Water Wont Clear!

[Rorie]

2 days ago i put TOUCHED my soil, and it went crazy and made a mess of the water. I have let it settle over the past two days, but it still looks very brown. Not muddy anymore, but brown. (granted that prob is mud!)

So i did a 50% water change (i needed to anyway) and the water that came out was a brown colour. I was careful putting the new water back in. But 4 hours later, and my water is STILL brown! I have some clean filter wool on top of my filter too which also hasnt helped.

Any ideas why? Any suggestions how to get it clean?

 

[Caprichoso]

After a few water changes it should disappear.

 

[Rorie]

Sure, but that seems like the defeated answer Surely my filter should be cleaning it and the mud should have settled. So why is it still dirty?!

 

[stephenmore]

have you tried cleaning your filters then gravel cleaning

 

[Rorie]

have you tried cleaning your filters then gravel cleaning

I put a new wool filter layer in 2 days ago, so yes. And i have ADA soil, so cant clean it Its just getting set up to be heavily planted

 

[Caprichoso]

Sure, but that seems like the defeated answer Surely my filter should be cleaning it and the mud should have settled. So why is it still dirty?!

If you did a 50% water change then 50% of the water is still old water, which in your case is brown. Have you ever tried getting tannins out of an aquarium? It takes several water changes. Same thing with ammonia in the tank. You can't do one water change and expect your filter to perform miracles,(although an FX5 comes pretty close ). Just do some more water changes and rinse out your filter.