Bottom post.
"KStringer" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm really hoping some of you out there can help me as I'm
completely stumped.

I have a 180G planted Freshwater community tank that is plagued by a
progressively worse white cloudiness to the water. I have read that
there are two causes to this:

1. Overfeeding (I feed my fish once a day and they eat everything
within less than 2 minutes)
2. Unsettled bacteria (I'm not sure I completely understand this
cause though)

Here are my tank specs:

1. 180 gallons
2. 4x96 Watt 6700K lighting 12-13 hours per day
3. CO2 injection usually around 25ppm
4. PH 8.0 (when CO2 injection is not on)
5. zero ammonia and nitrites
6. 2x Rena XP3 Canister filters and 1 Emperor 400 HOB filter.
7. Fertilizers are a potassium/Iron fert and Plantex CSM+B once a
week. I've dialed back on this too to see if it has any effect.
8. Eco-Complete substrate

Plants:
2 amazon sword plants
1 melon sword plant
1 crytpocoryn
6-8 Ludwigia (Red variety and leaves are all nice and red)
8 Corkscrew Vallisneria

Fish:
Total of about 58 small community fish comprised of 3 different
tetras, zebra danios, red tail shark, swordtails, a couple of
mollies, 4 plecos, kuhli loaches, clown loaches and a few ghost
shrimp.

I've cleaned out my filters by rinsing out the sponge portion of the
Rena XP3 filters to remove any heavy detritus, and replaced micro
filter pads.
I added the HOB filter for additional filtration and to add carbon
to the filtration.
I dialed back on food but I'm scared to use any less at this point.
Frequent water changes, about 50-75% each week.

What is more frustrating is that I have a little 2.5 Gallon Betta
tank that has 1 ludwegia and 2 corskrew plants in it with a single
betta fish and that water remains perfectly clear except for some
minor algae buildup.

I did receive some advice from someone that suggested that it might be
caused by plants that have died off and could be causing an ammonia
spike and that I should remove any decaying plant matter and gently
vacuum the substrate.

I typically do this during each water change and after the water change
the water will be clear for about a day or two then get progressively
more cloudy with each day.

Any advice is greatly appreciated as I just don't know how to figure
out what's causing the problem.

With Great Thanks,
Kevin

FWIW - I have two Eheims and alternate weekly with their cleaning. Using a
shower head, I flush out all of the muck with tap water - I then re-assemble
it adding a capful of Nutrafin Cycle and then fill the filter with water
from my aquarium. Working on the 20% rule I should change 64 litres of
water, however in practice the change is 108 litres (34%). These odd
numbers suit me as it's the size of containers that I use. Seems to work for
me.

HTH - Dave
---
Hampshire
England