how do I get my water in my fish tank to clear up? It's always cloudy.?

Answer 1

Is this a tank you've recently set up? Cloudiness is natural for the first few months. What's happening is your tank is cycling.

When your tank is mature, you'll have bacteria that will break down the wastes your fish produce. One of these wastes is ammonia, which is poisonous to your fish. One type of bacteria will use the ammonia as it's food source and convert the ammonia to nitrite, which is also toxic. Then, another type will take over and convert the ammonia to nitrate, which is nontoxic in moderate amounts. But right now, you don't have the amount of bacteria to convert these completely. So the bacteria are in a rapid-reproduction mode to take advantage of the "extra" food sources. It's this bacterial "bloom" that makes the water appear cloudy.

Once there enough bacteria that all the ammonia and nitrite are being converted, the tank will clear on it's own. But until then, you'll need to do partial water changes in order to keep the ammonia and nitrite at levels the fish can live in. Rather than doing large changes, it's better to do small, frequent ones, about 15% twice a week, or 25 % once a week, using a gravel vacuum to clean all the debris out of the gravel.

You'll also need to be careful that you don't overfeed your fish - only give them what they can eat in 2-3 minutes, twice a day. If any food is left after the 3 minutes are up, use a net to remove it - decomposing food also produces ammonia.

You should be aware of they symptoms of ammonia and nitrite poisoning, so if your fish start to show these, you'll know to do a water change. When the levels get high enough, the fish will start swimming at the top of the tank and look like they're gasping for air. They may also sink to the bottom and be very inactive, staying in one place. They'll stop eating, and with ammonia poisoning, the fins may spilt and look frayed.

Here's some additional info for you - also see the rest of these sites - there's a lot of good info for new fishkeepers:
http://www.fishlore.com/CloudyWater.htm
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm
http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php

Answer 2

There are chemicals to put into a fish tank to clear the water up, but if that does not work, Try to keep the pump cleam and the rocks(if you have any in the bottom of the tank) clean as well. You could also try doing tank changes at least once a week, you are supposed to do this anyway. Another thing that might help is to let the water that is doing to be going in the tank sit for about 24 hour then put it in the tank. I know how frustrating it is. I have a 150 gallon tank i do this with every week.

Answer 3

if you mean always cloudy as in months of cloudiness, keep doing partial water changes of 10%-25% make sure to get into the gravel and in the cloudiness, be patient don't rush into chemicals as they will cause more problems.

If you want you can do 1%-5% water changes every day for around 2 weeks and that will clear up the water if your less patient lol. But yea just be patient.

Answer 4

If it's cloudy white, then it's cycling. If it is not white cloudy, then you need better filtration and stop over feeding.

Answer 5

make sure its not the glass. also consider changing whats in the tank. some rocks and gravel make water murkey because of the dust and dirt already on it.

Answer 6

i had that problem until i bought a good, expensive filter.. its now clean and not cloudy!

Answer 7

Fewer fish, better filter.