Wonka22

Water is cloudy.....PH 7.8 which is stable, 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrate, nitrite color wasn't exactly yellow but not quite orange, so it's VERY low.

20 gallon tank with about 10 zebra danio fry less than 3/4 inch most of them. For the last few days I've been moving these to my main tank. In this tank i also have 14 assrted BN plecos. Since I've gotten the plecos 10 days ago or so, the cloudiness has happened. Once the tank was rid of the VISIBLE algae, this took about 24 hours, LOL, I've been feeding them 2 algae wafers every 2 or 3 days once the wafers are gone i throw 2 more in.


Water has been cloudy for about 4 days I've done a 10-20 percent water change every day since then, but it's not clearing up....I haven't fed them in 2 days now thinking maybe I was overfeeding.

I also feed the danios a small amount of flakes and I don't THINK that I overfeed them.

For some reason I can't go back and edit my post.

The BN plecos are all 2 inches or less in length.

Tommy Gun

Hey Wonka22! Sorry to hear about your cloudy water issue...especially since it is part deux!!!!

First, it has to be said that even though BN plecos are small...and, in fact, I actually think it is great to hear that you are such a pleco fan!!!...they are still 'messy' fish and hence, can place a large demand on your tank's bioload - aka, your tank's ability to deal with the amount of wastes being produced. In case you are not aware...which I am sure you are, but it bears repeating nonetheless...plecos are known to be messy, or produce a relatively high amount of wastes versus other fish of similar size is because they need to eat a very high amount of food (veggie matter) in order to obtain enough nutrition to survive...which is probably why you point out that all of your visible algae is gone in 24 hours. So, all of that food obviously becomes all of that waste.

Why is this important to know when dealing with cloudy water? Simply because the wastes could be providing an excessive amount of nutrients which 'fuels' a huge population increase of either Het. Bacteria or Single-Celled Algae. So, this leads to an important question, which, when answered, will help us help you much more accurately: Is your cloudy water greenish in color, or sort of a milky-white?

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As a side note, I wonder if your current feeding regimen is going to be enough for that many plecos, or even if it is, is it providing enough nutrition for them all? My suggestion, and you can take it or leave it of course, would be to try supplementing your pleco's diet with some veggies such as cucumber or zucchini (blanched - to remove any pesticides or other potentially harmful chemicals) once in a while. Additionally, even if two algae wafers is enough for all of your plecos right now, I might consider adding more just so there are more places for each fish to eat -- even plecos can be territorial...just ask the two I have in my 90 gallon right now!

Wonka22

Hey Tommy thank you for the reply!!

I now know this is an algae bloom, I couldn't tell the other day.....I'm slowly removing the fish from the algae tank as I can get them out without trying to stress them too badly.

Once I do that, i'm going to be doing something to get rid of this algae issue.....Water changes alone don't appear to be doing the trick.

Tommy Gun

Hello again Wonka22!

I am not surprised to hear that water changes alone are not enough to 'fix' your algae bloom problem...but the good news here is that you don't have to remove your fish, or take any completely drastic action. Instead, try performing a 72 hour blackout - which is as simple as it sounds...keep the tank free and clear of any light for three days. This not only includes any light over/in the tank, but also any natural or ambient light which reaches the tank...so, you should and can cover the tank completely (just be sure that the cover is not air-tight for obvious reasons). Not only is the algae bloom itself going to cause your fish very little, to no harm at all, the lack of light will not hurt them either. In fact, Jay once advised me to perform the same blackout on my planted tank, and as he assured me, my plants didn't really suffer from the experience either.

Additionally, during the 72 hour blackout, you can skip feeding your fish as well...and again, this should be relatively safe to do - even with plecos - for this relatively short amount of time (although, I might sneak a peak into the tank once or twice to make sure they are not trying to feed off each other's slime coats). Doing this is beneficial because it will most likely slow the creation or addition of certain nutrients which the single celled algae may benefit from (e.g. phosphates).

Toucan777

I fought a hard battle with green soup algae, tried blackouts, lots of water changes, feed fish sparingly once a day, bought a H.O.T. Magnum to filter it out and managed to reduce it, not kill it!!! Well, I found a mention somewhere on the web about Beckett Pond Clarifier, *Clears Cloudy Water, *Settles suspended particles to aid filtering, *pH buffered-safe for plants and fish, *Phosphate free. I added 10ml to my 20 gal and my tank was crystal clear in 3 hours, I'm not bull-sh!ting either!!! It clumped up all the algae and put it in the Whisper & Magnum filter!!!! UNREAL, I was soooo frustrated and this seemed like such an easy no-brainer fix. Fish and plants are happy, no known side effects that I can see! I had to order the stuff from the Ace Hardware website. Just thought I'd share that for what its worth.