Murky Water

[Ecaspi]

So I have had my tank for a good month now. I still seem to have really murky and cloudy water. I've tried so many different things but I just cant seem to get it to clear up. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Steve H.]

If its not a bacterial bloom, activated carbon polishes water pretty well. It is also not all that pricey.

Or, you could try using Seachem Purigen. I just added it to my tank, and the clarity of the water is amazing. crystal-clear. It is a little bit up there in price compared to carbon, but you can clean it and regenerate it.

 

[OldMan47]

To polish your water, add a final filter to your filter of filter floss, AKA polyester pillow stuffing material. A fairly thin layer of that stuff will give you huge ability to remove things that are very small and floating around in your water. Unfortunately it will also plug up fairly fast. I regard such things as a one time corrective measure, not something that is always present in my filter.

 

[kcartwright856]

Another vote for filter floss here.

I use quilt batting, personally. It's about an inch thick and comes on a roll that can be cut to size very easily. I keep it in my filter at all times and replace it weekly, though some folks just use it whenever their water needs a quick polish.

Batting/stuffing is very dense, which helps catch the tiny particles that often make up cloudy and murky water. Since it's so dense, it also tends to clog up quickly, as mentioned above. You can usually rinse it once or twice, but then it must be replaced.