Tank Yellow And Slighty Dirty On Sand

[salb1]

Hi everyone, im new on here and also to the tropical fishkeeping game. I have always wanted my own tank and as soon as I got my own place I invested in a little one, its a 60x30x40 (not sure what gallon that is) purchased from ebay. Anyhow Ive had advice from my friend who has a lovely tank that is crystal clear and so clean, its lovely to look at, she adviced me to by a fluval 2 plus filter and another little filter with a air stream on top, so I did. And i did my fishless cycle then slowly added my fish I have 2 three spot gouramis, 1 neon left (due to the gouramis eating the rest), red tailed shark and guppies oh and a plec. The tank started off really murky then i kept moving filter around and it started to clear, I have the 2 carbon sponged in and the polyester one inbetween. Ive then added a piece of bogwood...this is the reason it has turned yellow my water (well I think so anyhow) are there certain types to buy that dont dye you water? I got mine from local range store and it said for aquarium and vivarium tanks. Also i have silica sand on the base and it is constantly dirty looks like it has a film on it all the time and also what im presumbing are fish droppings, my friend told me that it sounds like my filter isnt working properly but ive cleaned it in the tank water and put it back and it looks like it is blasting around. Has anyone got and ideas or info so for me if there is anything i can do as im cleaning it every few days. Is the filter big enough for the tank? Please help me i cant stop looking wondering where im going wrong its rather frustrating.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Salb.

It sounds to me like a typical fairly new tank. You can remove the fish deposits on the sand by using your gravel vacuum during your regular water changes. Sand does show the fish wastes more than gravel because the waste lies on top rather than falling down into the substrate. That also makes it easier to clean with the gravel vac because everything that needs cleaning is laying on top. I just did one of my sand substrate tanks today. To use a gravel vac with sand, hold the inlet of the tube a bit above the sand so you only pull up the dirt and not the sand.

The yellowing will be due to the wood in the tank. As long as you are using real wood, instead of a plastic replica, there will be some water staining from the wood leaching tannins. It is not a problem for the fish but if you don't like it you can just change more water more often and after a while the color will be reduced as the tannins are mostly leached out of the wood.

I don't have any carbon in my sponges in the 4+ but I understand that they are available. Carbon in general is used to remove organics from the water so that would include the tannins. If you decide that you just can't live with the coloring in the water, do not change both carbon inserts at the ame time. those are the place where most of your beneficial bacteria are located and changing more than a part of the biological filter will uncycle the tank.