New Tank - Cloudy Water

[Mandimoo]

I bought a new 78 litre tank, filled it with water and treated the water with the treatments the Aquarium centre gave me. I've washed the sand very carefully and the bog wood. It has an external filter with the ceramic "cheerios" and activated carbon. I intended to run it for at least a week before putting any fish in but on day 3 of running the water has gone cloudy. I put another water treatment in last night but there has been no improvement.

Can anyone help ?

 

[SteveVenezia]

I'm also a new tank owner, and had a similar problem to yours. My tank clouded up on day 3 after I added some new gravel, and after asking around I was told that I just had to wait for it to settle.

Being the unpatient sort, I emptied the water, took everything out and spent a solid hour cleaning everything, in particular the gravel. That sorted it and a couple of days later I added fish, it's day 3 now and they're quite happy in there, no cloudiness at all.

So I suggest either wait a bit, or start over! Good luck

 

[The-Wolf]

I suggest that both of you read the pinned articles on cycling tanks.

A white/milky cloud in new set ups is often a bacterial bloom and perfectly normal, but what you have described sounds like a particulate problem caused by not cleaning the gravel enough before putting into the tank.
Interpet #4 filter aid will clump the particles together allowing your filter to collect them.

 

[mark.w.jones]

If you havnt added any fish yet then woooo boy, slow down. As wolf said, read all pinned articles in the beginners section and then fishless cycle your tank. This requires a bit of research but has the advantages of being far more humane to fish and allows you to fully stock tank once you finish.

The add and wait method in this article is the one used most successfully on this forum:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...3861&hl=methods