Hey all,

We just moved back to Iowa from Louisiana for the Army. We moved around quite a bit so was always reluctant to set up a tank in fear we would have to relocate soon and then "bye-bye" fishies.

Now that we are home for good I have been able to set up my pretty 55gal tank. I had it up close to a month before adding my fish. Now I cannot, for the life of me, get the cloudyness to go away! Thinking that I am "experienced" with freshwater aquariums would be able to figure this out... But nope!

I have in the 55g tank:

3 blood parrots
7 mixed cichlids ranging from electic yellows/blues to just african
2 pink kissing gourami's
1 pleco (baby)


Do I have too many fish?
It gets a large amount of sunlight due to windows and my front door being mostly stained glass...?
I have all silk plants and 1 large fake log they like to hide in, along with a skull.
I also have 2 aquamatic filters 1 at each end of the aquarium.

I have been doing 50% water changes weekly and adding distled water jugs from the store as our water is extremely hard. I have also added chemicals, and have completely cleaned out both filters top to bottom along with replacing the actual filter cartridges.

I did a test strip on it yesterday and I am off the charts on my alkaline, ph, hardness... pretty much everything.

What can I do to fix my problem? The tank has a milky white cloudiness to it. Surprisingly NONE of my fish have died, and Ive been dealing with this for over a month now!!!

Has the tank cycled yet? It could be a bacterial bloom, and if that's the case it should clear up once the tank cycles. Are the ammonia and nitrites high?

Also, you might want to cut back on the water changes, and maybe do a 10-15% water change once or twice a week. 50% seems a bit much...

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Creatures great and small, I love 'em all! But mainly the fish.

This tank is not cycled. Running it for a month without anything in it really didnt accomplish much unless you had plants that were getting established. You have way too many fish to start your nitrogen cycle off and I would suspect you have ammonia and nitrite levels that are dangerous to your fish's health right now. You need to read about the nitrogen cycle and understand what your tank is going through. The cycle does not start until an ammonia source is added. In your case, this would be your fish.

I would do a 50% water change now and get the right testing equipment you need. You need a freashwater master test kit, liquid type. Strips are very inaccurate. You at least need to be able to test for ammonia and nitrites. Test for those, if the values get above 1 on either, do at least a 25% water change. If the values are at about 3 or above, do 50%. I'd suspect you'll be doing big water changes frequently over the next few weeks with that many fish. Suprised if you haven't lost any yet.

I agree with Ben. Water changes and plenty of them.

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100G->African Cichlids:Kribensis-2,Bumblebee-2,Red Zebra-2,Elec. Yel. Labi.-2, Acei-2, Elec. Blu. Johanni-2,Peacocks-2 / Community: Australian Rainbow-3,Turquoise Rainbow-4,Dalmatian Mollies-2,white molly-1,Dojo Loaches-1/Cleaners:Chinese Algea Eaters-5/Murderers: Dinosaur Bichir-1And lots of other tanks,2-Gourims,6-Rams,1-Arrowanna,6-FW Flounder,1-Farlowella CF, 1-Spiney Eel