# new carbon and cloudy water



## hanna1 (Apr 21, 2011)

Hi,I recently medicated my fish tank with melafix and today I put new fluval carbon in my fluval 405 external filter,also I done about 40% water change.Now water in the fish tank is cloudy, what can cause this?I washed realy good bags with carbon under tap water how instruction was saying.Fish tank is 10 months old.Can you help me please,tnx


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

How long ago did you do the water change? I changed 70% of my water last night and it is usually cloudy for a few hours if not longer sometimes. Today my water is crystal clear.

Did you stir up any substrate with the water change? Also....could it have been loose debris in the 405 that missed the filter pad after you had it apart?


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## hanna1 (Apr 21, 2011)

I done water change about 7 hours ago,I didnt stir any substrate I cleaned filter pads 7 days ago when I started medicating fish tank, so today filter pads were clean so I didnt touch that. Tank looks more and more cloudy.Something like this never happend before so I`m realy confused


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

If you cleaned the filter pads, then perhaps that plus the melafix killed off enough of your bacteria to cause a mini cycle? Test your tank, specifically for ammonia and nitrite; cloudiness, if it is white, can be caused by a bacterial bloom.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

BelieveInBlue said:


> If you cleaned the filter pads, then perhaps that plus the melafix killed off enough of your bacteria to cause a mini cycle? Test your tank, specifically for ammonia and nitrite; cloudiness, if it is white, can be caused by a bacterial bloom.


I agree...this happened to me recently as well.


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## hanna1 (Apr 21, 2011)

Ok,thank you both for yours answers,I belive as well that is the problem but if you can tell me how water become cloudy after water change and new carbon and before was cristal clear,even before when I was cycling fish tank I never experianced cloudy water,I had all sorts of problems with water ammonia,nitrate etc...but never like this. I`m gonna test the water tomorrow its too late now and I will post my results.I hope fish survive overnight((


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## hanna1 (Apr 21, 2011)

Hi,I tested fish tank water today with API freshwater master test kit and results areH:8.2,ammonia:0.25pmm,nitrite:0ppm,nitrate:5.0ppm,water has cleared by this morning so its again crystal cleard,it must be something with carbon I dont realy know.Thank you so much for all your advices ))


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

it's just a bacterial bloom - keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite. You likely killed off the bacteria with the melafix, then removed the melafix with the carbon, so the bacteria are now growing again.


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

The cloudiness you saw is the massive amount of bacteria that were multiplying, due to a surge in the amount of food available, the ammonia. It didn't have anything to do with the carbon.


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