# Cloudy Water



## logi-cat (25 Sep 2011)

I've been using the JBL Manado substrate for quite some time now, after while i decided i wanted to keep shrimps. I have read that the substrate and shrimp don't mix, so i decided to remove all the substrate. Removing the substrate wasn't a problem and didn't suffer from any ammonia spikes or anything, but a few days later the tank just went all cloudy and has been the same ever since. I did a massive water change about a week ago, cleared for a day and slowly started going cloudy again. Does anybody know the reason why? The tank has a bare bottom substrate.

Is it because the bacteria that had settle in the substrate have no where to colonise as there is no room left in the filter or anywhere else?

Currently have a 13 gallon tank with an eheim 2213 classic filter. Water parameters are spot on.

The tank currently houses a couple of celestial pearl danios, an amano shrimp, 10+ RCS and 3 x CRS. They all seem to be in good health, moving around, eating, etc...


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## Iain Sutherland (25 Sep 2011)

I have Manado and shrimp in 35lt with no problem, hate it as a planted substrate though.
I would run more regular water changes until it clears but i know CRS are sensitive to water parameters so a second opinion with regard to the effect on them would be needed.


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## dw1305 (25 Sep 2011)

Hi all,
I have definitely left the Manado in. Had the tank had been set up for a while? This sounds like bacterial bloom, almost certainly because you have removed the substrate. 

Dependent upon the degree of planting and plants (so basically how extensive the plant rhizosphere is), the depth of the substrate and the grain size, you would have had zones within the substrate that supported some of the bacteria that convert NH3 > NO2 > NO3. The uppermost surfaces of the substrate are a good location for these bacteria, because the nitrification process uses a lot of oxygen. However, dependent upon the substrate grain size and amount of root growth, only a few centimetres below the substrates’ surface, the diffusion of oxygen can't supply enough oxygen, and as oxygen levels fall anaerobic bacteria become more frequent. Many of these bacteria are in fact “facultative anaerobes”; this means when oxygen is in short supply, they are able to switch to a metabolism that doesn't require oxygen, instead, they use nitrate, stripping the oxygen and leaving nitrogen (N2) gas to outgas. The nitrifying bacteria provide the nitrate, and their high oxygen demands also tend to exhaust the limited supply of oxygen. These two types of bacteria will occur across a fluctuating boundary lying not far beneath the surface of the substrate. The same processes will also occur in the “rhizosphere” the aerated zone lying around aquatic plants roots. These processes are both a good reason for having a substrate, and leaving it relatively undisturbed.

I'd put a substrate back in, probably just plain sand if you aim to fertilise the water column? or a cat litter / Akadama /Bonsai soil type of you want some CEC. Personally I'd then plant with some reasonably large rooted plants (_Cryptocoryne_ are good for this) and  add some stems and then wait for a few weeks until the tank had stabilsed before adding any bio-load.

cheers Darrel


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## logi-cat (25 Sep 2011)

thanks dw1305, i was thinking the same thing. I've got some fluval stratum being pre-soaked at the moment. I'll put it in soon and see how that goes.


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