Hi Kush,

Hi, Linda. I'm uncomfortable in the role of "expert," but since I'm the
self-designated UGF/high pH-soft-water guy, what the hey...

:-) I'll take any advice I can get! and at this point, most people on the
group is more expert than I am, so.. :-)

The first impression I get is that you might be doing too many
interventions
and too much cleaning. If the tank has only been up a couple of months
(?),
you sure don't need to be vacuuming gravel. I only do mine every year or
so

I don' t know about too many interventions, except for cutting dying
vegetation stirring up stuff, but when I look at the edge of the tank, and
on my milfoils, I can see LOTS of brown goop accumulating.. dusty
flake-like stuff.. something precipitating out from the water, that is
settling on everything inside the tank. I had a huge diatom infestation
during the initial tank cycling to a point I could not see through the
glass.. all of which otos did a marvelous job of cleaning.. but what goes
into the oto must come out, and I think much of the gunk on the gravel, I
think, is oto poop or what's left of it. I mean, when the otos were at it,
their poops *covered* the surface of anything remotely horizontal, to a
point where there were no green showing on the poor anubias leaf (completely
covered in oto poop. I should have taken a photo...).

the brown flaky stuff, the poor milfoil becomes covered in brown again in
minutes even when I shake them loose.. instead of settling to the gravel,
the brown stuff just gets re-attached to the leaves and suffocating the
plant (I think I killed off a few because of this)... the bigger-leaved
plants aren't as bad.. but milfoil isn't doing too well, since it's acting
like a strainer.

I haven't been vacuuming all that much, since the time I have before I hit
the 25% water extraction is pretty fast and doesn't give me enough time to
just get the obvious plant debris that gets stirred up, etc.. but haven't
done anything out of the ordinary in terms of tank maintenance.

and only if I happen to be replanting a large area. Besides, Leigh and

well.. I had to pull out few plants that didn't survive the transplant
shock... that made a huge mess.. does that count? :-)

others are going to scold you for wasting all that yummy mulm (after they
stop palpitating over the ugf). At any rate, I'd recommend just doing
your

:-)

25% weekly-or-so water changes for a while and letting things get
established.

ok... but, don't I need to vacuum gravel if I don't want the UGF to fail?
(go anaerobic). I got lots of big-root plants (swords, etc.. I thought I
was only ordering two.. from trueaquariumplants..), and I keep hearing that
the roots will clog the filter, so I need to be more diligent about keeping
the substrate unclogged (at the expense of depriving the roots of food and
too much oxygen..)...

The big issue is the pH. Ammonium is not stable at pH much over 7 and in
really alkaline water will change into very-bad-for-your-fish ammonia.
This
may mean that your tank isn't really cycled after all. Are you adding
CO2?
If not, I (almost) guarantee that adding CO2 will eliminate your cloudy
water within 24 hours.

my tap water is naturally soft.. and I think the pH is artificially made
high by the water treatment facility... I haven't had the chance to measure
the pH straight out of the tap yet, but the water report says average pH is
9.1 or so... so the high alkaline level is not really due to the fish, but
because of the source water having high pH.. and is slowly coming down as
the water ages.

pH of 7.5 to 8 is not slightly alkaline. It is very alkaline. With low
kH

:-P right. logrithmic.. misspoke.. except for the otos, I've tried to
put in fish that can survive higher alkaline water... (and add "soft" and
"non-brackish" to that, and it becomes very limiting!)

(presumably) by formula your water contains little CO2. Supplementing
with
CO2 is not going to be optional for you, even with low lighting. The

does this mean Flourish Excel is a bad idea too? the tank has one 55W CF..
(low-to-moderate brightness)

bogwood and plants will help to bring the pH down over time too.

I think it is bringing it down. since the tap is *supposedly* originally
high in pH, I just have to make sure I don't go without water change for too
long (pH change shock caused by new/old water difference will be worse if I
leave it be too long), or that was the advice i was given based on my water
report (soft water, high pH tap)

thanks!
linda


linda mar wrote in message
...
Dear experts..

I've been having hazy water ever since the first day I put fish in the
tank,
with some dose of "Cycle" as recommende by LFS and the bottle. it's not
completely cloudy, but hazy.. just enough to be very useful to get some
depth perception photo between the foreground leaves and background
leaves..

I've finished cycling for several weeks, algae is under control, ammonia
and
nitrite=0 (still waiting to get my nitrate test kit). The water is
slightly
alkaline (pH somewhere between 7.5 and 8 depending on who tests it) and
relatively soft (never tested, but based on municipal water report dH~4
or
so), and is kept around 78F. I just bought the freshwater test kit, so
starting this water change cycle, I will be able to run a battery of
test
to
monitor the water condition (low dH/gH has potential pH crash worries..)

Tank cycled using UGF using a relatively coarse pea-sized gravel about
2in
thick, powered by two power heads (aquaclear 201's). The power head
spouts
are tilted enough to cause some surface agitation (lots of ripples), but
does not use venturi. I have added a HOT power filter hoping to
supplement
mechanical filtering after the tank finished cycling (aquaclear200. two
foam blocks, no carbon) hoping it would help clear the water better (no
such
luck). Tank is moderately to heavily planted, and moderately stocked.
(the
cloudiness was there even when very lightly stocked and no plants, so.).
I
have some bogwoods in the tank (some tannin leeching, but that's ok.
Decided yellowish water by itself doesn't bother me.. just the haze)

Starting this weekend, I've decided to do some systematic cleaning over
the
next few weeks, to see if I can somehow get the water to clear up more.
I
know hazy water doesn't hurt the fish, but it's just that I envy my
favorite
LFSs' crystal-clear tanks (some even have real plants, and they still
look
very very clear. only murky tanks are when they're cleaning the tank, or
the
feeder fish tank..), and the fact that the other two smaller tanks we
have
are very clear (eclipse hood). so, cloudy water=something not quite
optimal..

Here is the list I've come up with that I should try to address, and see
if
the water will clear up. I was hoping the experts on this group can
point
me to other places to investigate (or just tell me to give up if the
following effort doesn't pan out):

1. water changes
I do 20%-25% water change every 2 weeks ever since the tank has cycled
(I
target 15-20%, but seems to end up taking out more water than I intended
when using siphon-style gravel vac..). Obviously this in itself hasn't
helped much in clearing out water
2. gravel vac
I just bought the air-pump activated gravel vac, so I can do more
thorough
vacumming (the siphon vac took out water too quickly). I hope to remove
as
much plant debris, and other detritus from the gravel and plants,
without
malnutritioning the plants. (will be putting root tabs soon)
3. UGF maintenance
try to siphon out some of the gunk accumulating underneath the UGF
plating
(use narrow tubing and shove it under the plate through the uplift tube
opening). Last time I got lots of brownish goo out... I guess the
substrate
is too coarse and letting lots of detrius get trapped under the plating,
oh
well.. next time i'll get something better)
3. plant cleaning
remove all deteriorating leaves on all stem plants, continue to vacuum
out
crud that accumulates on fine-leaved plants (acting as a filter!)
4. foam filter on powerfilter
take out and clean (not used for biological filter yet) often. May be
add
a
finer filter floss? (what size mesh? I see 50um or 100um particle
traps)?
5. add aqua-clear type particle coagulator for more efficient
mechanical
filtering.

are there other things I should look at to see how I can increase the
water
clarity without hurting the ecosystem? I assume normal gravel
vac/siphoning
under UGF plating won't hurt the beneficial bacteria. I won't clean
the
power filter and UGF at the same time (will stagger cleaning timing) to
assure that the bacteria colony isn't completely destroyed.

linda