Habitat - Indoor :: Murky Water

[Peva]

So is Bio Media something I need? Because as it is now, the water just took a few days and now it's crystal clear. I saw Bio Media at Petco for like twelve bucks but I'm super broke right now. Can I wait until I replace the carbon?

[VeipaCray]

You don't need any filtration if you change your water daily. As mentioned before the bio media is super porous inert material providing lots of surface area for the bacteria to colonize on.

The water being clear has nothing to do with the bio media. The bio media is to keep the tank cycled and the Ammonia and Nitrite in check. I will also allow Nitrate to be converted to less dangerous Nitrate which YOU keep under control by regular partial water changes. The only way to see any of what's going on is to measure preferably with a drop based test kit like the ones from API or Salifert.

[Peva]

Oh, so it helps me not do as many water changes.

[steve]

The more water you have, the fewer the changes (IMO).

[Ramla]

Just did some general reserch and found this on another forum.

The white milky tint to the water is usually cause by a decomposing bacteria bloom. It's sometimes called new tank syndrome. It isn't cause by cycling the tank, it's caused by an imbalance between the waste load and the decomposing bacteria. When you start out with a new tank and fresh water, there isn't any organic waste or decomposing bacteria in your water system as yet. With all your inhabitants they begin to dump alot of organic waste into the water system. That's when the decomposing bacteria move in. Because the decomposing bacteria can multiply to great numbers in a very short time(2-sextrillion in a 24 hr period...Timothy A. Hovanec, Ph.D.) the decomposing bacteria turn the water a milky white.This won't harm the inhabitants. When the bacteria consume the excess organic waste, they begin to die off and the water begin to clear up. This might take several days depending on the waste load. So the actual white tint in the water is the massive amount of decomposing bacteria. This can happen anytime you do a very large water change (85-100%) and throw the decomposing bacteria/ waste load out of balance.

The nitrifying bacteria grow very slowly, they can only double the amount of bacteria in a 24 hr period. So you won't get a nitrifying bacteria bloom. These nitrifying bacteria(aka beneficial bacteria) shouldn't cause the water to turn cloudy while your cycling your tank. Are you still getting ammonia? If so you're still cycling the tank. The 1st of the two nitrifying bacteria will convert the ammonia into nitrite, a lot of times you wont see the nitrite come in, or spike, because it sometimes happens pretty fast. But if your getting some nitrate, you're starting to colonize the 2nd nitrifying bacteria which converts the nitrite into nitrate. Are you getting nitrite or nitrate? You don't have to measure it now just a rough amount. That will tell you where in the cycle you are.

I'm a little concerned about the "prefilter" word used with the blue pads in your top basket. Normally, prefilter means a media used ahead of the filter or as the first media on the coarse side. I believe the micro filtration pads that come with the XP4's are bi-color(green or blue and white). The colored side is a little bit too fine for use with turtles. I've tested those pads and they clog much faster than the regular all white filter floss. Your XP4 comes with four black sponges, two of which are coarse(20ppi, pores per inch) and the two others are fine at 30 ppi. Is the finer black sponges, finer than the prefilter blue sponges you are using in the top basket? The finest media should be used in the top basket. It's always coarse to fine as the water flows, which is bottom to top in the Rena XP series. In my snapper tank XP3 filters, I use 4-filter floss pads in the top basket. They keep the water nice and clear and they won't clog for a long time using four pads.

Instead of doing a whole lot of water changes. Forget about the cloudy water for a bit and just do 50% water changes when either the ammonia or the nitrite get to 3-4ppm and or the nitrate gets to 40-50ppm. These water changes will leave enough food for the nitrifying bacteria (ammonia and nitrite) to complete the cycle. Keep us updated when you get a chance so we can help you through this process. Good luck!


If the above is true, I guess there is just too much decomposing bacteria in the water after the 100% exchange, and it's harmless and will clear up in a few days. This doesn't explain why it hasn't happened before during my total exchanges, or why all the feeder fish immediately died though.

This is actually a fairly common thing that just kind of happens, I really couldn't tell you the specifics for why really. Seen this a lot working at petco, lots of people come in worrying about this. But as the article says usually it will go away on its own like it did with yours, and is definitely not something you should worry about for your turtle. Fish can be much more delicate with this sometimes, generally with a fish tank we would sometimes recommend adding aquabalance to help straighten things out, but isn't always necessary. Likely the main reason the feeder fish died is due to them relying more heavily on the water for survival than your turtle does. Also if you are like me, you might not take the time to let your feeder fish float in your tank and adjust properly like you would in a normal aquarium, and that between the new water chemistry and change in water temperature, leads to a lot of stress on fish, which can easily lead to death.