# Cloudy water help needed



## corrie (Aug 10, 2014)

i changed my substrat to a dirted tank with gravel & white sand over teh dirt about a week ago & sinse then i have a very cloudy water in my 55gal anyone know a good way to get it to clear up fast or do i just have to wait it out for a few more weeks tell it clears up ?

here is a pic of the tank right now 








Pic of the tank now with not so cloudy water in it


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Sometimes using filter floss will help or lots of water changes. Cloudy water can be a few things. Either its cloudy from the new substrate or you've lost good bacteria IME

I recently helped someone with a goldfish tank that had cloudy water. In his case he didn't have enough bio logical or good bacteria in his filter so this can be the problem you are experiencing. You removed all your substrate which would of been full of good bacteria. Now you removed it and what are you are experiencing is a common problem. I gave him a bunch of bio media out of my filter and did a big water change. I told him to add stability every day as the bottle says. The cloudy water never returned. I did get him to buy a small canister too because hissingle filter couldn't handle the bio load of the 3 goldfish.

Have you checked water parameters? How long was it setup before you switched the substrate?


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

you might have too much organic in your dirt. Dirt is not really for beginner and much better for people who don't mind experimenting.


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## corrie (Aug 10, 2014)

@jbyoung00008
the tank has been set up since may  i did keep all the gravel i had in , i put it on top of the dirt then put a the white sand on top of that . i kept the bio filter foam still in the filtrashion thinggy  i need to buy a new pack of water test strips as im out of them right now so i have no clue as to what they are at this time  

@charles
I dont mind experimenting with my tank  i changed to dirt as all my live plants i had baught where dieing on me even with the flourish excel i was using once a week


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

I think excel needs to be every other day with the direction. And your light (I think those are T8), might not be good enough for your tank.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Excel only last 24 hours max when exposed to light. So once a week as the only supplement is insufficient if you are using it as your main source of carbon. Did you apply any laterite or any other supplements under the dirt? If you have put a small amount of lignite (very low grade coal) under the the sand, that would have been a passive source of carbon also. Dirting a tank can be done many ways, but it's best to do all the research first.

Excel as a carbon source is not the only thing you need to provide for the plants. The macro nutrients NPK need to be there in sufficient quantities as well as sufficient light.


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## corrie (Aug 10, 2014)

@charles - yes the lights are 24" T8 full hood fluorescents X2 are there one on each side of the tank. what other lights would you sagest that would work beter then the T8's ?

@2wheelsx2 - i did research on dirting a tank for a bout 2months before i swiched my tank over to a dirted  i did add a thin layer of chrushed coral i also added flourish tabs 1 every 6inchs throue out the full tank . i also have uped my execl to every second day


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Corrie, I didn't mean to suggest that you didn't do any research. I am just surprised you went with dirt after that research. I looked at dirting a tank but in the end went with Eco-complete, Florabase, and ADA AS. Nothing in any of my research convinced that it was worth it to go with dirt. I know there are many successes but in the cases of the failure the results were ugly, so I stayed away. I'm interested in seeing your first hand results.

Actually to elaborate, I almost went with Turface Pro or Akadama soil, but once again, after researching some, I just couldn't see the cost/benefit ratio compared to results achieved. I do have to admit though 1/2 of my planted tanks are CO2 injected....in the interest of full disclosure.

As for the light, without CO2, I have had various degrees of success with all kinds of light. T5HO would be the most light you can put in there without going to fairly expensive LED's. But a word of warning, more light is not always the answer. Getting too much light in there may cause you no end of problems since you're not using CO2. I've grown plenty of plants with T8's albeit very very slowly. I'm growing tons of Anubias, crypts, and Subwasstertang with about 3 w of Beamswork LED lighting that I got from Charles several years ago. This light was supposed to be not for growing plants, but lighting the tank 6 hours a day and just adding K and GH booster and a bit of Excel once a week I am able to grow those plants very slowly with that miniscule amount of light.

I think you can achieve good success with T8 but you have to be very very patient as the growth will be glacially slow.


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## corrie (Aug 10, 2014)

@2wheelsx2 - i when with the organic choice dirt as i got 2 10.6lb bags for $5 there reg $15 each but i think someone miss priced them so it was a good deal for me to get at the time and for the lighting i dont mind the T8s i have on the tank i just wish they where a bit brighter im also thinking of trying a homemade C02 im just researching them right now so far the cloudy water if going away  my fish seam happy 
the plants i have in my tank right now seam to be growing good  only my val plant dies fully on me but all the rest look health


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Your vals died because of the Excel. They are extremely sensitive to Excel. One of the main reasons I went to CO2 is because I wanted to grow Corkscrew Vals. DIY CO2 will be a lot of work on a 55 gallon...


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## corrie (Aug 10, 2014)

@2wheelsx2 - oh i did not know excel would kill the vals it does sean like a lot of work for the DIY c02 i think i might just save up to get the real deal insted


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Yes, not only Vals, but some other plants are sensitive, but I've only had problems with Vals with all the plants that I have kept, so I do not know which others are.

It's a natural progression to go Excel -> DIY CO2 -> pressurized. I did it, but with a 20 gallon. I even tried DIY on a 125 gallon for a while but it was absolutely ridiculous so I gave up pretty quickly. Now I ran a 20 lb CO2 tank on that one. 

Pressurized is pretty cheap once you have made the initial investment, but yeah, that first purchase of CO2 tank, regulator, needle valve, check valves and diffusers/reactors is a killer.


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