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Old 17-07-2003, 09:44 PM
linda mar
 
Posts: n/a
Default wow.. clear water finally!

Hi all,

long time ago, I posted regarding ways to clear up water... and I think I
finally did it! (after increasing fish population by 50% or so and lots of
trials..)

adding Flourish Excel was helping (in addition to Flourish and Flourish
Iron.. I should buy Seachem stocks..).. the level of cloudiness seems to
vary from barely visible to hazy (not really cloudy, but just hazy). and it
seemed like the haziness was worse in the evenings than in the mornings
(could be the lighting, but..) and no.. the water was not green (just
slightly hazy)

few days ago I got hold of Flourish Nitrogen.. and put about 50% dose in the
tank for the first time... (my nitrate is zero in the tank, so..)

in two days, wham! the water is crystal clear!!! (now the algae growth on
the back side of the tank is painfully obvious.. hmmm)

I guess lack of nitrogen was definitely limiting the plant nutrient intake
that was causing the haziness... does this mean I can conclude although it
was white haze it wasn't bacterial? do things really make this sort of
drastic change? or is non-green-haze=bacteria always?

or may be it's the loaches I added (that ate snails).. or the cories (that
still hasn't figured out that the tablets are for them to eat) that I added
in the past 2 weeks...

just happy :-)

linda


  #2   Report Post  
Old 17-07-2003, 09:44 PM
Lava Plays
 
Posts: n/a
Default wow.. clear water finally!

hi, how did you do it?
would you please teach me?
thanks.


"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

long time ago, I posted regarding ways to clear up water... and I think I
finally did it! (after increasing fish population by 50% or so and lots of
trials..)

adding Flourish Excel was helping (in addition to Flourish and Flourish
Iron.. I should buy Seachem stocks..).. the level of cloudiness seems to
vary from barely visible to hazy (not really cloudy, but just hazy). and

it
seemed like the haziness was worse in the evenings than in the mornings
(could be the lighting, but..) and no.. the water was not green (just
slightly hazy)

few days ago I got hold of Flourish Nitrogen.. and put about 50% dose in

the
tank for the first time... (my nitrate is zero in the tank, so..)

in two days, wham! the water is crystal clear!!! (now the algae growth

on
the back side of the tank is painfully obvious.. hmmm)

I guess lack of nitrogen was definitely limiting the plant nutrient intake
that was causing the haziness... does this mean I can conclude although

it
was white haze it wasn't bacterial? do things really make this sort of
drastic change? or is non-green-haze=bacteria always?

or may be it's the loaches I added (that ate snails).. or the cories (that
still hasn't figured out that the tablets are for them to eat) that I

added
in the past 2 weeks...

just happy :-)

linda




  #3   Report Post  
Old 17-07-2003, 09:44 PM
linda mar
 
Posts: n/a
Default wow.. clear water finally!

someone else on the newsgroup mentioned that a kink in the canister filter
tube caused cloudiness, so.. YMMV... but here's my experience...

also, my definition of cloudy is slight haze.. just enough that you can get
a nice depth perception between the foreground leaves and the background
leaves.. but nothing like a white-out or anything opaque in any sense.

First i had to decide whether the cloudiness was caused by bacterial bloom
(too much fish waste, poor water, etc) or plant/algae related. The tank had
finished cycling for few months by then, so it wasn't exactly
spanking-new-tank with the new tank syndrome, but something more chronic
(didn't add fish for 2 mo and nothing changed). the water wasn't green, so
it wasn't obvious that it was algae or bacterial..

so... I started doing pretty frequent water changes.. no change. adding or
subtracting fish didn't help either. did thorough vacuuming and pruned dead
vegetaion very carefully, and that helped a bit.. but not much.

I tried the flocculent water clarifier.. and realized that my powerfiler
wasn't filtering those small particles out efficiently (and stuff was
starting to settle on my plants like dust bunnies).. so fist I bought and
installed HOT Magnum filter, and ran micron cartridge. it helped clear up
the water a bit, but not very much... so at that point, decided that the
filter itself isn't a problem.

stopped feeding fish for 4 days with no change, went down to once-in-2-days
feeding, and no change.. at this point my guess was that the cloudiness
wasn't entirely due to bacterial bloom caused by water pollution, but most
likely caused by some nutrient imbalance for the plants that made it hard
for them out-compete algae, etc (free-floating diatom, whatever). Another
hint whether it was pollution-related was it didn't seem to matter whether I
add fish (once I increased population by a good 50%) or subtract it (into
quarantine tank or due to deaths) too. the confusion was that the water
wasn't green like you would associate an algae bloom, so...

anyway, my gut instinct said plant-related.. so, I started adding Flourish
to tend to the plants... this made the plants happier, but water was still
cloudy, and the plants started to turn yellow

so, I started adding Flourish Iron and Flourish Excel.. F. Excel was in
lieu of adding CO2. also, I started to darken the room a bit, so no direct
sunlight would hit the tank (there was abotu 30-60min worth of sunset hour
that the tank got direct sun, so..). This allowed the water to get "more
clear" but not crystal clear. plants were nice and green, but nothing
extraordinary.. but this also brought on lots of beard algae and the like..
so I got myself some SAE's that I just happen to come across to control
them...

So, i kept this regimen up for about a month.. then I realized that the
water is more cloudy in the evenings while it is clear in the mornings..
which REALLY pointed to plant activity.. (either sunlight or respiration,
etc)

after I bought a test kit and tested the water, and finding out that the
nitrate, nitrite and ammonia are all zero, very low KH and GH (2), a
suggestion was made that I was totally devoid of the macronutrients.. so I
went and bought Flourish Nitrogen, and put 50% dose (not to shock the
fish).. and while I was at it, I added 5 more bottom feeders

two days later the water is clear..

and two days after that the water is a little cloudy again (I need to add
more furtilizer, I guess)

so...

hopefully after I add more furtilizer, things will go back to clear again...

linda

"Lava Plays" wrote in message
...
hi, how did you do it?
would you please teach me?
thanks.


"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

long time ago, I posted regarding ways to clear up water... and I think

I
finally did it! (after increasing fish population by 50% or so and lots

of
trials..)

adding Flourish Excel was helping (in addition to Flourish and Flourish
Iron.. I should buy Seachem stocks..).. the level of cloudiness seems to
vary from barely visible to hazy (not really cloudy, but just hazy).

and
it
seemed like the haziness was worse in the evenings than in the mornings
(could be the lighting, but..) and no.. the water was not green (just
slightly hazy)

few days ago I got hold of Flourish Nitrogen.. and put about 50% dose in

the
tank for the first time... (my nitrate is zero in the tank, so..)

in two days, wham! the water is crystal clear!!! (now the algae growth

on
the back side of the tank is painfully obvious.. hmmm)

I guess lack of nitrogen was definitely limiting the plant nutrient

intake
that was causing the haziness... does this mean I can conclude although

it
was white haze it wasn't bacterial? do things really make this sort of
drastic change? or is non-green-haze=bacteria always?

or may be it's the loaches I added (that ate snails).. or the cories

(that
still hasn't figured out that the tablets are for them to eat) that I

added
in the past 2 weeks...

just happy :-)

linda






  #4   Report Post  
Old 17-07-2003, 09:44 PM
Duncan A. McRae
 
Posts: n/a
Default wow.. clear water finally!

Now I have something to try myself. 10g tank with 20w (one normal, one
half-normal & half actinic), one twig cat and six Amano shrimp -- can't see
the back of the tank from the front. Will investigate fertilizer on the
morrow. Thanks!


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