# Community Tank Troubles.



## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

Ok, as you all may know I have a 29 Gallon tank. It is not over populated, I have already spoken to my friends that do aquariums, as well as a few of my local pet stores. So here is the thing, now..

My water is cloudy as can be. A white cloudy, not green or anything like that. We do every other day water changes on it to hope to get rid of the cloudyness, 25% to 50%, pending on how it looks at the time. We use filtered tap water, with conditioner that I bought from the store, aquarium salt, and ph corrector. All my levels test just right, other then my water still is hard, on the verge of being extreamly hard. Is there another way, other then buying water from the store, to get rid of the hardness of the water? Is there another way to help with the cloudyness of the tank, the Crystal Clear stuff does not work for some reason with this white cloudyness? 

Another thing, one of my Mickey Mouse Platy is acting rather strange. She is a new one that I got a few weeks ago, that was doing very very good in the tank. Well now she is at the top by my heater, staying there most of the time except when she decides to go for a swim with the Mollies, but even then she mostly stays on the top. Also, she has not eaten anything that I have seen in two days and from what it looks like to me, she has lost weight. No other fish show any signs of stress or anything right now, they all seam to be doing well in the tank together, and my red tailed shark is nice and brightly colored red on the tail, and her/his body is completely black. I know that redtails are famous for telling you when there is even the littlest thing wrong with your tank because of the mass color change. So, what might be wrong with my Platy? I don't want to lose another one, after loseing one to Ick (Grrrr, stupid treatment didn't work one bit for that.))


Thank you for your time.
Amber


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

The white cloudiness normally means your going through a bacteria bloom, which is when the good bacteria in your tank are forming. Its best to not do so many water changes, I would say you should pretty much never do a 50% water change. When you clean are you vacuuming the gravel? Are you cleaning the filter or replacing it a lot?
Does your platy have clamped fins?


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## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

Nope, they are up and happy looking. Oddly enough, right after I posted, she went to the bottom and is hidding in the log decoration. She is not being attacked by any of the fish, and I know that the shark would attack if she was injured or something. and I have seen mollies attack one and other if one is injured or sick.. She presents absolutly no signs of disease other then her odd behavior. We vac the gravel every time that we do a water change, making sure, because I do have the bottom feeders, that all food uneaten is gotten up off of the rocks before it molds. We also only feed what they can eat in two to three minutes, and any uneaten flakes I collect in a net and wash down the drain. I will start doing the water changes every three to four days and see what happens, and reduce it to a 15 to 25% instead if that helps?


Thank you muches,
Amber


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

really hard water + pH adjuster = white cloudiness. If you leave it alone, sometimes it will fall like snow and you can siphon out a white powder, or you can filter it out with 'micron filtration'. Try a water change w/o pH adjuster and see if the pH goes up but the cloudiness gets better. Or add pH adjuster to tap water in a bucket and see if it get cloudy, then you will know Ive guessed right. 

If your water is really hard, you can skip adding the aquarium salt unless you are using it to treat ich or something. 

TBB, I never say never especially to water changes especially during cycling. Some people will say they slow the cycle down, but better that than dead fish.


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## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

The Ph sky rockets when we do not use a adjuster. It goes above 8.0 or higher, and my fish begin to act strange when it goes that high.. When I add my Ph adjuster I add it to the water I am putting into the tank when I do a water change, not after, so it would not be that.. Melafix I have noticed, makes the water cloudy, or atleast it did to me. But I do not have Melafix in the tank.

My Ph is completely perfect right now, only thing that is sky high is the hardness of the water.


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## Ghost Knife (Mar 12, 2008)

temptresskitty said:


> The Ph sky rockets when we do not use a adjuster. It goes above 8.0 or higher, and my fish begin to act strange when it goes that high..


Another option would be to empty the tank and get Cichlids. Most prefer a ph level of 8 or so.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Those "PH adjusters" never work long term. Best advise is to get fish that like hard water like goast knife said.


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## Toshogu (Apr 24, 2009)

If you're bound and determined to lower PH and Hardness, I would switch over to using Reverse Osmosis water. That stuff usually holds stable at 7 PH and usually depending on the vendor and the system he uses, little hardness. RO water is more easily manipulated with water additives because it is pure H2O. You can get RO water at the "water" stores, just make sure to ask if they "add" anything to thier ROwater cause some might put vitamin or flavor additives. Best place to get trouble free RO water would be from a local LFS they definetly don't add anything.

Depending on what you want lvlwise you can experiment with RO / Tap water blends. If you tap has high ph and hardness, you can cut it with RO water. Just have to experiment with the ratio's till you get what you like.


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## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

Thank you all for help with this... Right now, the Ph is doing wonderfully and my water clarity is about 98% clear, woot... The fish are all doing wonderfully, and the one that seamed like she wasn't eating, well I saw her take a few nibbles on flakes last night, and the algae wafers are being nibbled on as well by her every now and then, along with ofcourse all my other fish... 

Anyways, we will see how they all do. The Ph seams fine, and is testing at 7.2-7.8 right now, and that to me is ideal because most of my fish, from what I have read, like it around there. The water cleared itself up pretty much by itself, which is wonderful. For the first time in a while I can see right threw the tank to the other side, the long ways... lol. 



Toshogu, I have a question for you, in your tank listed, as a 50 gallon, how are you able to keep your male betta from attacking the females? I know that females really do not attack others often, but from what I have read, the males attack other's that it sees as a threat, mainly ones with long fins and what not... Is that also true, ore are male's pretty ok in going into a community tank?
Thank you,
Amber


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## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

Ghost Knife said:


> Another option would be to empty the tank and get Cichlids. Most prefer a ph level of 8 or so.




I was thinking of doing a Cichlid tank, but I really do not want the hassle, nor the none variety of fish in my tank.. They are however, very beautiful fish. I just don't like how mean they can be, from what I have read...


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## Toshogu (Apr 24, 2009)

Eh, I've got lots of plants and hidey holes for the females. Male doesn't attack the females, he just continously tries to court them. Gets rejected, and chases em around a bit. Most of the time they have a rotating schedual of territories within the tank. But the past week they all seem to have staked out a particular spot. Mr. Creosote likes it on the left side of the tank near the heater, sherbert likes the upper middle near the overflow box underneith the tigerlilly leaves, Brown like the driftwood in the center, and pinky likes the driftwood on the right.

As for the male and other tank mates, I have lucked out and gotten a docile one I guess. I dunno, this is the first male betta I've had. He doesn't really pay attention to any of the other tank inhabitants, he'll check em out every now and again, even when I had an angel, platies, guppies he hasn't been agressive to them. He doesn't eat the ghost shrimp either. Would I stick another male in the tank, no... Would I try and see what happens with a gourami... yes. idk, I think it comes down to the individual temperment of the betta. From my experience with Mr. Creosote I am begining to think that Betta's much like Pitbulls have just gotten a bad rap.


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## temptresskitty (Aug 8, 2009)

Awesome. That is actually, very very helpful. My boyfriend and I were thinking of ways to try and get him over into the community tank, because my 1.5 is needing to be used for a platy about to pop. The population of your tank may help a little to keep him at bay.


Amber


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## Buggy (Oct 17, 2006)

If you still have problems with the PH going too high and don't want to keep using the ph adjuster, you might try adding some driftwood to the tank or peatmoss in the filter. Both of these will help bring the ph down.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Driftwood/ peat won't help Ph unless you have soft water. As long as the water is hard, there is not much you can do to lower Ph long term.


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