Why is my fishtank cloudy even if I just did a 50% water change?

Question

The water was starting to get cloudy, so I did a 50% water change, but it's still around the same level of cloudiness (I use instant tapwater conditioner). Any suggestions as to why this happened? How can I fix it? How can I avoid this in the future?

Answer 1

It's probably a bacteria bloom, do you use Nutrafin Cycle each time you do a water change along with your tap water conditioner? It works really well at keeping all the bacteria levels in check and stable as well as maturing your tank during set up ready for fish.

Nutrafin also do two products that may be helpful, one is 'B Clear and the other 'P Clear', the first deals with bacterial blooms and the second clears suspended particles in the water. Use whichever one you think it may be.

Have you tested your aquarium water? Cloudy water is also an indicator of unsafe levels of ammonia, although probably your fish would also be displaying symptoms too and may have died by now from ammonia if that was the reason. Ammo lock would lock the toxic ammonia into safer ammonium if this was a problem btw.

50% water change is the largest you should do at any one time, although I realise that it was probably just to try to solve the cloudiness problem.

You don't mention your tank size or filtration, with an internal filter you should try to change about a third of the water once a week, washing the sponges in the dirty tank water you've removed. An external filter means you only have to change a third of the water once a month, again washing the media in dirty water again.

Some polyfilter wool in the last stage of the filter or a polyfilter sponge in an internal filter should trap tiny particles in the fine mesh.

When you have a problem such as this, it is better to carry out say a 10% water change every day until the problem clears than a big one less often.

Hope this helps! Good Luck! :-)

Answer 2

Your tank may have "new tank syndrome" but you have not describe it here other than your tank is somewhat new. Green cloudy water can happen at any age in an aquarium, as long as there is dissolved nitrogen in the water in some form such as ammonia, nitrite or nitrate, also along with this there is usuallly the presence of phosphate at the begining of the green water formation. The presence of the nitrogen and possible phosphat there is the most critical ingredient, light, artificial from your tank lights or natural sunlight. What you have is a unicellular form of algae, it looks horrible but it is not hurting your fish, it feeds from the chemicals above combine with light and form oxygen, so obviously this isn't bad. However you can't see your fish through the green soup, and whats the point of having a fish tank if you can't see the fish? The cure is simple, effective and won't cost you a penny. No new filtration is needed, and no chemicals are needed. First do a 50% water change, then cover the tank with a blanket, towel dark colored sheet, something that will completely block out the light, for four days, the fish won't mind the darkness at all, uncover it just to feed the fish, the darkness is really important, after 4-5 days uncover your fish tank and change 50% of the water again and you should have a perfectly clear aquarium.

Answer 3

Let's not go jumping the gun here like Mack did and say you need any additional chemicals. First question I have is how new is your tank or rather how old or long has this been established? Generally white cloudiness is a bacterial bloom, though it's possible it may be some algea as well. A 50% water change is pretty steep too. I'd only do a 50% change as a once a month maintenece thing otherwise I wouldn't change out that much water volume in one shot unless it's an emergency situation. Give it a few days. My 75 gallon tank had crashed about 6 weeks ago, crashed meaning bio filtration system, and it's back to running 0's across the board in water chemistry, however, it appears there is a continual "bloom" going on in there. Noone is distressed or dying so I really just let things be. I think in your case, alot is going to depend on how established your tank is.

JV

Answer 4

It sounds like a bacterial bloom as some of the more experienced have suggested, another failure by some ppl is washing the filter if you do this clean the filter media in a bucket of the tank water, if you wash it under the tap you kill everything in the media, result being a bloom such as you have as the free floating bacteria try to compensate when the filter has died. If you must clean the filter to such an extent divide the media in two and wash one half bi-weekly. Or better still use 2 smaller filters, then wash one only at each water change.

Answer 5

Probably either a bacteri bloom or you have suspended algae. If it is white cloudiness, indicates bacteria bloom which happens when the bio filter is getting established. If it is greenish, that say algae bloom which means too much light and too much fish food. Algae can be fixed by less light and food. Bacteria bloom will simply take time.

Have the water tested for Ammonia, Nitrite, and Ph. If all is good, relax and let it clear. If Ammonia or Nitrite is high, keep on doing water changes every couple of days until they improve.

Answer 6

Obviously if your tank is cloudy, something is out of whack, and one water change isn't going to correct the problem. Wait a few days, and do another water change. Repeat as necessary, waiting a few days in between. Test your water with some test strips. I have some that have pads for pH, hardness, alkalinity, nitrates and nitrites all on one strip. And also test the ammonia levels. Once you know what's wrong, then you can take the necessary steps to fix it.

Answer 7

well if you just clean the water on the top of the tank then you didnt get the gross stuff at the bottom of the tank the stuff that sinks to the bottom. so when you added new water it probably all just floated back up to the surface and throughout the water making it clouder. for the future just clean all the water instead of half.

Answer 8

Buy some water calrifier it is sold at most pet stores and gets rid of the cloudiness of the water.

Answer 9

its possible that the uneated food that sank to the bottom where the gravel is "dissolved"

Answer 10

Change the filter bud!