# milky water SOS



## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Hello!

It's been a while but I've been having hazy-water problems and a case of life :/

The water thing is a big mistery to me - lately we're talking "can't see anything that's an inch or more away from the glass".  My tank is a 69 US gallon/260L, with a soil substrate, plenty of plants, 2 pearl gouramis and a dozen cardinals, plus cherry shrimp. 

For weight reasons I've moved the tank to another wall, away from the sunlight, which is supposed to help with these things, supposedly...
So I take the fish way to a smaller tank, with some water from my tank, plus new water. That water is slowly getting clearer, even though now it's more overpopulated.

I almost empty the tank and move it, that was last Sunday. Add new water... I see bits of clay dirt floating that settle overnight, but now it looks like I've dumped milk into the water. Like a muddy river! Yet it's not mud (soil is reddish, not whitish).

The shrimp have been multiplying like mad, the crypts are all still there. Those nearer the edge (more light) have been doing well, even. The HC was still growing like mad. I only found two small patches of cladophora algae. The pearl gouramy male started building a bubble nest two days before moving. The only area where plants are a bit sparse is in the centre, where little light will get to, in these conditions 

So... what could be wrong? Could it be a deficiency rather than an excess? At times I suspect the soil and the driftwood, but these were added at the beginning and it was clear for quite a while.

Any ideas?


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

We need some more information on light and filtration. Usually a white or gray cloudiness indicates a bacterial bloom. These are common in new tanks, and normally go away by themselves.

Maybe the move changed conditions just enough to promote bacteria. If you are not already doing so, I suggest adding lots of mechanical filtration--fine sponges or polyester fiber.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Isn’t this a filterless tank? I think if that is the case I would let it take care of itself. The bacteria are going to have to settle this themselves.


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## Octavusprime (Sep 18, 2011)

Check your filter. I once did a water change and forgot to turn my filters back on. The next day my whole tank was milky white. Assuming a spike in ammonia caused a bacterial bloom.


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Light before was from being right behind a huge window, facing east-southeast, with sunlight getting through for a few hours each sunny morning. This is at Florida-like latitude, 28ºN. Terrestriallants that want semi-shade usually love it there.
Now it's at right angle to the same window, and about 2 feet away, so no more direct sunlight. I had terrestrial ferns and other plants there before and they did well, but more light loving indoor plants would seek more. Sorry I have no hard data.

I use no filtration, never have, just a powerhead for movement. And at the moment nothing at all, as the water's not deep enough.

The hazyness has been there since july; it started about a month after flooding the dry-started tank. Sometimes it was just a bit annoying but lately enough to not see beyond the first inch at all. I've dome big trims in between because the HC was taking over the whole thing (we're talking cutting off almost foot-long strands of HC near the back where most light was).
What makes me wonder is... if there's some big bad unbalance, lasting that long... wouldn't it harm more things than just visibility?
Is there anything else it could be other than a bacterial bloom? 

I have elsewhere another tank which gets even more sunlight, enough to bleach-out certain parts of Hydrilla (other parts just grow incredibly tight-very pretty) and that sometimes got a haze for a few weeks when doing large changes of water, but it always sorts itself out. No filtration, no food, nothing electrity-run in that one. Just shrimp and some goldfish that must have come with the plants as eggs/tiny babies. I meant to keep only plants in that one, and was really surprised to find those living there and doing well 

Cheers!


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

I missed the last two responses while writing...

Yes, it's a filterless tank. What bothers me is how long the haze has lasted. I'll definitely give ot a few more days before continuing the move (more water, fish back in,...). But I now doubt it'll settle so easily.

Ammonia spikes don't last several months, do they? And wouldn't they harm the shrimp and the fish?

Thank you all for your ideas! I feel the need to think of this from many angles, and this helps a lot


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

A sharp decrease in the amount of light could trigger all sorts of undesirable changes that will take some time to stablize. A sudden die-off of algae could cause an ammonia spike and a bacteria bloom.


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## Octavusprime (Sep 18, 2011)

mariannep said:


> I missed the last two responses while writing...
> 
> Yes, it's a filterless tank. What bothers me is how long the haze has lasted. I'll definitely give ot a few more days before continuing the move (more water, fish back in,...). But I now doubt it'll settle so easily.
> 
> ...


I would think detectable levels of ammonia would kill delicate fish over the course of several months. If however your bacterial bloom is large and well established, theoretically the bacteria could be sucking up the ammonia quick enough to prevent this. Good for fish but bad for viewing.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Without a filter I think the trend is recurrent bacterial problems with every water change and every change in the plant mass, not to mention changes in light etc. My guess is you either need to do more or less. Trimming smaller amounts and changing smaller amounts of water for instance or doing larger water changes more often or almost none at all. 

I think I would fill the tank and replace the power head at this point.

or something like that.


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## Octavusprime (Sep 18, 2011)

Is there anyway you can take a picture? Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

I fear Octavus may be right. I've tried leaving it alone for weeks, feeding less, trims and water changes. I agree the current milkiness could easily be due to too many sudden changes, but it's the longstanding one that bothers me really. I did do a small test of taking a jar of water and leaving it for 24 hours, then comparing with a similar jar of water just taken from the tank, and you could see the difference.
I'll try to take a photo tommorrow morning, but there isn't much to see... but who knows?
I think I'll also redo the jar thing and show you.

Bruce, it's not so much recurrent as never-ending. The other sunlit tank *is* recurrent and its changes are clearly coordinated with large water changes, taking out a largish water lily, ... the sort of thing that makes sense. It's also much less hazy. 
It's the persistency of this one that baffles me. I've never seen that and I had several filterless tanks that run for years without ever one bit of haze. 

If there had been something in the soil, could it begin to show a month after being submerged?

Cheers all!


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

I just remembered... at some point this summer - I think August - I had green dust algae, zoospores. But leaving it alone then wiping the glass did work - it just then got replaced by more haze.
And I also tried adding peat by the power head... but that just made the haze brown... 
All transitions, light haze to zoospores to haze to deephaze were gradual.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

What is the soil? If I remember you did a dry start, so a month or two later is after you filled the tank? I'm not sure I rember that all clearly. It could be the wood also. How does it all smell?


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Guaranteed to work - leave the tank by itslef for 1-2 months. No water changes at all (that's important). It will clear up.

Sometimes this hazing happens in tanks with filters and established for a long time too. It is indeed an indication of bad or missing part of the filtration. In a filterless tank the hazing could happen but it is not guaranteed to happen.

A more proactive approach - get a filter that is 10% of the size of the tank. Fill with biomedia only. Run and wait to cycle. That approach is all fine except good luck finding a canister filter that is large enough.


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Bruce, the dry start lasted 7 weeks. The soil was between wet and water-logged during this time (it slopes and I also varied the amount of water). I took about 3 weeks to get it to a decent level, then I added the cardinals. About a week later I noticed a tiny bit of haze.

The soil is one I got from our local mountains. A clay loam of volcanic origin, reddish in colour. I picked it from a place it wouldn't have much organic matter in it. The clay fraction is red, otherwise I'd be half-convinced that some of it is floating about. Though the milkiness has a tinge... it could still be from the peat I had by the powerhead.

I have not noticed any smells at all, on anything.

Going over the photos I now see the Rotala has suffered a lot... 

I found one of the cardinals dead this morning  But he was in the holding tank which is just getting clearer and clearer, not in the "milktub".

Niko, do you think fiddling with the curtains to reduce the light counts as "not leaving it by itself". On purpose I didn't do any water changes, as all I read seemed to indicate that was indeed a sensible course of (in)action.

I took some photos. Sorry about the horrible glass reflections...
https://picasaweb.google.com/101569...&authkey=Gv1sRgCPTP9dvuuZ7URA&feat=directlink

Also, I was wrong... it does still get a bit of sun around midday, now from the front, of course. You can see it in the photos.

Cheers everyone!


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

M are you saying the water comes perfectly clear if left in the jar? 

I use clay from the yard and sand often. If there is no movement in the water they always settle and the water comes clear.


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## Octavusprime (Sep 18, 2011)

Well the water volume is pretty low. Perhaps the issue is not enough water, plants and nitrifying bacteria to support your fish population. I've never done a filterless tank but perhaps it might be good to go purchase some beneficial bacteria bottles they sell at fish stores. Could help build up the beneficial bacteria levels in your soil.


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

*Bruce*, that's exactly what it did before the move. I'd put some in a jar, leave it for 24 hours. Voilá, clear water (slightly peat tinged but I like that). We'll see if it does the same now. The water in the holding tank has also got clearer, even with a higher fish load per volume.

*Octavus*, that's the water after the move. There's only cherry shrimp and maybe the odd cardinal which manage to evade me (they do play "dead" surprisingly well). But the problem was there before. All the fish are in the holding tank.

I think I'll give it a few days... I don't like to use tap water and carting 200liters to then dump them again is something I'd rather avoid.

Cheers everyone!


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Could be something like this?

Ferric precipitates. Ionic iron that isn't chelated will precipitate in various ways. For instance, in alkaline waters, where calcium is plentiful, unchelated iron would rapidly complex with the calcium or the carbonate instead, and co-precipitate out.

Such ferric precipitates can cause milky-white cloudiness after iron is dosed as a plant fertilizer. A thread at Aquatic-Plants Digest begun 15 Jan 2001 records an aquarist who was adding Seachem Flourish weekly and Flourish Iron daily, and who eventually found that the water was turning milky seconds after dosing, apparently precipitating with something. After Flourish Iron was added, iron levels were as high as 0.5 mg/l, but within two to three hours iron was undetectable again.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/ferrous-ferric


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

*Bruce*, that is fascinating stuff, whether it's my problem or not. Mnay thanks!

I haven't added any iron (or indeed fertilizers or anything other than fish food) to this tank, but the soil probably has enough iron so that it might be possible that that is the problem.

One thing that has changed is the ph. I used soil that should have a slightly acidic ph, around 6.5. And water that is rather soft (100microsiemens) and ph balanced as it arrives. Yet the tank when full was usually at 7.8-8. I was amazed at that and thought it could be the excess plant growth and presumed algae, sucking up all the C02. Now the water seems to be around 6.8, though I no longer have the peat. Perhaps that makes the iron too available at the moment and is causing iron-eating bacteria to flourish... Or maybe it's something else. I've read that article in full twice, but there's a lot in it to take in for a non-chemist!

As a matter of curiosity here's a photo of the glass jar experiment.








The jar on the left was the one filled previously. On the right is a similar jar just filled from the tank. Even after 24 hours you can see a difference in clarity and a sediment at the bottom. Today, after 4 days the jar on the left is even clearer.

I'm unsure what to do now... let the iron-bacteria do their job? Try to increase the ph? Add peat to chelate the iron? Mmmm...

Cheers!


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## K Randall (Nov 23, 2004)

Frankly, the cloudiness in your water looks like suspended sediment to me, not like a bacterial bloom. It's acting like suspended sediment in your jars too.


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Mmm... But what could keep it suspended so well? There's red cherry shrimp, an exploding population of pond snails (grrr) and at most two cardinal fish in there.
Also, when I pulled some of the HC, and when I moved it wasn't that bad. It got that bad afterwards, overnight. I'm not saying it's not suspended something, I've suspected that could be the case right along, the only thing is it doesn't seem to settle at all in the tank. And I want to be sure before tackling something major like changing soils... 

Cheers!


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

*Re: milky water SOS -- it's the shrimp!*

ok, I think I know what's going on, and K randall you were right, I believe!

Today I decided to do something, change as much water as possible. So I got it to the point where parts were dry and only 1 inch of water or so at the front. That was cloudy.

Now I slowly very carefully add water back... and something unexpected happens. I see a layer of clear water over the cloudiness. Some parts, the higher ground and the part where I was pouring the water are completely clear. I can see the back of the tank and every leaf and stem.
Then of course I see that a layer of fog is rising from the cloud area into the clear water... well, it couldn't last, could it. Anyway... I look at the clearest part... then I notice... some cherry shrimp working the substrate and kicking up a little cloud of their own. Less than half an inche hight that wee cloud, still, you can see that over hours...
I'm not 100% it's them but it makes sense. When the tank was first flooded they weren't in there, but were added later. They went in on July 10th, just 5 days later I blogged about "a bit of haze". Of course then were only 6 or so of them, now they are probably closer to 100, because everywhere I look there's RCS. Does that make sense?

Now for the solution... can I add sand on top of already planted plants without removing them. Hopefully that should take care of their kicking up very fine sediment. Any other ideas?

Thanks everyone!!


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

i don't have experience with shrimp, but it sounds like a good idea.

again just going on guesses. shouldn't be a problem adding sand, slowly, brushing your plants so the sand falls under them. start at one end of the tank till your layer of sand is thick enough you figure the shrimp won't be kicking it up. and move across the tank like this. just don't smother/bury your plants

more guesses, as the sediment settles the shrimp will try to kick up the new layer, add another layer of sand, ... or this might be overkill. ... or the sediment will fall into the sand and less will be kicked up.

quick question, ... may not be able to find answers, ... what are the shrimp looking for ?, why are they kicking up the sediment ?


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

For a good explanation what is most likely going on read this:

http://www.oscarfish.com/article-home/water/72-heterotrophic-bacteria.html


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

Niko, i believe the asker and many others who contributed have realized it's not bacterial, nor is it chemical, but the shrimp playing in the muck


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

*Flear*, it's not really deep digging, just that they seem to be shifting the substrate for whatever little things they eat. Some do it delicately but I actually caught a pair really having a go at it - they made a wee dust cloud of their own. 
I hope a few mm might do the trick, so I'll start with that. I do have to get it washed, though...
I think I may also try to take as much muck as possible with the water, too. I may have to repeat this a few times :/ Oh, fun!

One thing is that it's really hard to see any algae and there are lots of shrimp. Not sure if I should feed them or find some predator to keep their population at a lower level.

*Niko*, thanks but really I don't think this is a normal bacterial thing. Any water taken out becomes clear. Even in the overcrowded tank now holding most of the fish. And the cloudiness before lasted for months. Also, if you dilute what I have it's just the color of the haze I had in the tank when it was full, for a couple of months!
I suspected the sediment, but couldn't think of how it was being disturbed, until I saw the little monsters having a go at it.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

for small fish that eat shrimp, ... dwarf puffy fish, but that's a species only tank
the zebra loach is a 4" fish, ... works good for community tank, mixed species

while looking up snail control, which i assume is good for shrimp control as well.

otherwise fish that will eat small snails, ... i haven't looked into that much at all


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks Flear, I think I'll just wait and see. My fish will probably eat shrimp babies so maybe the population will level off at at sensible level. Just have to wait and see.

And yesterday I finally got around to changing most of the water and adding some cleaned up sand/fine gravel. There's a still a vague haze about but it's nothing like before. I can see plants and shrimp. It was quite brutal, though, so I'm giving the plants time to bounce back as a lot of the Eleocharis parvula is partially or totally buried under 3-5mm of heavy sand.
The shrimp are still running about (Ive seen three dead ones but this is out a ?100? so not bad considering) and I found two of the three missing cardinals (amazing how they can hide...). I've noticed that shrimp eat dead shrimp, I wonder if they've also overworked the substrate and that's why no biofilm was holding it as on previous experiences.

Cheers!


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