# Bio Balls Making Water More Cloudy, any ideas why?



## Miles Davis (Oct 23, 2007)

I have had some problems with my Bio Balls. My main tank is a 55g. I have the balls set up in a 15g sump tank that follows after a overflow box. In the sump tank the water enters and flows through a pre-filter pad, then into the Bio Balls. After a few weeks time of placing the Bio Balls, my tank began to cloud up emesusily. I cleaned out my Eheim 2217 canister; that didn't make much of a difference. Then I cleaned out the bio balls in hot water and bleach and rinsed them off throughly and put them back in the sump tank. This made no difference. This past week I simply removed the Bio Balls, but kept the sump tank in operation with just the filter pad and my tank couldn't be clearer. Can anyone shed some light on this mystery? :-? [/b]


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2008)

...a bacteria bloom? How long has the tank been set up?

Could you take a picture of the tank when it is cloudy?


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## Miles Davis (Oct 23, 2007)

The tank has been set up for about 2 years, first as a saltwater tank. Then I found that the room was too hot for salt water fish, and I already had 3 cichlid tanks going so I just decided to switch this one to a cichlid tank about a year ago as the warm room wasn't much of a burden with cichlids. I had the Bio Balls the whole time and when I switched to freshwater the tank almost immediately clouded up. I figured it was because all the saltwater bacteria was dying and floating into the water, thats when I cleaned them but like I said it didn't make much of a difference.

I don't have a pic, sorry..

Sorry for the lack of background in my 1st


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## remarkosmoc (Oct 19, 2005)

sounds like a bacteria bloom to me. A pic would help. Bacteria blooms usually look like a "whiteish" tint to the water. The bio balls give you a huge surface area where the bacteria grows, but when it blooms you will have cloudy water for a few days, perhaps up to two weeks. This problem clears itself and the water returns to clear. Of course test your water parameters just to be sure.

However, you would be starting over since you bleached your bioballs all the bacteria that was colonizing them is now gone. You may have another bloom a few weeks after re-introducing them. The balls themselves are intert plastic and can't cause any problems.


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## Miles Davis (Oct 23, 2007)

Are bacteria blooms bad for the fish; I have 7 fish around 2in? Should I put the balls back in, and if so should I rinse them at all? Dirty water comes off them when rinsed. Also I looked at pictures of bacteria blooms and my tank looked similar but it was more dense than all the pictures on google images.


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## remarkosmoc (Oct 19, 2005)

blooms are not bad. you should monitor your ammonia and if it is above .25 do water changes and/or use prime to reduce it. the bleach is a danger to the fish. It is overkill but the method I use is to rins thoroughly then let the item fully dry and then rinse again before putting back in.

Do you have any kind of prefilter before yhe bioballs?


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## Miles Davis (Oct 23, 2007)

yeah, I filter pads in the overflow box and one right before the bio balls in the sump tank


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