Cloudy water, for no apparent reason?

So, the water in my 75 gal is cloudy. Its got a play sand substrate, lots of plants, some fish, and two axolotls, one of which just laid a ton of eggs. I did water testing, and my parameters are fine. Ammonia test was clear, nitrite test was only faintly purple, Nitrate also pretty low, thanks plants.

I just recently did a water change before the cloudy started, because my axolotls were looking a bit stressed. I didn't have my test kit then, so on a better safe than sorry mindset, I did the change. I used a lot of water conditioner, could too much of that cause cloudy water?

It looks like there are particles, could it just be from my female's wild thrashing about while she laid, combined with my proportionately teeny filter? Its small because I thought I wanted to reduce water flow. I'm up sizing as soon as my bigger filter gets here, and hopefully a canister filter for my birthday.

Did you rinse the sand when you initialy put it in the tank? or did you just let it settle? If you just let it settle that could be the problem, as the finer particles wernt removed and were stirred up when the axolotls were laying. Water can come from your mains supply quite cloudy sometimes aswell.

yeaaaah I probably should have rinsed that. The water from the tap is always clear, Halifax has a good rep. for that.

Too much water conditioner can indeed make your tank cloudy
I've done it a few times
Or if you add more than one conditioner at once

You never need to add more water conditioner than what the directions say. If you use a dechlorinating chemical that has added things like aloe, you're adding more biological 'stuff' to your tank on which bacteria (desirable and not) can feed. If you have too much, you could create a bacterial bloom.

I used play sand when I first purchased 55gallon and the cloudiness won't go away for couple days. I rinsed it so many times!!!! I was so frustrated and went to the petshop and purchased aquatic sand which is about 20dollars~ so expensive got 3 of them and had to throw away play sand and fertilizer which I put in before play sand~ ugh~ that was another 20bucks!!! well now its crystal clear with nice aquatic sand!!! lol play sand I heard cloudiness can go for weeks!!!! good luck!

parkss86 said:

I used play sand when I first purchased 55gallon and the cloudiness won't go away for couple days. I rinsed it so many times!!!! I was so frustrated and went to the petshop and purchased aquatic sand which is about 20dollars~ so expensive got 3 of them and had to throw away play sand and fertilizer which I put in before play sand~ ugh~ that was another 20bucks!!! well now its crystal clear with nice aquatic sand!!! lol play sand I heard cloudiness can go for weeks!!!! good luck!

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If you want to clean your sand, put it in a bucket, put a hose in the bottom and run it till the water runs clear.

Hi there! It is nice to see another Haligonian on the forum

Anyways, your test readings are enough to say what is going on here and Kaysie has hit the nail on the head. Ammonia/ammonium and nitrite should always read zero, even a little bit is too much in a cycled tank. So what is happening is you are experiencing a mini cycle. It isn't much to worry about, but you should help the system and the animals through it by doing partial water changes each day.

Whether the mini cycle was due to the additional water conditioner would depend on the brand that you use and it could also be due to decomposing eggs if some were scattered or nutrients displaced when she disturbed the sandbed. Hard to say, but not something that is hard to correct

Kribby said:

Hi there! It is nice to see another Haligonian on the forum

Anyways, your test readings are enough to say what is going on here and Kaysie has hit the nail on the head. Ammonia/ammonium and nitrite should always read zero, even a little bit is too much in a cycled tank. So what is happening is you are experiencing a mini cycle. It isn't much to worry about, but you should help the system and the animals through it by doing partial water changes each day.

Whether the mini cycle was due to the additional water conditioner would depend on the brand that you use and it could also be due to decomposing eggs if some were scattered or nutrients displaced when she disturbed the sandbed. Hard to say, but not something that is hard to correct

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You're in HRM? cool, we should get in touch. If it is a mini-cycle, perhaps it was caused by increased bioload when i added my axolotls, as they only went in that tank a week or so ago. They were in a different tank before that, where the female was supposed to lay, but didn't. She prefers the big tank.

How much is a partial water change in a 75 gal? Is 10L enough?

pent565 said:

You're in HRM? cool, we should get in touch. If it is a mini-cycle, perhaps it was caused by increased bioload when i added my axolotls, as they only went in that tank a week or so ago. They were in a different tank before that, where the female was supposed to lay, but didn't. She prefers the big tank.

How much is a partial water change in a 75 gal? Is 10L enough?

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Yup, I am in HRM and I will be looking to get an axolotl sometime in the next few months myself. I'd love to meet up sometime, though it will have to be after Oct 2. I am heading to Brazil for a conference tomorrow and I will be gone for a bit.

Adding the axolotls could have definitely induced a mini cycle in an established tank even if it was previously cycled. Any time we increase the bioload there is a chance for that to happen.

usually what I concider a partial water change is between 10-20% of the total water volume. So on a 75 gal you are looking at 4-8 gallons.