HELP! FILTER NOT WORKING????

[Sohal Tang]

90 GALLON approx 5 weeks old with 15 small africans in it....
When I first set it up the water went sparkling clear within 1 day
using my emperor 400 filter.....
After about a week or so the water began to cloud and I have not been able to clear it since...I have used Cycle, Stress stuff,
bacteria additives to speed cycle etc but...still the water is cloudy,
I have changed filter media, added more carbon, done water changes....

Is it possible that this filter just cannot cut it?

Tim

[Daniel Schubert]

Shoal Tang

I'm not familiar with the filter you have. It may be posible that the tank hasn't completely cycled yet and you've overstocked it too soon. I have a 90 Gallon with 4 large Angel fish, large tire track eel, large cat fish, 2 small clown loaches and 2 pleco's. it is crystal clear but I'm using a Aquaclear 500. I'm very happy with the filter.

[afss]

One problem that you may be running into is the changing of the filter media. While the media is in the filter it becomes a growing place for bacteria etc that help filter the water. If you change all of the media at once and only have the one filter, then you are removing all of the benifical bacteria that built up in the media, probably the main source of biological filtration. If you do this you are basically causing a mini cycle to occur. If the rest of your tank isn't setup to accomidate for this, or if the tank hasn't properly cycled, or if the tank is overstocked then the mini cycle will be larger. When i used to use media in my FW setup i would only change about half of the media each change. By doing this you are alowing the old media to seed the new media and so on and so on.
Scott

[Sohal Tang]

Ya, I thought I would get away with changing the filter media because of the 2 large bio wheels? Surely to God they must
have populated in 4 weeks?????

Its been too long since I dabbled in FW....I am used to REEF and have NEVER had problems with REEF...with cloudy water etc....

I set this tank up the exact same way I did last time I had an african only the other one had an UNDERGRAVEL also!

mmmmmmmm those old undergravels aren't bad after all! hehe

Thanks
Tim

[Sohal Tang]

Dan, the Emperor 400 does 400 gph whereas the aqua clear does 500gph but the emperor also has 2 LARGE BIO WHEELS

The filters are similar in design I guess....

The emperor, I thought, would MORE then cut it...

It must be the cycling thing still happenin.

Thanks
Tim

[Sohal Tang]

Hey guys if you have digital cameras you should send in
some pics of your african tanks!

I see some guy has a pic of 2 piranahs......

I am sure they would post pics of your Africans if you sent them in....

I dont have a digital camera yet.


Tim

[afss]

Almost sure its still cycling. I am used to the reef now too, but the same basic principles in biological filtration apply. As I said I now run my FW with no media either(just like my SW). This works for me but i have a light bio load, and I have a 2 inch dirt sand peat mix with another inch of river rock for substrate in my FW. I rely on this and my plants (lacking sadly due to neglect at the moment) to do my filtration. I don't vacum the substrate either. My father used to have a fw tank setup and he ran no filter and plastic plants and never cleaned the muck on the botom and the water was always crystal clear and the fish healthy. It ran this way for years from what i remember. I figure that it would have problems under a large bio load, but maybe not

Scott

[Sohal Tang]

Ya, well, I used to have 27 tanks set up all at once...I was breeding, show tanking, learning, and selling all at once hahaha

I NEVER, EVER, EVER had this problem with a single tank in my life....aamazing.....it MUST MUST MUST be still cycling.....

I think I interupted the cycle by changing the media...I should have changed ONE SIDE ONLY hindsight so damn easy....

AGain, never thought problem as I thought the bio wheels would make up the diff....

WWWWWRRRRRRONG AGAIN..hehehe

Tim

[afss]

Oh yeah... undergravels have their place, and i am sure that they work OK, but I think there are much better methods today then undergravels. JMO
Scott

[Sohal Tang]

ya, well, the last time I set up a 65 gallon HIGH DISPLAY tank 48" long......I filled it with 25 or so african fry all at once....
I had an undergravel, an aqua clear 500 and the undergravel was powered by two HIGH POWER POWERHEADS....

I had more current in that tank then the Atlantic Ocean! hahaha

The fish had to SWIM to keep from getting SPLATTED AGAINST THE GLASS hahahahaah

But...I fed those Africans like PIGS and NEVEREVER DID THE WATER EVER CLOUD or NEVER DID THE TANK GET DIRTy....

I know there is better then undergravel...but...I am wondering now if it is a mistake to be WITHOUT ONE in a freshwater set up.....

I do remember the trouble with the fish digging the thing up a little...but I had a black fine screen mesh to prevent problems that seemed to work good....

ANYWAYS....Yes, the tank must be STILL CYCLING CYCLING CYCLING DAMN.....will wait it out.

Thanks
Tim

[afss]

Yeah cycling a tank is a wierd thing. I have had some that worked so well and went so fast and others that just seem to take forever and then you think its done and it goes another round:D

When i set up my first SW it took 6 weeks to cycle... no internet to help out for info. Since then the SW has been moved from florida to toronto to st catharines to another place in st catharines and the only loses were a few fish the first move (7 days in coolers), an anemone that got squished on the second move, and a clam and some sps frags on the last move... no real cycles to speak of in any of the moves. cycles are definetly unpredictable.

[afss]

If i ever get around to it i would like to set my FW up with an overflow and do a wet dry setup with it. I think a wet dry would be great for fw.. not so great for reefs, but i think it would be great for fw

[Sohal Tang]

Well, reefs are cycled in 4-6 weeks but not TRULY CYCLED
for about 6 MONTHS in my opinion.....till then all hell can break
loose if you do not keep a close eye....of course with lots of live rock and love feed END OF POTENTIAL PROBLEMS mostly....

LIVE ROCK...IS AN AMAAAAAZING THING...

[afss]

thats for sure.:D

[Sohal Tang]

Ya, well the bio wheels are a mini wet dry...but yes a wet dry system would be the ULTIMATE I suppose.....but then again....
The more I spend the more I wish I just went BACK TO REEF.

So..I am keeping my costs low as possible.....I LOOOOOVE reef BUT I am temporarily out of reef right at present....

reef is truly the height of it....absolutely remarkable...always something new happenin...very very neat.

I had the nicest fish in the WORLD in my 180 reef I used to have....
I had a large EMPORER, 3 blue tangs huge, huge sohoal tang gorgeous, majestic, yellows, powder brown-gold rim...

all extremely gorgeous specimens.....they used to eat like horses...I could put in a large piece of romain lettuce on a clip and
they would eat the whole thing in 15 minutes flat!

they did not bother the corals! I did higher then normal water changes and never had a problem!
My lighting was poor though but managed to keep softies well....

reefs are gorgeous

Tim

[afss]

wow.. those sound like great fish. do you have any pics of them?

See how this has twisted from a fw to a SW discusion.. i love it:D

I agree that reefs are great, but i want to try my hand at a planted fw tank now too. I had some plants but i want to do a really nice one. I will be keeping the reef, but still want to try something else.

Scott

[Sohal Tang]

When I think of FW planted,,, I think of a guy that used to run an auto body shop......he restored old 63 caddys etc......
Anyways....he had a low long 40 gallon in the wall over his desk....
the damn tank was FULL of plantlife and FULL of BRAND NEW BABY FRY PLECOSTOMUS which, at that time, had NEVER been bred in captivity...BUT HE DID IT AND I SEEN IT!!!!!
Little baby plecos all over the place swimmin in the most planted tank ya ever seen hahaha

Tim