Plants, and Cloudy Water

Question
Alright where to start.  First off, thanks for any advice you can supply.  The questions.  Ok, I have a 46 gallon aquarium with two Aquaclear 50s.  It's been up for about 6 months.  The water has always been slightly cloudy, a bacterial bloom I think.  I've changed the water plenty of times, and it only keeps it nice and clear for about a week.  It always comes back.  I've got an Oscar, Two Parrot Fish, and a Piranha.  All about 4-5".  I feed them about every two days.  Rarely does any go to the bottom.  My question, is how do I rid of the cloudiness?  It's not an algae bloom, I had that problem a few weeks ago, but it cleared up and went back to being white cloudy. I'm sure it's been asked plenty.

My second question.  I had fake plants in there and decided to get real ones.  I upgraded my lights to a 110 water Compact Fluorescent light system, and still use the old light which is a 30 watt fluorescent tube.  I've got a quite a few plants in there, not sure on the kinds, but some of them are Java Moss, Java ferns, and some swords.  They all turn brown, and seem to die off/not really grow.  I've had them for 3 weeks now.  It might be too early to call them dieing and not growing but it's just a concern.  I just added a c02 generator. It's  DIY one but it's workin'.  My question is is my lighting sufficient to grow them well?

Thanks for any advice.
-Jeff

Answer
Hey Jeff,

Yea dude your very right the cloudy water i believe is caused to a high concentration of bacteria in the water, hence your bacterial bloom. Uneaten fish food or waste floating around in the water are feeding this bacteria. Basically when you change the water it gets better... because your taking alot alot of the bacteria and the nutrients it's using. Water changes are essential to keeping fish especially in your case when you have a oscar and piranha which are extremely messy fish and produce alot of waste. What i'd suggest to you is to get a canister filter first off if you dont have one, this will increase your beneficial bacteria in the tank to fight off the bad guys... plus better filtration you absolutely need for the fish your housing. What Else i want you to do is a 20% water change every day until the cloudy waters done and then do a 40% water change every week. You just gotta keep up on your changes, i suggest cuting your feeding back a little bit to figure out what's causing the bloom. Try that and that should help you out, it's about keeping up with maintanance :)

2)Well welcome to the planted world this is where my personal experiences flourish! I'v been doing planted for many years and still to this day i research new stuff that helps me out. It's taken me years to figure out a system and trust me research really helps. Different plants need diffreent requirements that's pretty much it, you find out what they require and what you can provide and you buy plants based on that. Now the two plants you have the fern and moss they should be ok for a setup like you have. Generally plants will die off due to lack of light, nutrients, or getting eaten. Lets say that your fish aint eating your plants fine.. good.. :)

So we have to look at your lighting first off, many plants need lighting at at least 2.7 wpg (watts per gallon). Your providing your plants 2.4 which isnt bad. Next you gotta make sure your spectrum of lighting fits the plants themself.. so you need to make sure the lights your keeping are  6700K or around there. Plants need a specific lighting spectrum needed to grow. You cannot use saltwater lighting system on a freshwater planted tank, it just wont work, lights differ for each setup, so i'd look into that first.

Plants also need to eat, they use trace nurtients and Macro nurtients. Trace nutrients are provided a bit each time you change your water. They also need to be provided such as the fertilizers you buy in your pet store. Then you need to provide them the "other" nutrients the Macro which is a littl more difficult. You can buy dry ferts or you can buy it in liquid form which is alot more expensive and not readily availiable. I'm guessing that your plants are dying because of a nutrient defincientcy.. i cant tell for sure though.. because it might be your lighting.. hard to tell at this point. You will have to test your water params.

I could go on forever man but you gotta start researching this stuff a bit... and then along the way ask questions.. what i did and it takes a while but you gotta learn slowly.

In alot of my answers i tell people to join up for forums, they are by far the best way to get help other then this site of course :)

Read this article: http://www.fishforums.net/Jamescand39s-Estimative-Index-Article-t104737.html it's a how to on fertilizing your plants, what they need, how much they need, why they need it.

Then read this, it's a basic guide on lighting, what types there are how much you need etc: http://www.fishforums.net/Basic-Guide-to-Lighting-t96754.html

I'll be here to help out when you have more questions, start with that though :)