Cloudy Water!

[gendall85]

getting very annoyed over the last few weeks my tank has been very cloudy. It had a water change and clean on friday and is cloudy still. Seems to be at its worst when i turn on the light but then gets slightly better. Nothing has changed. Just wondering if filter is begining to struggle. I have a fluval 205 with 4 sponge pads and in other side i have two compartments with carbon in and one with bio mass. Should i replace half of these. Not done it for few months but pads look fine. I sometimes use filter aid to help but that only worked for a day. Any suggestions. whats a good filter that i could simply replace my 205 with?

 

[three-fingers]

Cloudy water is usually due to an immature tank, an overstocked tank or a tank without enough maintenances. The Fluval 205 is a good filter but we have no idea what type of aquarium you are using it on .

Can you supply your tank size and stocking levels (how many of what fish), also how long has the tank been set up and what maintenance do you do on it?

Are you able to test the water? This is very important in new tanks. If your able to, can you supply test results? (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH).

Don't replace any of the sponge pads, this will remove all the beneficial bacteria that you need to keep the water clear. My Fluval 405 has a pad in it that's been going for 7 years. They only want you to replace them so they can make money .

 

[colleen0309]

good afternoon and welcome to the forum! Cloudy water is usually due to a bacterial bloom. It should clear up on it's own. If it really bothers you, do a very large water change. Small ones don't do much good. And do not change the media in your filter. If it needs cleaned, rinse it in old tank water and put it back in the filter. The last thing you need is to disrupt the bacteria colony and cause an amonia spike.

 

[gendall85]

i have a 180l tank with the following in - 2 dwarf gouramis, 3 small angels, 1 german blue ram. 1 gold nugget pleco and 9 platys 6 baby fry from 2 batches and a red crab. Have no real plants but have an air pump running on two ornaments. I try to do a weekly water change usually about 40l and i clean out filter pads and all in removed tank water. I hoover the gravel too and clean glass

 

[gendall85]

nitrite 0. Ammonia 0.25, ph 7.6, nitrate 5

tank has been going for easily 4 months but not really sure

 

[colleen0309]

That's a pretty good maintenence schedual. In my opinion, you are alittle overstocked. It's not so much that you have too many fish, but they will adventually get too big for your tank. The angels may cause problems in the future, especially if two of them pair off. See the picture I have on my posts? He was in with another pair. When I found him in the morning, he had absolutely no fins left and was laying on the bottom of the tank almost dead. It took me months to get him back to himself. They were raised together and I never drempt that would happen, but it did.

 

[three-fingers]

The reason you have cloudy water is possibly because your over stocked, as mentioned. As you have an ammonia reading, you will need to be doing 50% daily water changes for a few weeks, 0.25ppm is toxic to fish!

How long has the tank been set up for and how much/often are you feeding?

Unfortunately the German blue ram isn't suitable for this community set up as they require higher temperatures than your other fish could tolerate long term, they are far more sensitive and shorter-lived at lower temps.

Also the crab will unfortunately have to be rehomed - these guys need brackish water (mix of freshwater and seawater) and a large land area to live and moult healthily - and they can also pose a threat to small fish.