# Protective layer against turbidity?



## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

Hey guys,

my first post on this site; I'm thinking you guys might be crazy enough to be able to help me.

So I have this 200L tank with lots of tetras and it is full on Walstad: No filter (just two powerheads, the kind for marine tanks) no heating, no fertz, worm castings under sand.

The worm castings are giving me lots of issues, I bought the finest grain size and it keeps shifting through the sand; there's nothing to do against it. As it lies on top of the sand, the fish agitate it, therefore my tank stays turbid and the plants are constantly dirty as the castings settle. 
There might also be issues with bacteria or diatom algae, but for me there is no way to tell as the tank is turbid no matter what (maybe i could put a droplet under a microscope, but what do I even look for?)

Anyways I'm going to speculate some about soil-chemistry, I hope I don't loose you: Usually in any tank for me mulm would stick together and flocculate, keeping it on the ground and from sticking to the plants. In my tank dirt stays in the form of dust; I'm thinking that the worm castings, having a high CEC, prevent any aggregation through electro static force. For example, adding a lot of leaves and letting them decompose makes the issue worse, it just leads to more fine dust, ready to be agitated!

Now I'm thinking I could try and raise a protective layer on top of the fine dirt; I was thinking Fe02 from fertilizers but assume that I would have to oxidize the fertz outside of the tank and then add them, as they would not aggregate! Any idea on how to go about doing that? Or something else? Maybe just drop some organic soil in there?

Any idea, other than my crazy plan, on how to make the tank work?

Btw. filters will not work; they keep clogging after a day or so and then fish die; even with filter tubes inside! Turns into a brick, like, srsly.

Looking forward to your input!
Crooks


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

Hi Crooks.
I wish I could help as I really like this kind of setup. Probably will not help, but I have a 29 Gal that was setup with miracle gro organic potting mix capped with sand. At one point, tubifex appeared and they turned everything upside down. The tank is now like "sandless". Water is yellowish but yet extremely clear. There is a canister filter that I clean when there is pratically no water coming out. Actually, the output of the filter goes straight into a planter located above the tank.


















All this to say that it took a very long time for this tank to settle. It was my most hated tank. Now it's kind of my favorite.

How long has the tank been setup?
Can you reduce the flow of the powerheads to reduce the disturbance?
Maybe if you post some pictures it might shine some ideas.


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## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

Hey Guck!

The tank is about 3 years old now -maybe a bit older. It took a year of water changes to stop the water from taking on the color of black coffee -fish were fine with it though.

That just on how the soil is just not suited at all. I think the castings are completely cycled now though as they don't even bubble anymore.

I played a lot with agitation. Right now I have two powerheads inside; 800 l/h and 1600 l/h which turn on and off alternately (Smartwave). I also tried having two 800 l/h and just one, but it seemed like the flow was not enough and the plants stayed dirty -although it helped turbidity. My setup right now is a compromise between turbidity and clean plants (as in if its not in the water column it's on the plants). It's been a long time though I might try two 800 l/h pumps alternately again.

Will post pictures when I get home 

Also: what filter material do you use?

Thanks for the reply!
Cya


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

3 years old and it has always been like this?
All my 6 tanks are all on the very low end of the scale as far as filtration and water circulation goes. I read the Walstad book a few times. As long as I have enought circulation to regularise water temperature and circulate nutrients, as far as I am concerned that is good.

3 tanks are equipped with Eheim canister filters. I just use the ceramic rings, one coarse foam and a small floss. 3 days ago I actually removed all the media from the filter running on my 75 gal. I am on the experiment mode... The tank is by a large window and all summer I removed the background. Hence lots of light for a low tech. I think I may have depleted nutrients too fast...

About mulm building, I don't don't do water changes and don't vaccuum either.

How are the plants doing? 
Coud the soil be rich in clay? Some time I add chuncks of clay in the tanks. That tends to render the water rather dusty.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Some suggestions:

1. Use an aquarium-safe flocculant like SeaChem Clarity.
2. Re-cap with a coarser material, like a thin layer of pea gravel. This will allow the particles to settle between the individual pieces of gravel and stay in place (we hope).
3. Get a good filter and load it with a fine mechanical medium, and resign yourself to changing or cleaning the medium daily until the problem is solved. 

As Guck suggests, if the worm castings contained colloidal clay it will never settle out on its own.


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## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

Hey!

The tank has always been like this -worse actually ^^
Unfortunately I do not know, whether or not these worm castings contain a lot of clay. But I heard from a lot of sources that these aggregation additives usually just contain white clay. Also I tried them and they don't do much!

I guess I should just add a filter! I really dislike them honestly, as I make them responsible for a lot of losses. Also it wouldn't solve the problem, just conceal it.

What do you guys think about just dropping a fist-full of dirt in there? I could emerse it in a bucket for a week or so, so it's safe. And hope I'll be able to get it out again if it doesn't work

Hope the pictures work!
Thanks for the answers by the way!

Can you see enough on these? I could do better ones tomorrow in the daylight.
Oh and also this is a really good day for my tank, on some days you can only see half as far into the tank


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

If I dropped a fist-full of dirt in my tank, it would look like yours. Proper filtration does not kill fish.


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## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

I didn't express myself clearly there: Proper filtration does not kill fish; a clogged up filter however does (in my completely subjective experience)

The thing is, since the worm castings are shifting through the sand there is a constant supply of fresh dirt, ready to clog up my filter. I have tried lots of materials in an internal filter; filter tubes, these bioballs and sponges and they all turn into a brick (and I'm not exaggerating -a hard, heavy brick) in a day or so. Also I am lazy.

You are right though a huge external filter would keep removing the dirt.
But I want to really solve the problem, you know? Not just fix it.

So I changed the powerheads. now it's two 800 l/h so turbidity should disappear.

What still boggles my mind is why the dirt will not aggregate at all. I always read that adding alkali ions should mask the exposed charges, but in my tank it does not help or only, maybe slightly. It's like mulm is completely different in my tank than it usually is.

Do any of you have an idea what kind of chemical groups actually make up these charges? Is it carboxylic acids?

You guys are amazingly patient with me :hail:


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

I would take a sample of the water and place it in a tall glass. Maybe grab some of the soil as well. See if anything settle down and if water clears up.


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## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

That is a great idea! I could also maybe try around with adding CaSO4 and see if it has an effect on the dirt or not.


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

Glad you like it. I can't make promises, but who knows what you might discover. Let us know what the effects of the CaSO4 are.

Meanwhile, maybe you could try a filter with dense floss until things clear out if you never tried that. I read that floss from textile store is much cheaper than that of fish stores and does the trick.


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## Karackle (Apr 14, 2009)

First of all, I love the jungle look of your tank despite the murk. 

As for the tank issues, a few things:

1) do you have any kind of cap over the dirt? It looks like it's just dirt at the top, maybe your cap wasn't thick enough? Either way, I'm with Michael on this, I think a coarser gravel cap of some kind, a good inch or so thick, would help a lot. I am not clear why you want to add more dirt to the tank, it seems to me that would just make things worse (unless I am just not understanding your logic).

2) There seems to be something else weird going on if the fish are dying just from a clogged filter. If you normally run your tank without a filter, there's no reason (that I can think of) that adding a filter would cause fish death, even if it clogs. So I am not sure what happened there unless the filter overheated or something and somehow electrocuted the fish.

3) I am generally lazy too, but if there is something I really want to fix (like the major algae issue I had in my 5g tank) then I fix it. I am all for low maintenance tanks, but every once in a while, they require a little extra work, so as Michael said, you may just need to suck it up and rinse or change your filter media DAILY for a little while to sort this out. It's a pain in the short run, but in the long run, you end up with the tank you want (finally! I can't believe you have dealt with this for 3 years!) I would also suggest filter floss instead of a really fine filter pad.

I think a gravel cap + a filter (even if you only add it for a couple weeks to clear the remaining gunk) would be really helpful.


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## Crooks (Sep 26, 2015)

Hey guys,

I'm sorry I stopped writing: been real busy lately, also I had this huge algae bloom probably due to not feedig regularly and actually having no stem plants at all in there, which kind of changed my focus for the moment 

I actually don't know how to quote right now so I'm gonna do them freestyle 

_"First of all, I love the jungle look of your tank despite the murk"_
Me too. Whenever I'm setting up a new tank I always plan some aquascape-type setup, but always end up with a jungle. Must be true love.

_"do you have any kind of cap over the dirt?"_
Black sand. There actually are some spots where the castings completely crept to the surface. To add gravel I'd have to uproot all the plants, including a huge crinum that's gone domestic. Too invasive for my taste 
I took a picture of one of the dirt mounds. What's funny about them is that they are actually muddy. When you put your finger in there, it feels sticky and gets your nails all dirty. Not like mulm at all -there's probably some soil in there.
_
"fish dying just from a clogged filter"_
I can't fully explain why I think that, but you guys do always worry about the soil going anaerobic (which I don't understand), why would an anaerobic filter not cause any issues at all then? Also I was talking about internal filters as I have never used external ones. For once my clogged sponges usually smelled like H2S, which maybe could stress the fishes if it leaked.

Why the dirt? I was thinking that it might function as a decent dust-catcher and that it couldn't get worse anyways. I also have another theory as to why the water is constantly turbid. The piece of wood in there kind of looks like it is slowly disintegrating. From what I know it's actually from a desert and hasn't been submerged yet? Could be the reason. Anyways I'd be interested to see if it ever actually stopped doing that and turn into bog-wood or something.

TL;DR
Thanks for the help guys!
I actually caved in and bought an internal filter (external not possible: tank's too close to the wall P: ), though I'm hoping to be able to remove it soon. It's just not the way I want to go; but if the filter does not help at all, I'll probably go for gravel. Or the dirt option


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