cloudy water, newly cycled, newbie question..

[CTaylor]

Hi,
My tank is currently quite cloudy. Carbon and the filter sock does nothing to alleviate it. It's a white cloud, not colored. The tank was 'mostly' cycled since about 3 weeks ago. When I first cycled the dry rock (in separate tank) i added way too much NH4 -- about 20-30 ppm, and added DR. Tim's bacteria. Nitrates eventually came down, but hung on at 2 pm until about a week ago -- so three weeks at 2 ppm. I added some more Dr Tims. It seems a few days later the clouds started. But not right away. The nitrite dropped to near o. Nitrate went from 100 to 2-4 ppm (though the nitrite might have caused noise in that test).
I have about 50 astreas and other snails, 3 neon gobies, a small hogfish and small mushroom, all doing very well. I'm assuming this is a good bacteria bloom? I also have chaeto in the fuge with barely detectable phosphate, if any.
Nothing to worry about, right? :)

[der_wille_zur_macht]

20 to 30 ppm ammonia is incredibly high. That is almost certainly a bacterial bloom. The bacteria themselves are not inherently harmful, but they are incredibly effective at consuming their target nutrients - in the case of nitrogen, you want that. But, they also use a vast amount of oxygen, getting it from various sources. Free bacteria in the water column are aerobic and will consume dissolved oxygen at an incredible rate, which can cause the tank to crash.

Keep up with the filtration and nutrient export. Skimmers can be good at capturing bacteria. Aerate the water as much as possible. Do a few large water changes.

In the future it may be smart to not add livestock until the tank is stable and you're confident in your maintenance approach.

[CTaylor]

Hi Der,
thanks for that info! . My ammonia levels hit 0 about 5 weeks ago. Nitrite went down to 2 pm about 3 weeks ago +/- a few days.
So for the past few weeks I've had 0 ammonia, but some nitrite, and lots of nitrate (noise from the nitrite probably). It wasnt untll the last 10 days that my tank started to get cloudy, with 0 ammonia, just some nitrite. So the clouds didnt coincide with high levels of either, just the 2 ppm nitrite.

That is when I added another full dose of bacteria to boost the nitrite drop. So whatever effeect the ammonia had should (?) be in the past. I thought it odd a bloom like this far after the fact. Unless perhaps its the anaerobic bacteria somehow that cleaned up the nitrates??

ALso makes sense on O2 usage, fish are breathing fine, so I must be getting enough O2 to make up for the loss. maybe

**Should I refrain from feeding a few days?* There just is no nitrite or anything to bring down though, other than the actual clouds

[outy]

The tank is a baby still establishing beneficial bacteria, all the stuff you are adding is delaying the process and creating said bloom.

feed as little as possible and stop adding chemical crap

[CTaylor]

adding what chemical crap lol? (the nh4 was the initial boost *over 5 weeks ago*

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Two thoughts for you:

1) The nitrogen cycle isn't as "complete" as many newbies seem to think it is, in terms of processing and removing N from your system. Yes, ammonia gets reduced and eventually some of it becomes nitrite, then nitrate, and eventually nitrogen gas, but at each step of that process, some of the nitrogen is sequestered and used by the bacteria for growth. The fact that ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all read zero or low does NOT mean that your insanely large initial ammonia spike as been "dealt with." You've basically created a huge sink for nitrogen, in the form of living bacteria. Those bacteria will live, die, decompose, and the cycle will continue. Meanwhile, you've probably grown dozens of times more bacteria than you need, and you've locked up an inordinate amount of nutrients in their biomass. Your tank is by no means done with the cycle, the nutrients are just locked in a format where you're not measuring them. You need to get that bacteria out of the system, and/or wait for it to die off and balance out over the long term.

2) Even if/when your tank is "good" in terms of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that's only one component of stabilizing a tank. Imagine you're trying to build a block of apartments in a city. What you've done by starting with dry rock and adding way too much ammonia is this: you hired 5,000 plumbers, but no carpenters, engineers, masons, or electricians! Yes, your plumbing is going to be done, quickly, and it will be fine. It will definitely pass code inspection (you, measuring the nitrogen cycle). But that doesn't mean you're done with the apartments! Eventually these other tradespeople will all wander onto the jobsite and things will work themselves out, but in the meantime, you're not really ready yet to move any tenants in!

In other words, there is a lot going on in a new tank besides getting nitrogen-related readings to zero. If you're on your game and know what to look for, you can measure/observe/control these other processes similarly to what you did with your ammonia and bacteria kickstart, but in general, the best advice is to wait. I wouldn't say your tank is doomed or your fish are going to be dead tomorrow, but it's certainly not the most surefire way to end up with a healthy system and you may continue to have nutrient related problems for a while. Some people write this off as "new tank syndrome" and consider it unavoidable, which to me, is a shame.

[CTaylor]

after my nitrite officially hit pretty much 0 and then nitrate followed at 3 ppm, the water cleared up slowly thereafter. Levels staying constant at those numbers. It's been totally clear for 5 days, and levels leveled out for about 7. So looks like everything is cycled and going -- including my cheato (nitrate) and maybe the anaerobes are getting going as well. I'll keep an eye out for problems and test twice a week for the next month or two then weekly. PH04 is also just above the lowest color on salifert. I have to refill my hanna kit.
So Der hopefully I did avoid a big problem. I did already get a small torch coral, doing really well, and a hammer and small maricultured acro coming tomorrow << THAT could be too soon, but I'm betting it's going to be ok. Slightly impatient, but I want to test my tank 'status'.