Cloudy Bait Tank Water

[yellowdog4me]

First time tanker & looking for advise. I have  a 30-60 gallon HOB 3stage filter on a 30 gallon tank with now about 3 doz after this weekends trapping. Tank has been running trouble free for about 3 weeks with about 8 4 inch goldens prior to this weekends additions. I changed the blue filters for the first time yesterday before adding the newly trapped bait. I (as per the instructions) did not touch or remove the bio media pads. The tank, after being clear for the first three weeks, is now cloudy and HOB is not doing a good job removing the additional solid waste on the bottom.

Should I do a water change (what %?) or wait for the cloudiness to clear? Is it a good practice to store the new bait in a holding tank to let them pass all their waste prior to adding to the tank? Should I have increased the amount in the tank gradually instead of adding the newly caught all at once? What you recommend for removing the solid waste the filter doesn't seem to be picking up? Are the "Bio Pads" in the filter large enough to allow enough bacteria to grow to accommodate the density required for a bait tank or should I build a canister type filter as described in other threads?

Thanks in advance for your help

[Kevin23]

You should be alright, its just going through a second cycle with the increase in ammonia. Change 50% tomorrow when you get a chance. Dont worry about the solid waste, they will swim around and kick it up eventually.. the filter will do its job.

[yellowdog4me]

Thanks. Changed 50% as per your recommendation. Any opinion on the bio pads in the HOB filter having enough  surface area to accommodate the increased numbers of fish in the bait tank versus a standard aquarium?

[Kevin23]

You should be alright, I have the same filter (several of them actually) and it should do fine for you.

[yellowdog4me]

OK great. Thanks for the help and all your other informative posts in this section. It has given my boys and I something to do as we wait for ice. Now if I can just keep my daughter from wanting to adopt the bait and give them all names we should be OK 

[FRESHBAIT]

my boys have to have their own buckets while fishing with their own bait.   not to mention they go to check on the baitfish every day

[yellowdog4me]

We still have the community bucket for now anyway..... But they do tend their own bait traps and argue over who got the big ones.