Any ideas.. i noticed the water was a bit cloudy thought nothing of it.. Did a water change and cleaned out the filter.. Came back 5 hours later to a pure white tank and all the fish dead?

OMG, sorry to hear that ryanjury. Did you lose many fish?? Are the baby cichlids alright?

Was the tank established for a long time before? Theres lots of other people on this forum that will have a much better idea what may have happened, but it could be the ammonia levels. Rinsing the filter would have probably be the first thing I would've done, but it might have removed the nitrifying bacteria, and caused the ammonia levels to increase making the water cloudy.

All the best,

Alan

A little more info would be helpful. How big is the tank? What was in it? How long had it been set up? What filter was being used? Do you have any test kits to check pH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? These would give us a better idea of what has happened.

Usually white water means an imbalance in the tank and so you get the white, temporary, algae bloom which clears itself. It is also harmless to fish.

Tank was 3 ft long.. it only had 2 baby discus and 2 small bristlenoses... So didn't loose too much, when Iwas emptying the tank I founder the larger of the bristlenoses still alive and its still kicking this morning in the tank I moved it into..

It had a fluval 3 plus internal filter and have been doing the usual feeding etc and dont nothing out of the ordinary... I have never seen anything like this and im glad it didn't happen to either of my community tanks because the only thing I thought about donig was a water change and it did nothing! I rinsed the filter in the tank water and presumed it was the problem but didn't get much gunk out of it...

Is the tank suitable for other fish? How do I sterilise everything ive never seen this before so dont wanna but any babies in and loose them too..

Tank was fully cycled and i haven't got any test kits so dont really know what happened..

Someone put beer in my fishtank once and the same thing happened

Beer=Yeast=White

Lets see if the fish get drunk.....(3 minutes later)......Oh uhm....there dead.......now lets see if they can get stoned........

Shae

Did you refill with warm declorinated water or straight from tap at waterchange?

Ron

Warm declorinated water as per usual... lol no beer or drugs either..

Well, I know here...the few times I added warm water to the tank, it went cloudy but that cleared in no time at all.

Usually white water means an imbalance in the tank

If not beer, how about milk. Years ago, when we were told a goldfish bowl was...oh I shutter...to put a goldfish in... the water turned white...when Tracy and her little friend decided to feed the hungry fishy...MILK! Looking back, a blessing in disguise because that ended our try at fish.