Fine White Silt

C

cheryl

Guest
My tank is still at the beginning part of cycling. It is cloudy, ammonia is at 0.5, pH7 and everything else at 0. I now have a fine white silt over the rocks. What would this be? Could it have contributed to the axolotls dying within hours of going into the water even though there was no time for nitrogen to build up? I tested our water from the tap for nitrogen and it appeared to be somewhere between 0 and 0.25.
 
When you say "nitrogen" do you mean ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate? There are separate tests for each. It would be unusual for tap water to contain nitrite or nitrate, although if it's ammonia I can explain it.

I would guess that the silt is a deposit of whatever it is that is making the water cloudy. This could be a bloom of bacteria, or it could be some kind of material that is in your tap water and comes out when the water sits in a tank (I had this problem in one place that I used to live).

Does the tank have a filter? How soon did the water become cloudy after you set up the tank?
 
sorry- i meant ammonia, not nitrogen. Brain freeze
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The tap water (tank water collected from the roof) tested 0 for ammonia and nitrites. I didn't bother with nitrates. I have 2 filters on the tank at the moment. I don't know the technical names for them but one sits in the corner and has an air stone in the centre of it and activated charcoal and filter wool and the other attaches to the side with a sponge and activated charcoal in it- it spirts out water.
The tank became cloudy within 24 hours of filling it and remains cloudy 8 days later.
 
When I lived in an area with soft water, I had the same problem - when I filled a new tank, the water would get cloudy in a day or two, and it took a couple of weeks until it cleared up. And I would get debris settling out, like in your photo. I have NO idea what causes this, but it isn't harmful, as far as I could tell. I used to siphon out the "silt" and go ahead and put animals in the tank when it was still slightly cloudy and nothing bad happened. Interestingly, doing big water changes on established tanks never resulted in cloudiness. And if I followed the advice for speed-cycling (setting up a new tank using a filter and substrate from an established tank) I also did not get this cloudy silty stuff.

If your tap water is rain water, it shouldn't contain anything nasty that would affect axolotls (unless it would come from metal pipes, or something growing in the water in the holding tank). Is this water safe for human drinking?

The problem with rain water for axolotls is that it is probably too soft (not enough dissolved minerals). You might want to think about adding something to add minerals to the water - either aquarium additives, or some form of calcium carbonate.
 
Thanks for that. Interestingly enough after I had my arm in the tank yesterday it left a white "crust" on my skin after it dried. What concerned me a bit is i had 2 axolotls and put them in the tank prepared to do the water changes needed for an uncycled tank but they died within 24hrs.
 
Were the filters new to begin with? or from an establised tank? (just incase its debris left in the filter?)
 
They are new filters. There are also small particles floating in the tank now.
 
i get those things and they hang around the suction caps for the filter. i dont get many though.
 
Do you have a lid on your tank? It might be dust from the air sinking from the water surface.

If I open the lid on my tank for extended periods, with a fan blowing across the water surface to cool it down, I get silt like that too.
 
sorry to hear about your loss, i know that tank water can contain all sorts of nasties unless it has a UV filter or something like that. bird poo etc gets into the water, maybe worth looking into? not sure what your silt is though sorry, could it be icky debris from the bottom of your water tank?
 
We had big rains after a long time of no rain recently and it filled the tanks- im sure that there would be alot of bird poo washed in (disgusting to think we are drinking that- im setting up the filter tomorrow). It has not made any of us sick tho. I might start doing partial water changes every day with filtered water. Would that affect it cycling? I will also look into how hard or soft the water is. I am guessing there is a test kit you can get for that.

Joanne- yes i do have lids on the tank.
 
Rain droplets have to form around a nucleous of some matter which is often some form of dissolved particulate such as dust. This may be one of the sources of the "silt" seen in the aquaria.
Now I know in the USA, one of the major sources of nitrogen (as nitrate) for the praries is rainfall (partially due to pollutants) but I do not know if this is the case where you are located.

If this is the first rainfall in a period of time, then it is also possible that some organic material has been washed down into the tanks and is decomposing hence the low levels of ammonia.


Ed

(Message edited by Ed on February 14, 2006)
 
small partial water changes wont effect the cycling as long as you leave the substrate and filters alone. eds suggestion is a good one. like you said rains could have stirred up the gunk so id say its one of those two.
 
Yeah I have set up the water purifier and will do partial water changes as the water is ready. I will syphon up the silt on the bottom of the tank. I think i will only be able to get a couple of litres at a time, which considering the size of the tank isnt alot but im hoping by the time it is cycled i will be able to get it clear. My purifier filters out chlorine, chemicals, metals, giardia, cryptosporidium and sediment. Is there an aditive someone can recommend to replace any salts or anything? Would I need to test the water to know how much to add? If so, with what?

for some reason whatever is making the water cloudy and settling as silt needs oxygen. I have a small tank with an inch or so of the same water in it but no airstones or filters and the water there has not done it.
 
If you have a really good pet store, ask them what they would recommend adding to rainwater for keeping fish that like hard water. If you can't get this sort of expertise, then I'd recommend putting in some crushed shells (sold for saltwater tanks) or limestone rocks or calci-sand (sold for reptiles). These dissolve slowly and add "hardness" to the water.
 
Our only petshop is really bad. When i meantioned cyling water they just looked at me like i had come up with some sort of bizarre and novel idea. Should I test the water to see how hard it is? How much shells etc should I add to a 4ft tank?
 
It wouldn't hurt to test the water, but if it's rainwater I'm fairly sure that it must be soft. When I had soft water, I kept a small porous bag of calci-sand inside my filters. This did a good job of preventing the pH from going acidic (which was a problem for my tanks). It never got the pH above 7, and I think it was never enough to make the water truly hard. I think any modest amount of these materials would be OK. If you are concerned about overdoing it, you could use a hardness test kit for future testing.
 
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