# Small white particles



## biffe (Nov 1, 2004)

It’s now a week since I won over the GW, because of the newly installed UV. Now my tank have “a lot” of small white particles floating in the water, my filtration apparently don’t catch them all, any idea what this could be? I sure don’t hope my tank is going into another phase of settling before its stable, the tank have never been stabilized before so I were wondering if it could be my filter that is not big enough 200 gallons / hour in a 190,16 gallons tank. 
Ill go out and buy a bag of filter vat, the filter pad is rather old and torn in the corners, so maybe that’s the reason, just haven’t seen such a large amount of particles before so I thought that I would check with you guys first.

Regards Kenneth


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Kenneth,

Do you mean particles that you can see or your water appears milky? If you can see the particles the problem is most likey mechanical filtration. A diatom filter will take care of that very quickly. If you don't have one or can't borrow one then you will have to do a few water changes.

If the water appears milky (opalescent, as if you have added a few drops of milk to the tank) then your bacteria got hurt in some way and the tank is going through a new cycle. To help that you have 2 options:

*1.* Buy commercial bacteria additive. The best being Bio-Spira, kept in refrigerators in the pet fish stores that carry it.
*2.*Take the sponge from a filter that belongs to an established tank and just squeeze it in your problematic tank.

Both options add live bacteria to the tank. Squeezing the sponge maybe the better option because the bacteria is definitely alive and because of the price (what price?). But the sponge method will cover the tank with fine particles. Leave them there overnight and do a water change the next day.

I'm not sure I understand how big your tank is. If your filter is rated 200 gph and the tank is 190 gallons then definitely you need more water movement. Keep in mind that all external filters are rated "at the pump" but the hoses that we use to reach the tank reduce the "flow number" a great deal - 40-70%! - depending on the height of the tank.

--Nikolay


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## biffe (Nov 1, 2004)

Thanks for your reply Niko

Yes my tank is 190g, the pump is rated to 277g/hour but if its lifting 3feet its rated at 200g/hour + UV + Co2 Reactor so it's properly less.

The water isn’t milky its just larger particles floating around, so your properly right with mechanical filtration should be upped, ill try to clean the pump tonight and add new filter vat, maybe it will solve the problem.

Is there a general thumb of rule that I should aim for with filtration, like tank size x 2 for a new pump?

Eheim 2080 III Pro's flow is 448,99g/hour, that would roughly say 2.5 times a hour, or is that still below what you would recommend?

Regards 

Kenneth


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Kenneth,

I'd say 3 to 5 times the volume of the tank per hour is considered normal flow. 5 is a bit too much and needs to be dissipated with a spraybar and/or placing the flow along the glass.

For a big tank like yours it's best to have at least 2 returns. The new Eheim has that, correct? If you can afford it by all means go for it.

In any case more flow can't be connected to better tank health. Probably a better goal is to make sure you don't have areas where the water doesn't move.

--Nikolay


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