i ve had a bacterial bloom for the past 3 days now and the water is getting cloudier. You cant even see 2 inches into the tank. It s a 10 gal. The ammonia levels are very high everyday. I went to the pet store and the lady told me to try carbon and zyolite in my bio-bag. She also said that even if i did a water change, it could make it worse. What should i do??
Answers:
All good advice, I had the same thing happen to me when I first set up my 30 gallon tank. I did 25% water changes daily and cut feeding way back to about once every third or fourth day. Lowering the ammonia is crucial as it can kill your fish, the more food and waste you have in the tank the higher the ammonia will get. Eventually all will come in to balance and it will clear up. When it happened to me it looked like I had a tank full of milk, it took a few weeks to finally clear up.
Is it bacterial, or is it green? If the bloom is Green, its probably an algae bloom. There are other factors to consider. How long has the tank been setup and running, how many fish are in it? are you over-feeding the fish? Has a water change ever been done? Has the water been tested? If you have filters on the tank, have they been changed?
If over feeding isn't the problem, and you do regular tank maintenance, partial water changes every so often, like when you change your bio-bag media, you should be fine.
have a water sample taken from tank and from your tap water (if you use that to fill your fish tank) test done at your local pet shop.
If it's an algae bloom, check and see if you have sunlight shining on your tank. limit the amount of sunlight on the tank and the bloom should go away.
following a good tank maintenance schedule can only help.
good luck.
A water change will not make it worse. (It may not make it better.) Is the water green, or white? If it's green it's an algae bloom. In which case less light will help. If it's white, or grey it's bacteria. Most likely in either case is you are over feeding, under filtered, or didn't cycle. You need to check your ammonia, and nitrate levels. Vacuum your gravel. Do a daily 20% water change. In the case of an algae bloom you could also have too much phosphates.
Of course a pet stores answer to anything is 'buy this, buy that, spend all your money'.
Do yourself a favour and don't go to the fish store for help.
If the ammonia levels are high all the time you haven't cycled your tank properly. The best way to counter this problem is to introduce bacteria to take care of the problem. The ideal way is to introduce media from an established tank - either from someone you know, the fish store - wherever you can get it. Put this into your filter and you will have instant bacteria to handle your ammonia and you should see results very quickly. As a next-best alternative, a product called bio-spira has had good success doing a similar thing.
Bacteria bloom in itself will clear up on its own. There are a number of things that can cause it and it is, in itself, completely harmless to livestock, and will clear up on its own with time once you get the tank in order. Your concern isn't the bacterial bloom, but the ammonia and nitrite levels.
In the mean time, do a lot of water changes to keep the ammonia levels down. If it were me, I'd scoop out all the fish and return them, and then research cycling a tank so that it doesn't happen again.
Good luck.
i have the same problem but you could TRY putting your aeretion on the highest"it MIGHT help.(not Sure)
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