help me determine what this is, pic included

You could try Purigen and see if it helps.
LFS for about $11 for 100ml in the bag.

You could try a finer/polishing pad in your canister . Or even wrap a piece around the intake sponge till it clears up .

I already have 3 layers of filter floss as the top layer in my canister filter, didn't help.

Bump: yeah , i'll try this if it doesn't clear up in a couple of weeks. hoping it's only temporary.

Maryland Guppy said:

You could try Purigen and see if it helps.
LFS for about $11 for 100ml in the bag.

Click to expand...

user12345pk said:

I already have 3 layers of filter floss as the top layer in my canister filter, didn't help.

Bump: yeah , i'll try this if it doesn't clear up in a couple of weeks. hoping it's only temporary.

Click to expand...

Standard filter floss is not fine enough no mater how many layers...unless you compact too much . You can get polishing pads for most canister filter brands , or get some white untreated felt from a craft store or even Walmart . Always works for me .

Maryland Guppy said:

You could try Purigen and see if it helps.
LFS for about $11 for 100ml in the bag.

Click to expand...

+1 for the purigen, got my tank water crystal clear, stuff is like magic, i bought the bottle of it though and put it in seachems "The bag" and threw it in my canister, would reccomend putting it in after the biological media though so that it doesnt absorb anything that the bio media needs to stay well established.

Purigen and Fluval polishing pads get my water crystal clear


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What are your water parameters? pH, kh, ammonia, nitrite?

Maybe it's fertilizer precipitation? Are you adding iron and phosphorus at the same time? That can create cloudy water.

I also heard that if you have very hard water, like over 10dkh then it can cause certain trace elements to precipitate.

Or it could be a bacterial or algae bloom.


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Tell us about your substrate.

The tank has been running 1-2 months, but how long has the cloudiness been around for?

Ryan Stephens said:

would reccomend putting it in after the biological media though so that it doesnt absorb anything that the bio media needs to stay well established.

Click to expand...

Purigen is an organic scavenger style of resin.
It traps organic material before it is reduced to it's simplest form NH3.
It does not remove NH3 or NO2 from the water column and for that matter NO3.
NO3 does not feed typical filter media bacteria.

This is taken from Seachem's Purigen description for the non-believers.
"Purigen® controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds. Purigen’s impact on trace elements is minimal."
@user12345pk have you tried Purigen yet?

yeah i tried purigen but it didn't help. what helped was a large water change to get rid of the existing algae and then having more water movement in the tank. this change has kept my tank clear since. i've removed the purigen.