Cloudy aquarium water?

Question

I have had my 29 gallon tank up and going for almost two months and ever since it has been going, the water has always been cloudy. I started with a whisper 30 PF, got rid of it after a week(it was crap). Then i bought a Hagen aquaclear 30, and i use the foam block with two bio max packs. The water cleared up somewhat but is still cloudy. So i just bought another Hagen aquaclear 30 with the same media setup. Should this cure my problem? The two total up to 300 gph, which means my water is cycling through 10 times per hour.

Should i add the carbon packs to both of the filters?

Answer 1

Your aquarium may still be cycling - that's to say building up a population of bacteria to convert the wastes of your fish (especially ammonia which is toxuc to them) to less harmful products. As long as there's more ammonia and nitrite (an intermediate product) than the bacteria can easily convert, the bacteria will be reproducing like crazy - that's the cause of the cloudiness you see. Once all the ammonia and nitrite are being converted, the reproduction will slow down and the water will clear.

By removing the filter media (one of the surfaces where bacteria attach, the other is the substrate), you decreased the amount of bactria that were in the tank, so they need to reproduce that much more to get the population to where it should be.

Depending on the number and species of fish, your filter should turn over 5-10 times the tank volume per hour, so your previous filter may have been okay for your tank, or slightly undersized if you have a lot of fish or tend to overfeed. There's nothing wrong with using both filters, though.

Answer 2

Well that is what happened in my aquarium also. I have Oscars in my tank and the water I was using was out of my kitchen facet and I have really hard water. So I took a sample of my water to the pet store (Pet Smart) and they tested it and knew exactly what I needed to stop the water from being cloudy. Also do you have an algae Eater. I bought to albino ones and there great. Also it can also be the type of fish you have and the ammonia from there urine when they have there waste in the water. But mine was even worse because I didnt have rocks at the bottom of my tank I had sand, and also my Oscars eat live goldfish (which we call feeder fish) so more ammonia in my tank. Its also good to have a really good filter. So since I have learned all of this about my fish and my tank I don't have to clean my tank out every month I only clean it out every six months. ***WOW *** Hope this helps you out. Take Care & Good Luck