Is It Okay To Put My Fish In This Tank...?

[Eines]

I got a new tank of ebay a couple of weeks ago and set it up this week. I rinsed out the gravel for about 15 minutes, but soon realized that it was not enough, as the water looks quite dirty. Now that I have added the filter, the water looks better, but it is still milky. If I do some small water changes, should it be okay to add the fish, or will it have major effects on their health? I am more than happy to do water changes every day until it clears up, but I just don't know whether the dirt will hurt them, or whether they should be fine in this water for a while. As it is a 30g tank, doing large water changes will take a looong time and a lot of painstaking work to drag buckets of water around my house, so I'm not sure what to do. Sorry if this is a stupid question, please do tell me if I'm being stupid and should just replace all of the water...

 

[Cooper2085]

I suppose it depends on the fish, i.e if it was L46 plecs i might think twice but with most fish you should be fine. Just remember when you rinse gravel out to use tank water though or you will kill all the beneficial bacteria living in it!

 

[paul_219]

You must also cycle the tank measure the amonia nitrate and nitrite.

 

[Eines]

They're swordtails and I'm using cycled filter media, so it should be fine. Thanks for the tips guys. The gravel was dry, so I don't think there was any bacteria in it anyway. I'll do a 50% water change and then hope for the best! My swords have proven to be pretty hardy so far, so I think it should be okay.