Cloudy tank

[tennis4you]

My tank has a bit of a white cloudiness to it today. Let me give you some background...

125 gallon tank, lightly planted.

I added SMS substrate 2 weeks ago (I pulled out all the gravel) so I am still cycling. Yesterday I did a water change and it has seemed cloudy ever since.

The SMS was a bear to rinse. Even when I put it in the tank after so many rinses I thought I was insane, the tank still looked like mud. But it cleared up and until yesterday's water change it looked fine. I changed about 20% of the water.

So what is the white cloudiness? From not being cycled? Could I have put too much Prime in the new water? Is the SMS just not clean enough?

Thoughts?

 

[Garuf]

Re: Clody tank

Are you American? SMS as I understand it is an America only substance and few is any will be able to offer you an insight on this forum.
Give your tank chance to cycle, it could just be a fine particles in the and will go away on its own.

 

[ceg4048]

Re: Clody tank

Hi tennis,
It would be a good idea (for everyone) to update their location so other can have context of other members to give a more appropriate response. On the upper right corner click "User Control Panel", then on the left column click "Profile" and then on the right column Enter a value for "Location".

Having said all that SMS (Soil Master Select) is indeed an American substrate which I believe is a clay based, high CEC soil additive used in baseball pitches. In Barrs sediment analysis it outperformed Aquasoil, although he was careful to point out that the test was only performed on Myriophyllum spicatum and that this may not be the case with other species.

The clouding of water on a new tank setup is nothing unusual and includes fine particle suspension as well as bacterial cycling. This passes with time assuming your filtration, which should be about 10X the tank volume per hour, is up to snuff. We would always suggest heavily planting instead of lightly planting, but this is to help with algae control as opposed to cloudiness.

Cheers,

 

[tennis4you]

Thanks guys. Tough to think about cycling when the tank has been cycled for a year. But I assumed with ripping out the old substrate I crushed the cycle that was there. I have a good sized canister filter on the tank and hopefully the good bacteria in the canister will help cycle the tank all the faster.

I intend on planting more very soon. I just got the SMS in the tank, CO2 tank is ordered and should be here in the next day or two and the PMDD came yesterday, so I am ready to fertilize. I just wanted to make sure I had all my bases covered before I loaded up the tank without the right equipment.

Thanks!!!