitrite because your water may contain some nitrates which is why your tank seems cycled.

Also, you said you're leaving it overnight to dechlorinate and reach room temperature. The fact that you're leaving it to reach room temperature worries me, because it may mean you don't have a heater. If you do or don't your tank should ALWAYS be kept at around 76 degrees since it's a tropical tank. If it's not that high I highly recommend a heater.

Lastly, you don't need to leave it overnight to dechlorinate. I highly recommend getting a product called prime which is extremely useful for this kind of work. Just put some prime in the container and you should be done no need to wait.

Chrispo1972

I tested the water at the beginning of set up and it was clear of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I have a heater in the tank but not a spare for heating water ready for water changes, thats why i wanted to let it warm up to room temp to be as close to the tanks temperature as possible (my cold water tap is very cold). I will buy some de-chlorinating chems from the shop for future water changes, but it does seem that I've been really lucky and my tank is cycling rather quickly.