New-ish 55g NPT Bacteria Bloom - El Natural

bandd · 09-15-2009, 06:06 PM

Hey All,

My first post here at APC. I have a 55g south american community tank that I set up NPT style a little less than 2 months ago.

I've got about 1-1.5 inches of an oragnic potting soil on the bottom, covered by another 1-1.5 inches of small gravel as the substrate. The water temp is set to 77F and I've got a Emperor Bio-Wheel 280 HOB filter running as my mechanical filtration (I do have some carbon in there right now and I had some Seachem Purigen as well, it's on a rinse cycle at the moment). I have an AHS retrofit 55w x2 for lighting, and some partial sunlight in the early-mid morning through a east facing window.

Water parameters are as follows:
pH somewhere between 7.2 and 7.6 (I need a better test kit)
KH around 180 ppm
GH around 150-200 ppm
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate >5 ppm

For the flora I have 4 Amazon Swords, 1 Red Rubin Sword, quite a bit of Sagittaria Subulata, some Dwarf Hair Grass, some HC, a decent amount of Brazilian Pennywort, and about 8 Brazilian Microswords. I added some duckweed I got from a local "river" this weekend.

For the fauna I have 17 neon tertas, 4 Bolivian Rams, and 5 Otos (plus a few unidentified snails).

About 2-3 weeks into it I noticed the water getting pretty cloudy. I initially thought it was something leaching in through the soil (tannins or some such) so I preformed some 20-30 percent water changes. It lessened after the change (of course) but by 3-4 days later it would be cloudy again. So I would do another 20-30 percent water change. This continued with about one water change a week for the last 5-6 weeks. (as a side note, I had some minor-ish issues with some with green brush algae, filamentous algae, and what I guess is brown brush algae--the green is gone, mostly just some brown brush algae).

After the latest water change, I decided to research some other causes of water cloudiness. I came across the bacteria bloom and this fits like a glove. I've read that the bacteria that cause these blooms are heterotrophic and not nitrifying bacteria. I've also read that the best thing to do is just wait it out. What is the ecology behind these blooms? The root cause is too much organic matter in the water, is this right? How long can/do they usually last? Is the only thing that could possible harm the fish is depleated oxygen levels? The plants seem to be doing well...though the little hair algae on some of the swords leaves seem to gather bacteria colonies as well as the water borne roots on the pennywort and the duckweed I added this weekend.

Thanks for any help or suggestions. I greatly appreciate it!!!

Dustin

murdocmason · 09-16-2009, 10:05 AM

sounds like you got the same problem as me lol but I have yet to find a pure way of getting rid of it although I do believe mine exists from being unbalanced in my fert regimen so hopefully we can both find a way of solving this =) best of luck

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brenmuk · 09-17-2009, 03:31 AM

Have you tried some very fine filter material?

I had cloudy water a while back for a week or 2 after a major re scape of my tank - I think the cloud was fine soil/clay particles rather than a bacterial bloom. After waiting for it to clear which it didn't I added a layer of filter wool to my external filter and that did the trick. I also had an outbreak of brown algae which I suspect was down to me having to clean the filter a few times in quick succession - you usually get brown algae when the tank is 1st maturing or as in my case when there is disruption to the existing filter bacterial colony.

murdocmason · 09-17-2009, 09:51 AM

OOO HOOO that could be just my reason then for having the problem I constantly pick at my hardscape moving things around also I jsut put new filter media in my HOB filter so that could have caused the disruption in the balance thx brenmuk

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bandd · 09-17-2009, 08:33 PM

I'm sure it's not fine particulates. I've also tried different filter media. The thing that finally made me realize that it wasn't particulates, was the fact that it worsens with time without me doing anything to the substrate at all.

I've added some pictures of the bacteria "precipitate" that has formed on the roots of some of the duckweed and on the hair algae in one of the sword leaves. It's kinda weird looking...

murdocmason · 09-18-2009, 10:24 AM

hmmm that does look strange, as for my cloudiness I got rid of it with a willow branch due to the inbalance in my ferts but I'm back on track now and clear as day GL 2 U bandd I hope something works for you

bandd · 09-20-2009, 08:54 PM

Anybody have any advice here? The "precipitate" is getting thicker. I'm also still getting a little bit of algae growth (though I think it is getting visually worse due to the build up of the "precipitate" which seems to cling to the algae more than the actually plants).

I'm open to any suggestions!!!

Thanks,

Dustin

Dustymac · 09-22-2009, 05:20 AM

Hi Dustin,
I haven't had your particular problem so all I can offer is wild speculation. But who knows - I might get lucky.

Soil substrates give off lots of nutrients during the first few months of establishing a NPT, but it seems to me you should be on the downhill side of this curve and the problem should be getting better and not worse.

Like I said, wild speculation, but perhaps whatever it is, it's feeding off something in your tap water. The frequent water changes help dilute the concentration temporarily but recharge the offending nutrient. For instance, I have a problem with too much silica in our tap water which happens to be an essential ingredient for diatom growth. For me, changing the water invariably leads to diatoms.

But assuming your growth is bacterial, I would suggest installing a UV Filter and slow down on the water changes. The UV light will kill anything suspended in the water and it's likely your floating plants will eventually scrub your water of the essential nutrients supporting the growth.

Hope this is helpful,
Jim

brenmuk · 09-22-2009, 07:29 AM

I've not seen or had problems like this myself but my gut instinct would be to beef up your filtration and to manually remove as much of the stuff as possible.
You want good water circulation to get CO2 and nutrients to your plants without excessive surface agitation which will drive off valuable CO2.

Also too frequent water changes may be counter productive as they remove nutrients that your plants need for growth.

In a planted tank good plant growth will improve the oxygenation of the water column and substrate which encourages more efficient break down of organics into plant food.

I don't use HOB filters so can you explain what you mean when you say the HOB filter is in rinse cycle?

Also what brand of potting soil did you use does it have any special additives in it?

bandd · 09-22-2009, 06:15 PM

@Dustymac--Thanks for the advice. It's getting hard to tell if it's getting worse or stabilizing at this point. The fish and plants seems to be doing fine. I've actually had a pair of Bolivian Rams spawn and the fry are doing really well!!! I've been 'doing nothing' for a week, just seeing if things will work themselves out or not.

@brenmuk--I'll try to get as much of the stuff off that I can this weekend, that should help me see if it is getting worse or better. The Purigen was on a rinse cycle (you can 'recharge' it by soaking it in bleach for 8 hours and then rinsing well and soaking in water with a bunch of decholorinator for 24 hours). I haven't put it back in yet, but I did add a bunch more activated carbon.

Thank you both for your 'gut feelings'. I'm new to the whole planted tank thing, and while I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the ecology of it all, nothing is better than experience! So thanks again. I'll keep the thread updated and things worsen or improve, so hopefully someone else can benefit somewhere down the line.