Water Problem

[Michael J. Tompkins]

Good Morning All! I live in Indiana and it's cold and the amount of natural sunlight during our winter months is about half. I've grow hydroponic veg's indoors for the last couple years with marginal sucess, i now built my system; chemical container(135gal), flood and drain bed, 2- 1pd talipia and grow lamp overhead, with to days of the addition of my fish my water clouded up ---white milky . ph about 7 , temp 78 and water sat for 3 days prior. Also , have about 4 mid-size plants in system ....Whats going on with my water?????????

[TCLynx]

Do you have a test kit?

When trying to figure out water problems it is important to share as much info as possible.

When you first start up a new system you have to go through a process called cycling which is giving your bacteria a chance to colonize the media.  so we also want to know.

Ammonia

Nitrite

Nitrate

along with the pH

and temperature

How much are you pumping?  (it is best to pump at least the volume of your fish tank each hour)

Is there extra aeration?

How big is the flood and drain bed?

What is the media in the flood and drain bed?  Did you rinse it off well before putting it in the system?

It is not uncommon for new media even if rinsed fairly well to cause the water to cloud up a bit when you first start pumping the water around.  Sometimes putting a sock or other filter cloth to catch some of the particles will help there since a new system doesn't yet have the good bio-slime to catch the particles and keep them out of suspension.

The other possibility is that at the lower pH, a bacteria bloom in the water can cause the water to get cloudy.  Ensure that your pH is really about 7 (beware that some test strips are not very accurate and can get worse with age, also digital pH meters need calibration and regular maintenance and so are also not a guarantee of accuracy if they are not tended to properly.)

[Carey Ma]

Is the white stuff sedimenting or is it staying milky? How are the fish? Are these fish new or have they been in the tank for a while? Did you change out your hydro nutes with good water before adding fish? Sorry, I always need lots of dtails...hehe

[Dave Lindstedt]

After my major fish kill resulting from accumulation of excess fish food in the bottom of my tanks,  I have installed a 70GPH Fountain pump, purchased from Lowes at about $20 each.  I suspend the pump 1/2 way into the water level.  Only half way so a mishap can not suck the tank dry. This pump has a 1/2 inch discharge I connected to 1/2 inch tubing with the discharge into my grow troughs along with the gravity fed water from my tanks. I run these pumps (and now) 24/7.  This means over 1,600 gallons of water a day is being pulled through the spong filter on the pump. This requires cleaning the pump & filter every two to 3 days..... But my water is now cystal clear!

As we use to say in the Marine Corps  "ADAPT AND OVERCOME !"