Cloudy Water

[Ally665]

Hello, Iv recently bought a new 25L tank. I filled it with tap water, and washed all my ornaments and gravel before putting them in the tank. I had the filter running and I put the cleaning solution stuff in the tank as per the direction on the bottle. My tank was running for 4days prior to me putting in any fish. Within two days of me putting 2 small fish in the tank the water has gone quite cloudy. IV tried changing the water and washing everything again. After changing the water, the tank still goes cloudy after a few days. Does any one have any idea or any tips on what I can do to solve this issue?

Regards, Alistair

 

[BlueDragon]

It's probably due to the gravel, no matter how good you wash it it still seems to cloudy up the water. But your main worry is that unfortunatly you haven't cycled your tank which means your Fish are going to get ill very quickly if you don't start now. So have a look on here about Fish-in cycles, which is what you'll have to do now that you have Fish in the tank.
Alternitivly you could return the Fish and then you can do a Fish-less cycle, which is a lot easier and it means you don't have to deal with any Fish deaths along the way.

Cycling a tank can take a month or longer, but no doubt you were told otherwise by your petshop? Don't worry, most people have been tricked into that story at some point. Your not the ony one!

Have a look up about Fish-in and Fish-less cycles.

Don't worry too much about the cloudyness of the water, just make sure you start to cycle your tank straite away and it should clear in time.

 

[HM Dragon Devil]

Hello, Iv recently bought a new 25L tank. I filled it with tap water, and washed all my ornaments and gravel before putting them in the tank. I had the filter running and I put the cleaning solution stuff in the tank as per the direction on the bottle. My tank was running for 4days prior to me putting in any fish. Within two days of me putting 2 small fish in the tank the water has gone quite cloudy. IV tried changing the water and washing everything again. After changing the water, the tank still goes cloudy after a few days. Does any one have any idea or any tips on what I can do to solve this issue?

Regards, Alistair

Hi. The cloudy water sounds like bacterial bloom (free-floating heterotrophic bacteria), they reproduce very quickly (around 15 - 20 minutes) so to clear them (or stop them getting worse) would require a 50% water change every 15 - 20 minutes.

There's nothing to really worry about unless you see your fish gasping for air at the water surface, I would let them run their course as they should dissipate by themselves. And a fish-in cycle which you're doing, you'll need to be changing water every 1-2 days with dechlorinated water, depending on the ammomia and nitrite levels.

Dean.