Cloudy waters but happy axies :)

Hi guys, Ive been pretty lucky with my tank so far and consider it fully cycled but I have had increasingly cloudy water for the last month and Im confused as to what to do next.
It is a 4ft by 1ft home for 2 axies with a bare bottom which I spot clean all of the time and I remove waste as soon as I see it, food is hand fed or removed within 15 minutes. I have checked my levels this morning and have Ammonia 0 Nitrate 10 Nitrite 0 soft/medium carbonate hardness. I change a third of the tank each sunday and replace with treated water and my filter is working perfectly. Ive scoured the forums and seen possibilities of it being a bacteria or infusoria but with no follow ups or conclusions so Id really like some advice. What ever it is my guys are happily still eating, pooping etc.. I feed them on rota of earthworms (my own farm) special axolotl pellets from online and for fattening up treats they get the odd mealworm in between.
p.s if it helps when I remove the water it looks clear in a glass???
Thank You for reading I hope you can help

your cycle isnt complete, your nitrates should be 0 and small nitrite numbers
do 10% water changes every couple days and you will probably see the cloudiness go away

my guess is that its a bacterial bloom that is now feeding on the nitrates, once the free floating food is gone and theyve colonized the filter well enough you should be ok, i would give it a week or two and do the water changes every couple days to get rid of cloudiness

Thank you for the quick and informative reply, I might have had a spike as its been cycled for months now but thats great advice and I'll start now with the water change and I'll update in a week and again in two

mackinthebox said:

your cycle isnt complete, your nitrates should be 0 and small nitrite numbers
do 10% water changes every couple days and you will probably see the cloudiness go away

my guess is that its a bacterial bloom that is now feeding on the nitrates, once the free floating food is gone and theyve colonized the filter well enough you should be ok, i would give it a week or two and do the water changes every couple days to get rid of cloudiness

Click to expand...

you've got it backwards. ammonia and nitrites should be zero, but as long as nitrates are under 20 (some say 40) you're good.

have you recently cleaned your filter or filter media?

After rereading my water quality leaflet it states waste equals ammonia & nitrite resulting in nitrAte which is the end of the cycle and is harmless as long as it is under 50mg/L and can be kept low by regular water changes and a planted aquarium as plants use the nitrAte as food.

So now I'm back to square one lol

In answer to your question ilomilo I clean all the media once a month in a bucket of tank water and just remove debris and swirl it around a bit, I do this every 3-4 weeks and when I did it the other day the tank has seemed even cloudier since.
Im currently following the advice of mackinthebox as daily water changes can only do good I guess?

i was afraid i got it backwards...
even still any amount of nitrates in a tank will act as food for some bacteria and algae
im still going to say its a bacterial bloom and you should stick with water changes until its gone
Daily changes of 10% will help immensely

you may not have interrupted the cycle as I stated however you will interrupt it if you clean the tank out, so dont empty it!

Thanx macinthebox, Im still following your advice as it cant do any harm and I've made the mistake in the very early days of doing a 100pc water change doh! so I can assure you it wont be happening again lol

Just a note to keep the post updated.
With daily water changes for almost 2 weeks the water was looking better and better, either I was diluting the problem or diluting the possible bacterias food Im unsure, but with one final large 70% change things are back to normal and Ive added some sand substrate and extra plants and my tank and parameters still seem to be going well. Thank you for the help and advice & I hope this update help others