General Care Discussion :: super disgusto-tank

[laurapa]

OK I need help on multiple levels. Remember I was posting about brown sludge in the filter chambers and murky water? The problem is just getting worse and worse no matter what I do.

First, let me explain murky. This is not cloudy new tank syndrome. The filter is well cycled, doing great at cutting ammonia and nitrite, and it seems to me that nitrates build up at pretty regular rates. We probably do a partial water change every two weeks, when the nitrates get between 20 and 30.

So as far as I can tell, our biomedia is still doing a great job.

Remember, I made a DIY filter about 5 months back. Please follow the link if you want to see lots details and pictures.

So the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels are good, but the water is brown-murky. Even opaque. Oliver LOVES it. Since his stock tank is on the floor and he hates when we walk around so far above him, you can tell he feels so much safer in this murky water. But he's wrong. I don't think it's safe for him at all.

There is algae in the tank, but I don't think that's what's turning the water this color/texture. There is a faint fish-y smell. I think it's decomposing matter. The brown nastiness in his prefilter and first filter chamber (fine mechanical filtering) is just copious, slimy and...brown.

Now, aside from the obvious - start feeding him in a little holding tank and let him poop there - I have a lot of cleaning to do and problems to solve.

Here's what I've done already. I've had to do each of these things twice in the past month because things get sludgy so fast:
-Regular partial water changes
-Rinsed out the prefilter
-Squirted water into the pond pump to clean out the mechanism, which was also sludgy
-Changed the filter fabric and thoroughly rinsed out the first bucket
-Changed the carbon

Every other day or so we use a net to remove his poop. I should admit that sometimes we forget and go three days. Which is why I'm going to just start taking him out to eat/poop.

Anyway, the tank DEFINITELY needs to be thoroughly cleaned. So here are my questions about cleaning:

1. HOW do I thoroughly clean out the pond pump?
2. How do I clean out the tubing that goes from the pond pump to the filter? Is there any way to not only disinfect, but also remove the sludge that I'm sure has built up in there? Disinfecting is only temporary. I don't want to leave stuff in there to continue to decompose.
3. I worry that I'm dealing with bad bacteria (as in, not nitrosomonas or nitrobacter, which are flourishing and I hate to mess with them). Should I go ahead and just replace the biomedia to remove all traces of the other bacteria that may be populating the tank and probably the filter, too? Even though this will force a new tank cycle?

And the big question:
How did this happen? I'm sure in part it was just time to clean the tank. But I expected to never ever have to change out my biomedia. I didn't think the tank would ever get THIS dirty. Is it a problem with my filter (please follow the link above for detailed info about the filter)? Or is it really just because we don't take him out to eat/poop? He seemed kinda sickly (low appetite, no energy) for a while before this all happened. Could he have contaminated his own water? Strangely, now that his water is nasty he is back to his old happy, healthy turtle self.

For those of you who don't want to follow the link to my filter details, it's a 55 gal stock tank for a 4.5" turtle, and the filter pump is a 210gph. The tank isn't filled to the brim because it's too easy for him to climb out otherwise.

Please help me think through all of these details before I go and make a bad problem worse!

[CB]

i cut a washer hose in half, screwed it on to the tap and inserted the cut end into the hose. crank up the hot and when the hose softens up squeeze and manipulate the hose so that the gunk flows out the end with the water. the sludge got so bad in my intake that the hose was caving in and hardly moving any water. about the pump, i use a lot of pumps from sump to trash pumps and i generally run them for 30 minutes in clean warm water to get the goop out. not sure about a pond pump but it works on a 1.5" 150 gpm quite well.
cb

[seanwb]

I think the sludge from the filter is breaking down into minute particles and turning the water brown.

I think you need to give your filter a good cleaning including the bio media. Important, do this in water taken from the tank, not tap water so you do not kill off the beneficial bacteria. Combining this with a 2 to 4 30% water changes at 2 day intervals should solve it. Keep changing the carbon, because it sounds like it is becoming exhausted quickly.

I spotted and stopped this at an early stage in my Mississsippi Maps tank yesterday. Brown brown tinge to water and smelling not good despite ammonia being zero and nitrates low. Good filter clean out, new carbon, 20% water change and 24 hours later all is back to normal.

[laurapa]

In any other circumstance I would be really comfortable rinsing out the biomedia with the tank water - indeed, that's what I normally do.

I was worried about doing that in this case because the water is so super dirty. I thought maybe in this case it would be best to just start over because I was afraid I would just carry the problem over into the new clean tank. Your reassurance makes me feel better.

Thanks for all the advice so far! I will definitely be using it!

[TheComputerGremlin]

If it's not a financial burden, it may be best just to start over with new biomedia. A few weeks of cloudy tank syndrome without brown sludge is probably so much better than risking bringing whatever it is along for the ride. Normally if people are having major issues with their filters, we recommend replacing all media and starting fresh after having bleached or really scrubbing out the filter body.