i put a good filter for my fish why is my tank staying cloudy and my fish tails look a mess? oh, i have oscars

Answer 1

I may not be as experienced as some of the others who answered your question but I have had that problem in my tank infact it was just recently and I found that there are alot of veriables such as what are the dimensions of your tank my tank is a tall hexagon shaped tank and part of my problem turned out to be where my filter head was sucking in the water from at first I had a penguin filter but it was only filtering the top half of my tank then i got a fluval canister filter (love it ) and extended that line closer to the bottom and it did better but my tank stayed dingy in the center column of the tank and all i did was change my filter media and now my tank is clear. one thing i forgot to mention earlier was i also added a power head in my tank to help the water move in the tank nore it seems the more flow i had the more debris my filters would pull out.

Answer 2

How big is your tank? How many oscars do you have and how big are they?

Make sure you do not have your tank over crowded.

The general rule is for every inch of fish there needs to be a gallon of water. With oscars I would go a bit bigger since they are so dirty and go with the rule for every inch of fish you need two gallons of water. This of course is not true when the fish are bigger, because you would not have a 10 inch fish in a 20 gallon tank.

Is the tank new? Did you just add the fish? Often with new tanks or after adding fish the water will become cloudy because the good bateria is growing. This usually clears itself up in 2-4 weeks.

Are you cleaning the tank too often? The tank really only needs 25% of water changed once a month along with the filter pads.

If you are doing more of this more often it could be the bacteria growing.

If it is a green cloudy type, then it is algea and you are leaving your light on too much or your tank is too close to a window.

Answer 3

Good filtration for an oscar tank is turning over the water 8 to 10 times per hour. The bare minimum for one oscar is a 55 gallon tank, a 75 gallon is better. They are messy fish who grow to 12 inches or more. 18 inches is not unusual. More than one means a bigger tank, here's some standard stocking suggestions for oscars;

1x Oscar = 75gal
2x Oscars = 100-125gal
3x Oscars = 125-150gal
4x Oscars = 150-250gal

In a 55 gallon tank, you will need to be filtering around 500 gallons per hour, in a 150 around 1500 per hour.

Oscars are new world cichlids, and have aggressive tendencies. Torn up fins & such are common in cichlids not given enough tank space. A bacterial bloom is common in tanks who's biological filtration is overloaded.

You need to do water tests, if any ammonia or nitrites are present, you need to do 50% water changes daily until they are zero. Nitrate levels of over 50ppm will require a water change as well. If you wait 6 weeks you will be buying more fish, as the ones you have will be dead.

Oscars are one of the most personable fish I can think of, but require oversize equipment, being an oversize fish. If you can't provide this type of situation for these fish, you need to get fish suitable for your situation.

Answer 4

If you have just replaced the whole filter you disturbed your tanks balance. You are probably experiencing an ammonia spike because you took away all the good bacteria that was in the origional filter that use to break down the ammonia. Go buy some bacteria in a bottle. Put it in your tank once a week AND DONT DO A WATER CHANGE FOR AT LEAST 6 WEEKS. Then do a small one.

Answer 5

if ur fish tank is near a window or sunlight it looks alot dirtyer than normal so move it to not so much sunlight

and i dont no bout the other 1

Answer 6

Oscars are very dirty fish, and don't be surprised if it starts to smell bad.

Answer 7

your feeding them too much

Answer 8

put water treatment in it, i have one 2, they are very dirty..........