cloudy water?

[rye22]

my tank has been set up for about 2months now. i have about eight medium sized discus in there right now. but the water seems to be real cloudy. how can i clear it up? carbon?

i do water changes 30-40% water changes 3 times a week

please let me know what you think i should do?

[greyhoundfan]

Two mos. is a relatively short time to introduce 8 discus into your tank especially if their medium sized ones. Was this a new tank set up to begin with? You probably have an ammonia spike. Test your water as you might be at dangerous levels now. Were all 8 discuses introduced at once? If so I would defintely lean towards ammonia build up. You need to give your bio filter time to catch up to the load. you'll need to up your water changes to daily..

do you pretreat your water before you put in the tank? If you infuse your tank with water straight out of the tap the chlrorine in the water might kill off the your bio filters.

Do you have a bare bottom tank or planted?? That'll help others to give you better advice than me..

You might need to do more water changes to bring down the amonia or use ammo lock. People tend to frown on the use of carbon, b/c it is in-discriminate on what it absorbs. It will remove helpful minerals that discus likes and after a while it will start leaching out the bad stuff it just absorbed. Perhaps you sould just use the ammonia removal media, the white one.

[Timbo]

...two months is actually plenty of time for the tank to have cycled and adjust to that bioload; if it hasnt, you may have inadvertantly disrupted your filter and its bacteria population (the cloudy water symptom usually indicates an uncycled tank)

rye, to help you further, can you please post your water parameters? ie- ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, ph, temp and size of your tank

[Timbo]

also rye, is this the same fish from your post three weeks ago where they were in a ten gallon tank and you were treating them?

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//showthread.php?t=49723

[White Worm]

water changes and wait for the cycle to stabilize

[rye22]

i am not fortunate to have a water holding take to age my water. so i drain my water using a hose and then fill it back up with straight tap water. I am aware of how sensitive discus can be to chlorimines and all the chemicals that comes from tap water, so as im filling it up i treat my tank with PRIME right were the water flow is going in. is that ok? and if so should i turn off my canister filter when changing water?

[billeagan]

I would fill a 5 gal bucket, treat with prime or what ever you like, and then put it into the tank.

See if your LFS has some biospira. It will help.

[Cosmo]

I refill my daughters community tank directly from the tap (using Prime) and the tap water does cause some cloudiness. I use a Seachem Clarity and it does a good job of making the water crystal clear in a few hours.

Check your water params, if it isn't an ammonia issue it could simply by your water.
Jim

[Carol_Roberts]

White hazy water could be a bacteria bloom