12g Nano Cube and cloudy water.

[cwilcox]

Hi, just getting back into the hobby and thought I'd ask for some help. I have a 12g nano cube that's been up for about 6 weeks. Set it up for about a week with declorinated tap water that I had tested and was given the ok with. Have one natural rock formation and about 6-7 plants. Put in a small bottle of Safe Start and 3 red minor tetras as starter fish. Waited another week and then put in 3 powder blue gouramis. In one day, one of the gouramis died. Replaced with another gourami, same species, different color. Gouramis seem not to like the current as the cube filter systems seem to move alot of water. After couple more weeks, water started to get cloudy, did 25% water change with reverse osmosis water, cloudiness cleared up. After another week, started to get algae growth which I cleaned daily. Put in algae eater and small corby cat to clean bottom. After 3 days algae eater died. 2 days later, another of gouramis in distress. Chinese algae eater added along with 6 neons. 1 of neons has already kicked it after a day.

So, right now I have 2 gouramis, 5 neons, 1 corby, 1 chinese algae eater, 3 red minor tetras and several plants.

I did another 25% water change with the RO water and changed the carbon filter with a new back of AMMO CARB and the water is still cloudy white.

I'm wondering what I've done wrong and how to clear the water up.

Please help! Any assistance is appreciated!!!

Thanks!
Chris

[Judge]

Well yikes, first I would say way too many fish for a 12 gallon. Are you sure it finished cycling? Who told you it was ok? What are your water parameters? Just saying things are ok or good does not tell us anything. Please provide a little more info and we can assess from there.

[cwilcox]

Well, I don't have any specifics as far as numbers for the different levels. The only thing they mentioned was that the water was a little hard. I'll have it tested again tomorrow and record some numbers as well as pick up a test kit so I can keep an eye on it.

As far as too many fish, I've had in depth discussion with a couple of store personnel that SEEMED pretty knowledgeable and they didn't see a problem with the number of fish.

My thinking right now is that basically the waste produced by 12 fish is overwhelming whatever cycle has been established so far to break the wastes down, thus spiking the ammonia, thus the cloudy water.

Is that sound or am I totally wrong here?

[ZeroSystem]

Cloudy water is often the cause of a bacteria bloom, which would indicate that your tank is not fully cycled. It's also possible that the bacteria are unable to form a large enough colony within the tank/filter in order to deal with the waste produced by that many fish. A common problem with tanks that are overstocked. You diffinetly want to get a test kit and get some numbers on Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate, and you may want to consider either rehoming some of your fish or getting a bigger tank.