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Floating particles in water

Phil63

Phil63

Member
Joined
10 Apr 2017
Messages
38
Location
Uk
Hi guys, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice on resolving why my water is so full of particles and what to do about it.

My setup is a tall 150litre planted tank. It's 6 months old and its had its problems but it's been running really well for around 2+ months now.

I have 2 ehiem 130 filters, and I dose ei. I also do a large 50%+ water change weekly, but the particles come back.

As far as I can tell they are poo and other bits of waste, they don't seem to affect the fish but it makes the water look unclean. It looks to me that the problem could be with flow in my tank. My tank is deep and the filters pick up from quite low down in the tank, and the particles seem to want to float to the top meaning they don't ever seem to get sucked up by the filter. I'm not sure what to do. I do have a powerhead but because my tank is so heavily planted it blows the plants quite harshly. I've added a video and hopefully someone can give me a little advice. Thanks guys!
 
Try Purigen in your filter, try some filter floss temporarily in your filter or something like Seachem Clarity.

I use Clarity after major plant re-arrangement to remove the cloudy water.
 
Thanks guys, I'm struggling to upload the video as it says it's the wrong extension, I'm trying to upload an mp4. I'll add a screenshot but it doesn't really do it justice (it looks worse on the photo).
Screenshot_20171012-073849.png


I'm unsure about adding chemicals as the water isn't really cloudy, it just has bits in it, I have added filter floss but it hasn't really helped, possibly because the bits float and do not go low enough to get sucked into the filter pipe. Any ideas?
 
Hey guys, thanks for the responses. Sounds like this is something that is quite common which makes me feel a little better. A skimmer inlet sounds like a good idea so I'll try and find a suitable one of those and give it a go. I've only seen glass ones so far but I'll need something in either 2 parts or flexible to work for me as it's in an alcove with limited access. I'll also add some extra floss into that filter to try and help clear it up
 
I've still not managed to solve this problem. Drives me nuts.

I've recently decommissioned my Fluval 306 filter (leaving just the Eheim 350) as it was creating way too much current in my 240l tank. So, the particles are back with a vengeance. The problem seems to be the water intake. In its traditional position - lower corner - it never seems to pick up the floaters. Does anyone have a solution? Is there a different style/shape of intake I could use?

I'm also thinking about using a HOB filter but as I have a Roma 240, distance from rim to water is probably 3-4" so I'm assuming it won't work.

Any ideas?

Daveslaney said:
You could try one of the skimmer inlets on your filter inlet this should help pull the floating bits into your filter?
Click to expand...
Could you explain what this is?
 
I would add the filter back and just use some white filterfloss in it, and exchange it weekly.
Or if you want to think outside the box hang a filtersock in the tank and have a internal waterpump pump a large volume in it,, this way you can filter the tank multiple times per hour. Take it out after a few hours.
 
Edvet said:
I would add the filter back and just use some white filterfloss in it, and exchange it weekly.
Click to expand...
The 306 was full of filter floss (80%) but never seemed to really do the trick*. I'm not replacing it as it was too powerful for the tank.
Or if you want to think outside the box hang a filtersock in the tank and have a internal waterpump pump a large volume in it,, this way you can filter the tank multiple times per hour. Take it out after a few hours.
Click to expand...
I occasionally hang a 1600l/ph waterpump attached to a filter sock, usually after a water change for several hours but it's not an ideal solution.

* I'm convinced if the filter inlet was in a better position I'd be able to get more detritus out of the tank... has anyone got creative with theirs?

Thanks for your suggestions though.
 
I had this issue years ago in one of my tanks, also a deep tank. In my case, it was caused by several factors..
First was the direction of the flow. I too had a powerhead that was interfering with the flow of the external filter. It was basically creating a storm inside, water flowing in all directions. You need to setup the flow so it either flows just from back to front or from one long side to the other. The inlets need to be on the side of the outlets in both cases. The water then makes a full circle and comes back where its picked up by the inlets. I could not achieve that in conjunction with my powerhead, because mine was a koralia and it blows sort of wide rather than straight. I removed it and re-positioned the filters. I also installed my spraybars. Things improved significantly but not completely. Then I bought a second filter. I removed all floss from the filters and I put medium and course sponges on each filter layer. I also made pre-filters on the intakes from sponges, basically cut rectangular blocks. Since then I've had crystal clear water.

Since then I've incorporated the same method on each tank I had/have and the water is always crystal clear. Besides setting the flow right, I find sponges being 80% + the media in my filters to visually create the best water clarity, plus the sponge pre-fitlers. Biological filtration doesn't suffer in the slightest and having kept fish for years, I can attest the fish health doesn't either.

My current tank is a round pond and not really a planted tank but I'll show you a couple of videos. The tank is set up on the same principle. It has 3 filters which have mainly sponges as filtration and sponges on the inlets. I rarely if I ever get bio-film or surface scam.. I too always do 50% weekly water changes. I don't ever use powerheads. If I want more flow, I add another filter.



 
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