Our fish tank keeps having pollution issues.?

Question

We have a 30 gallon tank we put our one 11" koi (nose to end of tail) and our fat little fantail (maybe 4") in from the fish pond since winter is upon us. We brought in just two oxygenators and we got a pump and biofilter for a 40 gallon tank, because they recommended that. We feed them about one tablespoon of feed a day and we put in four snails front the store and two terracotta pots from the pond (they wanted shelter). The water became very cloudy and we found that the filter has fouled just days after setting it all up. We replaced the filter and changed out 1/2 the water. We found high ammonia then, so we added something to control that and we have tried the water clarifier and the bio booster - the water still clouds. The new filter seems to be working OK and we have it running full-on all the time....it has been two weeks now and we keep changing 1/3rd of the water every few days trying to clear it - what is wrong? Could 1T still be too much food? They are indoors.

Answer 1

OMG, outa 15 answers, only 2 people caught the problem, that's really sad

Well the problem is that your tank is not cycled, and the cloudiness you experience is from good bacteria establishing in your tank
which means, STOP USING ANY CHEMICALS, THROW THEM ALL OUT, and just cut down of feeding amount and keep up with partial waterchanges of 25% every other day to 3 days

with you putting chemicals in, you pretty much slowed down your cycling process
it takes up to 8 weeks, for a tank to fully cycle
which means, you will see an ammonia spike, after that a nitrite spike, and once these 2 have dropped you will finally have good nitrAte readings, which should be below 20ppm
Ammonia and nitrites are suppose to be 0 once your tank is done cycling

The only chemical you use is a waterconditioner, which you put in your replacement water

Once your tank is cycled, you can do the weekly maintanance of 25% partial waterchanges with a gravel siphon

Also when cleaning your filter, don't throw out the carbon cartridge, but just rinse it with water to get off most of the debris, then put it back into your filter
if you have a sponge in your filter, do the same thing with it





hope that helps
Good luck


EB

Answer 2

Sorry, but an 11" Koi has no business being in a 30 gallon tank, especially with the addition of another goldfish. There is no way you can keep this tank going without exceptional amounts of work on your part which will generally include daily water changes and vacuuming.

Aside from that - replacing filters entirely is always a bad move - you've gotten rid of good bacteria and now need to cycle the tank all over again. Polluted water is never from the filter, unless the filter has not been maintained in ages.

Forget water clarifiers or any other garbage additives -they try and sometimes manage to mask problems, but never fix them. Sometimes they'll make things worse. The proper way to fix a problem is at the root - what is causing the problem in the first place. In your case it's much too much fish in the tank.

In the mean time, while you try to find a proper home for them (get yourself a used bigger tank or something, 75 gallon minimum)), don't feed so much. Keep the water as cool as you can in the house and feed less. Every other day is more then enough for them regardless, and if you can get the water down closer to 60° you can feed just once per week.

But nothing will go right as long as you insist on keeping your fish in this manner

Edit: The above poster is right - keep some water moving at the surface to prevent the pond from freezing completely over and they survive winters with no problem, but only do this if you have decent depth to your pond.
Also, all tanks don't 'just get murky', I know mine never do.

Answer 3

first of all a 30 gal for a 11'' koi is really to small the koi is probably causing a lot of the water fouling and also ammonia chemicals can cloud your water. is the tank fully cycled(filter running for 8 weeks)? this could be a big source of the ammonia and to help you might want to try some cycle. also goldfish and koi need more filtration than the average tropical so being 2 sizes up is a good choice or go for a bio wheel with gold fish. I currently have a penguin 150 on my 20 and my ammonia is almost always 0.


conclusion: koi to big for tank/ tank insufficiently cycled/ chemical OD

solution: buy heat rock and install to pond this Will allow you to still feed your fish and release CO2 from the pond in the gas exchange/ buy cycle/ stop chemical treatment

note: if your pond is less than 4ft deep you must upgrade tank size to at least 65 gal and buy a bio wheel or canister filter also let filter run with cycle for a week then introduce fish with no chemicals because chemicals cause the nitrifying bacteria to die.

Answer 4

koi put off alot of ammonia, a 30 gallon tank for such a big fish is half the problem, the snails arent the problem they help clean a tank , the terracotta could be releasing things into the water. the clouding could be too much food, feed the fish with just enough that he eats in a couple mins, try real plants

Answer 5

hello amy! i'm going to try to put this in a nut-shell but you can get a more detailed answer if you e-mail me. first of all, every answer you received is pretty much wrong! you have used too many chemicals and the nitrifying bacteria have not become established or were wiped out by changing too much water. STOP FEEDING NOW ALTOGETHER! you have alot of fish for that size of tank, but it can be maintained. you need MORE filter for the bacteria to live, breed and CLEAN THE FISH WASTE. i like HAGAN AQUA-CLEAR because the sponge allows tons of bacteria a good home. when we get your tank healthy again the amount of food you were giving was good and we will slowly give them more! not feeding your fish for up to two weeks will not hurt them!!! the poison in the water will! check out these sites. ps- that bio-filter is neet but doesnt allow for very much biological area. you need to keep it and add one more filter.

Answer 6

Pond fish ordinarily go into a hibernatory mode during winter months. There is no need to bring them indoors. So long as the pond doesn't freeze solid, your fish will likely be fine. You can purchase a floating pond de-icer to keep them safe.

One other thing, when temp's drop below 50 degrees (F), your pond shouldn't be fed at all because the fish's metabolism slows down so much that they can't digest the food properly.

Pick up a book or do some research online on how to prepare your pond and fish for winter.

http://watergarden.com/pages/seasonal.html#winter

Answer 7

First things first... STOP WITH THE CHEMICALS! Use only distilled water. And fish do slow down on eating in the winter. In addition, your outdoor fish is the one screwing with your tank. Keep it in it's pond. They hibernate in the winter. If the pond is to shallow, just keep the water moving a little.

Answer 8

an 11 inch koi is sadly far too big for the tank. he needs a new home (perhaps a pond?) but itis nice to hear of a larger koi. believe it or not, koi can get to be almost 4 feet long!

Answer 9

i think you had a bacteria outbreak. try removing ALL the water and cleaning out the tank. also, try to lower the amount of food and see what happens. a 30 gallon tank maybe too big for your filter.
hope this helped.

Answer 10

you could try a different food, they have food that says it doesn't cloud the water, try feeding the fish a few pellits at a time, do not dump it in there.