There is a mist kind of thing in the water

[Charith1986]

Hi, my tank is three weeks old now. During the past three weeks i did three water changes on each week (15%) but my nitrates are too high.

After watching couple of videos on you tube I added quarter of tea spoon of sugar to the tank to lower the nitrates. And when I look up in the morning the tank is misty.

Fish also not normal. Why that can happen ? I want to reduce the nitrate levels and how ?

I can move fish to my small tank for the moment,

[DreC80]

Your tank is only three weeks old and you have fish in it?  Did you cycle the tank?  

 

Are you using tap water for water changes?  How high were your nitrates?  Doing a weekly water change on a 3 week old tank isn't ideal.

 

Not sure on the sugar thing...I'm assuming some type of carbon dosing, but that is not going to lower your nitrates rapidly.

 

You have a bacteria bloom.  Your fish may die if you don't properly oxygenate the water.  Make sure your skimmer is skimming wet.

[Charith1986]

I dont use tap water , use water from a well and not RODI either. Nitrates are at the peak. skimmer is on the wet mode

[Charith1986]

a bacteria bloom can happen while the tank is cycling or any moment ?

[Tired]

Bacterial blooms can theoretically happen any time, but are more common in new tanks, especially cycling ones. I very much suspect they're multiplying because of the sugar. 

 

Did you cycle the tank? 

 

Exactly what are your parameters? 

 

What are the parameters of your well water? 

 

Have you used the well water in any other aquariums? 

[Charith1986]

yes i have been using well water in the past also when i set up my tank last year.

i also think sugar muliplied the bloom.

i only checked nitrates only.

[DreC80]

Do you know what the nitrates of your well water are in ppm?  What about the tank?

 

Recommend checking all your parameters and reporting back so we can help you.  You aren't giving us much to work with.

[Charith1986]

Thanks for the information. i checked the nitrate level of my well water and its 100 and that is the reason for the high nitreate levels.

do i need to do a water change now at this moment ?

 

If so i have to use tap water of which nitreate is very low. I can add Ehio Ammonia detox to eleminate harmful chlorine and chloromine in the tap water.

[Charith1986]

I did a 20Litre water change and oxygenate the tank. the bactreia bloom fades away gradually. 

 

Should check on the parameters again tomorrow. Its my mistake who took LFS opinions without thinking much.

 

Now i realize the gravity of this hobby.

[DreC80]

You should probably be checking your parameters everyday until things stabilize.  Ideally you need to be using water with zero TDS....zero nitrates, zero phosphates.  Doing water changes with 100 ppm nitrates is never going to lower your nitrates.

 

This hobby is biology, chemistry, math, research, and patience.  Try to source some clean water and start doing gradual water changes to get your nitrates down.  It sounds like the tank was never properly cycled so you'll want to keep an eye on ammonia so you don't kill your fish.

[Charith1986]

I am in search for RODI water in many LFS who does salt water. But not like in your part of the world, here in Colombo SL there are only couple of LFS who does salt water aquariums.

So findding RODI is difficult unless you have your own system at your place.

 

Will keep an eye on the parameters. And will keep updating. Thanks

[DreC80]

Understand, are you able to get distilled water from a store, or market?

[Charith1986]

Have to check on that ? The tap water we get has very neglegable amount of Nitrate, but dont have any idea about other particulars in it. 

[Charith1986]

I took out the two clowns in to my quarantine tank, so the tank is fishless now. I kept oxygenating the tank and the skimmer is on.

 

Shall i keep the skimmer on while the tank settles down ? what should my next step should be ?

 

[Clown79]

14 hours ago, Charith1986 said:

Thanks for the information. i checked the nitrate level of my well water and its 100 and that is the reason for the high nitreate levels.

do i need to do a water change now at this moment ?

 

If so i have to use tap water of which nitreate is very low. I can add Ehio Ammonia detox to eleminate harmful chlorine and chloromine in the tap water.

If your well water is 100ppm, waterchanges will do nothing as you are using water with high nitrates.

 

Waterchanges only work as a nutrient export if the water you use has no nitrates in it.

 

It's the main reason ppl use rodi or distilled- theres nothing in it but pure water.

 

 

Carbon dosing is not recommended in newer tanks.

[DreC80]

3 hours ago, Charith1986 said:

I took out the two clowns in to my quarantine tank, so the tank is fishless now. I kept oxygenating the tank and the skimmer is on.

 

Shall i keep the skimmer on while the tank settles down ? what should my next step should be ?

 

At this point using tap water is better than the well water if the nitrates are lower.  Just make sure to use some type of dechlorifier.

 

My recommendation is to start from scratch since your nitrates are so high.  Can you replace the tank water with fresh tap water (with salt mixed to the proper salinity) until you can track down some distilled water?

 

If so, I would do that so you start with a lower nitrate concentration.  Do you have any sort of bacteria supplement like biospira, microbacter, etc?  Not sure what's available there in Sri Lanka.  If you don't it's ok because the tank will still cycle, it just may take longer.  

 

To get your cycle going, the tank is going to need an ammonia source.  You can do this with ammonium chloride, or by simply ghost feeding.  Just put some food in your tank and it will provide ammonia to start the biological process. 

 

Ammonia will eventually be converted to nitrite and nitrite will eventually convert to nitrate.  All of this is done by the bacteria.

 

You will need to measure ammonia and nitrite daily.  Once both of those are consistently reading zero, your tank will be properly cycled.  Keep in mind this can take up to a month.

 

This is just a summary of the process.

 

Recommend you read this article:

And watch this video

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/video/view/5-minute-saltwater-aquarium-guide-ep15-cycling-part-1/

 

Let us know if you have additional questions.

 

[Clown79]

A 100% waterchange with low nitrate water will correct the issue.

 

If the tank is cycled there's no need to re cycle it. The rocks have built up the proper bacteria colonies.

[DreC80]

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

A 100% waterchange with low nitrate water will correct the issue.

 

If the tank is cycled there's no need to re cycle it. The rocks have built up the proper bacteria colonies.

I don't know if it is...it's only 3 weeks old and it sounds like fish have been in there from the get go.  Normally nitrates would be a good sign of being cycled...but in this case it seems the nitrates are due to source water. 

 

Hopefully OP will respond back with ammonia and nitrite numbers so we can figure out if it is.

[Clown79]

22 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

I don't know if it is...it's only 3 weeks old and it sounds like fish have been in there from the get go.  Normally nitrates would be a good sign of being cycled...but in this case it seems the nitrates are due to source water. 

 

Hopefully OP will respond back with ammonia and nitrite numbers so we can figure out if it is.

Ya I'm not sure either.

 

If its mid cycle changing 100% of water is what I'd do and then just continue to allow the ammonia present to process and wait 2 weeks then slowly introduce livestock. 

 

 

[Charith1986]

Well as you all said I cant figure out my nitrates are high and tank is cycled or not. But as the water I used is 100ppm with nitrates it would be the reason for high nitrates.

 

I will get a ammonia and nitrate test kits as well. And would start the process again.

 

And as i use Tap water which contains chlorine, shall I use a ammonia detox to de chlorinate the water or shall just add it cs the chlorine will naturally evaporate by the time ?

 

And if I start the process again, do i need to keep the skimmer on ? as of now it is skimming properly.

[Tired]

If you have chlorine and/or chloramines in your water, you need to add something to get rid of those. Ammonia detox won't do it- add a dechlorinator. If there are chloramines, get a dechlorinator that specifically says it also treats chloramines. 

 

The skimmer isn't relevant to the cycle. 

[Charith1986]

Okay thanks, this may be a silly question, I have doubt my Filter media (coral sand) would also be releasing nitrates.

 

is it possible, I bought those coral sand from a LFS but dont know about how they kept at the store.

[DreC80]

Was the sand used or new?  If used, then yes it's possible it's releasing all kinds of stuff into your tank.

[Charith1986]

Its not out from a packet , but the sand was from them and I am sure they might have taken out from a shore. They might have kept it in salt water 

[Charith1986]

Is it same with live rock as well ? I mean if i use the same live rock would it release nitrates again ?