Removal of PP and duration of treatment (Non discus community tank)

[Maria Ashton]

I have dosed my 68G non discus community tank with just shy of 0.5g of PP, the water turned brown very quickly. I have read that PP needs to stay in the tank for at least four hours and that if it turns brown it indicates a high organic load.

I am trying to tackle a problem I have of cloudy water, which I believe might be a bacterial bloom, have changed the top filter pad and done several large water changes with little effect. I removed some of the plants and vaccumed also

Should I continue for four hours and what is the best way to remove it? I assume a large water change, is anything else necessary?

Thanks in advance

[TURQ64]

You could safely do another round, if necessary..Once it fades, it's inactive..Peroxide will neutralize it, but it sounds like the bioload is doing that..WC's after for sure to get the bulk out..Stay away from any Formalin products for a while..

[Maria Ashton]

great thanks! I think I will do a large WC then do another round

[laborelch]

you could perform a 15min demand test prior to dosing the tank for treatment. That works well for me in bare bottom tanks. I have no experience with dosing a planted tank.

[Maria Ashton]

what is a demand test and how do you do it? Both my community tanks are planted, though not heavily.

[laborelch]

here the info that I used. I treat for 4 hrs and then neutralize with H2O2. Also add a couple of extra air stones during treatment. This being said, mine is a bare bottom tank and I have no experience with treating planted tanks.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa032

[Maria Ashton]

Thanks, I had read that site before but not the bit about demand testing in full. However it does say wait four days before repeating treatment. I changed 75% of the tank's water after treatment yesterday and the water is still cloudy. I am not sure what to do now. One site advised changing 20% every day and adding gravel from a healthy established tank, the trouble is that I am not sure my other, (discus), tank is all that healthy as the fish are acting unhappy and the nitrates are high despite large WCs every few days. At the moment its minus 8c here and our hoses are frozen, WCs take forever and I have three small children who are bouncing off the walls with cabin fever... its all a bit of a nightmare.

[brewmaster15]

I have dosed my 68G non discus community tank with just shy of 0.5g of PP, the water turned brown very quickly. I have read that PP needs to stay in the tank for at least four hours and that if it turns brown it indicates a high organic load.

....

Hi Maria,
Question for you here....do you use any water conditioners,ferts, treatments, or chlorine chloramine neutralizers? Many of these will rapidly react with PP in the tank and turn it brown...which makes using it very hard in many cases.

as a side note...I wouldn't use PP to try and deal with Cloudy water issues in a planted substrate tank. Its probably not the most effective way at dealing with it... Theres always an underlying cause for a problem like this, and if you don't deal with that and figure it out, you'll most likely be faced with it again and again. Unforutnate Planted tanks aren't my strong suit, have you posted for help in The planted tank section on the forum? My last venture ion Planted tanks I was faced with cloudy greenish water... for me the answer was add more plants, less fish, and a UV sterilizer.


hth,
al

[Maria Ashton]

Thanks Al, I have some underlying problem in both tanks and am not sure what it is, considering a purifier for both tanks to see if it helps. I do use water conditioner - either Safe or Purcell - the latter is a liquid product from the Netherlands. I did a large water change, 75%, three days prior to the PP treatment. I tried PP because I read that it can be used to sanitize tanks and if the cloudiness is from a bacterial bloom I figured it would help.

I will try reposting in the planted tanks section - thanks for the tip.

[JamesHe]

I use Vitamin C to neutralize PP.