Milky/stinky water

[Jesseboy]

Ok I got a few issues and am wondering if someone can give me some advise. I have a 6 foot planted discus tank. In it i have 5 medium to small sized discus...and a bunch of tetras, not much of a bio load, my problem is i have very milky water, I thought this might have been due to ammonia in the water but i have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and only small traces of nitrates. maybe 5 - 10 ppm. This milkiness doesnt seem to be from small particles in the water, rather just the water being murky, for the last week i have been doing a 50% water change every day. still no difference. I have 2 canister filters running. one with Zeolite and activated carbon. it hasn't helped one bit. the fish seem to be ok. also another thing i have noticed is the top of the tank stinks like cat pee. real bad. doesnt seem to be in the water just around the lid area. where water evaporates to. one other thing i noticed is if i look at the inside of the glass closely there is white stuff growing on it. i have wiped it clean plenty of times but it seems to come back in a week or so.

I know bacteria in the water can make it go murky. could that be the problem? if so how would i fix it. any help would be greatly appreciated because i'm at a loss of what to do.

Cheers

Jesse

[Hollowman]

Are you cleaning your gravel? You can get anerobic areas in the substrate where it gets compacted and produces toxic gases. This would stink a bit. It could also be that you are not removing uneaten food, this can cause the murkyness.

I would clean the gravel, right to the bottom of the tank, and stop feeding for a few days to see if that improves your water, continue the water changes. I use filter floss in the top of my cannisters too, this also helps clean up the water, just pack it in.

hth

Hollowman (steve)

[BigDaddyAdo]

purigen will also help once you have given it a good clean

[Jesseboy]

Yeah im cleaning my gravel. Im using pool filter sand. about 1cm all the way through. i dont think im over feeding but i will cut back anyway and see if that helps.

I got some purigen on the way too.

[Tommo]

How much water flow do you have ?

Also, how long has the carbon been in the canister filter for ?

[stormhenge]

i had a problem like this with my tank a while back, my local discus breeder figured it was a biological bloom when i cleaned my tank too much at one water change.

whatever the case was, i hooked up a water polisher to the tank for a week and the tank cleaned up.
after that i just added water polishing pads to my canister filters and it stayed away.

so try polishing your water down with your canister filters.

[Merrilyn]

Sounds like a bacterial bloom Jesse.

A UV will fix it completely.

Unfortunately water changes just seem to give it new life.

Hook up a UV unit to the outlet hose of one of your canister filters, and you'll fix the problem permanently. Get a unit rated around 35 watts.

They're not cheap, but worth every penny.