Cloudy water after move

[mr big87]

Hi all,

Haven't been on here in forever, as fish keeping took a back seat till we moved (just bought our first house!) and with the passing of our orange saddle puffer unexpectedly after 2 years I kinda lost some interest. I was still running a 36 gallon bowfront with a few fish and a baby turtle we found, and broke it down for the move, now that I've set it back up, my water is cloudy almost instantly. I've lived in the area before and never had problems with the water.

Tank info:
-new gravel, rinsed and some old gravel
-old filter, with old media plus new filter
-took about 1/3 of tank old tank water with me for the move
-houses a tiny red ear slider, and some juvie convicts, few cory's, 2 marble crayfish, a small pleco and a dozen or so ghost shrimp (all came with me on the move)

Still have not found my water test kit since the move, but does anybody have ideas on how to fix it? It also stinks pretty bad. It was a super maintenance free tank at our apartment, the only think different is the lack of plants (turtle was munching them down anyway). Thanks in advance.

[HERM]

How long was the new house vacant? Did you let the water run for a while before using it? Might be the new gravel not rinsed enough. Good luck

[Geral]

I would say it's in a mini cycle the tank , since you use new gravel that happen , old water is no good the bacteria is in the media , I would do a water change and let the tank re cycle, test the water you may have ammonia spike since turtles poop a lot , smell of the wate u can take it out with water change and carbon .

[mr big87]

Forgot to add I've done 3 50% water changes in 5 days with no luck. Water has been ran some, but I'll give that a shot. Turtle is the size of a quarter, just can't see him pooping THAT much, but maybe.

[NDsuperduty]

Cloudy water after move

I had a similar problem when I setup my 40g. The 2 most consistent answers I had were either gravel wasn't clean enough or I added too much water treatment. For mine, the water changes helped a little but not tons. After a week I got sick of it and did a 90-95% change, syphoning the gravel too, then refilled the tank letting the new water splash into a cup so it didn't stir the gravel. That removed 75% of the cloudy look and the rest dissipated over a few more days.

[mr big87]

I always siphon the gravel, and the new water going in hits the holey rock to disturb the gravel as little as possible. I'll give it a shot tonight though and do a 90% change.

[Totenkampf]

if its a white cloudy look then i will bet its a mini cycle. gravel has a lot of bacterial activity in it. i always reuse some tank water but thats just to match parameters, it does have some bacteria but not much. not cleaning the filter is a great idea so i would wait it out a bit more. the other thing may be a diatom or other algae bloom. most dust from gravel should have benn filtered out after five days.

of course the best way to confirm is to test NH3 and NO2.

[johnnymisty]

I had the same problem a few weeks back I ended up doing a 95% water change left the lights off a few days and it cleared up on me

[Totenkampf]

I had the same problem a few weeks back I ended up doing a 95% water change left the lights off a few days and it cleared up on me

so was that diatoms maybe? i have never had this type of bloom but would think that darkness wouldnt affect bacteria unless the lack of light encourages them to affix to something instead of swimming around the water column.

[troy tucker]

how big is your filter? It could be the new substrate but more likely its recycling. give it a few days. don't touch it don't feed and it will clear as soon a the cycle is finished.
IMO...
Sorry to hear about your puffer...

[mr big87]

It's a 55 gallon HOB with a smaller 20 or so gal HOB next to it (bought it as a back up but decided to run it). I'll take the turtle out and let it run for a few days and hope for the best. I have a 10 gallon that can house the turtle for the time being.

It really sucked losing the puffer, my second favorite fish I had ever owned (second only to a pair or oscars I had for the longest time). We still are not sure what did it to him. The pleco with him had no issues, nor did the fish we added after or the turtle. Thinking about dwarf puffers or something after I setup my pond.

[imagirlgeek]

I'd say it's a bacteria bloom. Things probably haven't balanced yet. Do you notice it's worse after feeding? Of course, we can't know for sure without testing the water, but the fact that it smells and is cloudy makes me think it hasn't fully cycled yet.

White cloudy water - Bacterial bloom
Green cloudy water - Algae bloom
Yellow cloudy water - Dissolved organics

[imagirlgeek]

It really sucked losing the puffer, my second favorite fish I had ever owned (second only to a pair or oscars I had for the longest time).

So sorry about your puffer. We lost our puffer too, a few months ago. Broke my heart. I never did get any new fish for that tank. I feel your pain.

[johnnymisty]

so was that diatoms maybe? i have never had this type of bloom but would think that darkness wouldnt affect bacteria unless the lack of light encourages them to affix to something instead of swimming around the water column.

Still not sure exactly what is was but It was cloudy dos several 50-75% water changes and ot never helped thwm the 95% with lights out did the trick ot maybe whatever it was ran its course

[mr big87]

Well I left the lights off and quit feeding, didn't do a thing for 24 hrs. So I did an 85%-90% water change and vacuumed the gravel as best I could. Lookin ok so far. Crossing my fingers.