Help my tank water is a little cloudy

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 03 Apr 2003, 15:18

Ive had my tank for about a month now. My water ia a little cloudy. I can see throgh it from all different sides but it is hard to do. Aquaclear treatment didnt work. I feed my fish Frozenbrine shrimp, brine shrimp flakes, shrimp pellets, and sinking catfish wafers. please help me. Thank you Very much

Guy · Post by **Guy** » 03 Apr 2003, 15:47

What filtration do you use? How frequently do you do water changes and how much water do you change? What is the water temperature? What size is the tank? how many fish, etc, etc.

Post by **Silurus** » 03 Apr 2003, 15:57

More importantly, what kind of water do you get in your area?

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 03 Apr 2003, 18:29

I have a mechanical cascade filter for a 50 gallon tank but i have a 30 gallon. I dont do water changes and nether do my friends but there water is crystal clear. I dont have any blowers but the filter provides the oxygen. I have two gouramis an eel a bluechannel cat upsidedown cat pictus cat and two columbian sharks a dojo loach and a redtail sharl and one pleco

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 03 Apr 2003, 18:30

My water in my area is really high ph.
Water temp is about 75 degrees usually 80 but its been cold recently

Post by **Silurus** » 03 Apr 2003, 18:56

I think the high pH (which leads to undissolved carbonates remaining in suspension) may be the cause of the cloudiness.

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 03 Apr 2003, 19:02

but the ph in the tank is 7.0

Post by **Silurus** » 03 Apr 2003, 19:04

What is the pH of the water that comes out of the tap, and how do you lower it for use in your tank?

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 03 Apr 2003, 19:08

i dont know the ph that comes out the tap its off the chart om my tests. But i use muratic acid to lower my ph

Post by **Silurus** » 03 Apr 2003, 19:29

Whoa there. Are you saying that you use hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic/muratic acid) to lower the pH of your water? Sounds dangerous, both to you and the fish, to me.
Mineral acids should never be used to regulate pH of water destined for aquaria.

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 04 Apr 2003, 01:49

aquarium fish magizine said it was okay. none of my fish have died yet. I only use a little bit every 2-3 weeks. I just bought some accuclear for $6 i sure hope it works. Nobody has helped me with the cloudy water!

Post by **Silurus** » 04 Apr 2003, 01:53

Using a mineral acid to lower the pH of the water only adds more minerals to the water, which I suspect is the primary cause of the cloudiness. Too much minerals in the water can't be good for the fish anyway.
Stop using tap water and use rain water instead (if you're not in too built up an area). At least there are no minerals in that.

Post by **Dinyar** » 04 Apr 2003, 06:35

As Silurus says, using muriatic acid is not a good idea, despite anything AFM might say.

Hard water alone will not lead to cloudiness, as the many Rift Lake and other hard water aquariums attest.

Most aquarium fish will be OK in water that is surprisingly hard, though you may not be able to breed soft water species. It might be a good idea to primarily keep fish that come from or can adapt well to hard water environments. Even with neutral to softwater fish, you will have fewer problems using your water "as is" than by messing with HCl.

Finally, you said earlier that you and your friends "don't do water changes". Perhaps I misunderstood? Why do you believe that water changes are undesirable?

Dinyar

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 04 Apr 2003, 15:01

Hi!
Well your tank is clearly way too small for the fish you want to keep.
30 Gal for a upside down Synodontis, a pictus cat, a black gosht knife, 2 Goramies, an eel...
You said that it has been a month since you have your tank, but did you waited for at least 3 weeks before putting any fish in your tank??? Even if you did wait for 3 weeks
have you introduced all this population at once, if yes there were probably not enough good bacteria in your filter to overcome this introduction of bioload, as some are really big waste producer.
I think you should really rethink on what type of fish you want to keep, and if you want to keep such type of fish anyway you should provide them a much bigger tank than what you have at least 4 times bigger than just a 30 gal tank.

I can only discourage you to play the learning chemist, there is quite a lot of ggod product in shop to make correct water parameters and you should stick to such product, when you wil be more familiar with fish keeping you can start thinking using other possible stuff...
Cheers
Yann

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 04 Apr 2003, 15:09

mu ghost knife pside down catfish and pictus cat all died last night. Thats y im quitting i really cant afford to get new fish. My eel is only 5 inches the cat is 6in and the gouramis are3 inches thats not a lot of fish.

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 04 Apr 2003, 15:14

Hi!
It is not only a question of how many but also how big...
And these fish for 30 gallon it is a lot, the Goramies are ok, the eel also as long as it stay that small, the rest is way to big for your tank.
Cheers
Yann

Bathos · Post by **Bathos** » 07 Apr 2003, 20:57

sounds to me like you haven't heard of the nitrogen cycle. if i'm wrong, skip the next 2 sections and continue reading at the 3rd.

a non-technical explaination of the nitrogen cycle:
fish eat food and excrete ammonia. good bacteria #1 eat ammonia and excrete nitrite. good bacteria #2 eat nitrite and excrete nitrate. excess nitrate is removed by you via water changes and a little bit is consumed by live plants and/or algae.

what this means to you and your fish:
good bacteria #1 and #2 live on every surface in your tank, but most of them are housed by your filter. they can be killed by chlorine and chloramine just like fish can, so it's best to rinse filter media in tank water taken out during a water change.
tanks and filters do not come with good bacteria #1 and #2. these good bacteria will grow in your tank and filter if you let the filter run on the tank with some dechlorinated water and some ammonia. the ammonia can come from several sources. ultimately it will come from your fish, and some people use fish as a source of ammonia right from the start. others take an empty tank and add small amounts of ammonia (no foaming agents dyes, or perfumes added) to get the bacteria to grow before fish are added. some use fish food as a source of ammonia, but this gets expensive.
it takes a while for the good bacteria to grow. the ones that rid your tank of ammonia grow much faster than the ones that rid your tank of nitrite, partially because there isn't an appreciable amount of nitrite in the tank before good bacteria #1 excretes it.
so, why should you care? ammonia is very toxic to your fish. nitrite is toxic to your fish. nitrate is mildly toxic to your fish. too much of any of these three will weaken your fish, making it suceptible to disease. too much ammonia and nitrite will poison your fish. both of these are bad and are very frustrating if you don't know what's going on.
how do you know how much ammonia/nitrite/nitrate is in your tank, and how much is safe? ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate test kits are available here at most pet shops. they are also available on-line. ammonia levels should be 0ppm, nitrite should be 0ppm, and nitrate should be under 20ppm (some say it's fine up to 40ppm though)

my suggestions for your water:
i also had water with a pH that was off the charts (waaaay over 8.4) it was so high that products like pH Down just didn't work, even at 10 times the recommended strength. i'd recommend getting an R/O unit (reverse-osmosis unit) and adding buffers and trace elements back in. i've heard of several situations where this was done by adding some of the tap water back in until the desired KH, GH, and pH were reached. by adding muriatic acid, you're making the pH less stable by using up the buffer. pH changes can really stress fish and in some cases kill them or be a contributing factor in their death.

hopefully you'll be able to save the remaining fish and regain interest in fish keeping.

-Liz

eddiec · Post by **eddiec** » 08 Apr 2003, 13:45

Thanks for your help bathos

CATWITHOUTHAT · Post by **CATWITHOUTHAT** » 09 Apr 2003, 15:20

i think bathos has given you good advice...if you overload your tank too soon in the cycle it is not good...i think that some of your problem with the cloudy water may be due to a bacterial bloom...by introducing many fish at once the bacteria can recognize that there is a large increase of waste that needs to be broken down...bacteria arent a well run business however and dont just hire what they need...they produce an overly abundant amount of bacteria in order to combat the waste that could be broken down by one quarter the force...by allowing time...and doing water changes you can help this cycle along...also there are some products on the market that claim to be able to speed up the cycle in your tank...Cycle is one brand available...they may help some, but time is the only sure sure...in the past i have helped the cycle in my tank by introducing some of the bacteria i have in another tank into whatever media i have on the tank designed to house bacteria...ie bacteria sponge etc...anyway in the future try introducing a few fish at a time...3 is a decent number (size sensitive of course) because if you introduce only 2 you can run into aggression problems depending on what you introduce...believe me you arent the only person who has fallen victim to the impulse purchase...but in the future make sure you have a plan as to what fish you plan on introducing at what time...esp important not to introduce territorial species too early or else they make take over your tank, esp a 30 gallon...reading about the fish you choose to keep may seem boring, but in the end you will learn to love it because you will recognize thier nuances etc and know when to panic (hopefully never)...also if your rather new to the hobby i would recomment that yo try bio wheel filters simply because they provide great biological filtration (ie good bacteria), IMO much better than some other hang on filters on the market...i dont use them exclusively but they are a good filter and i think many others here can attest to their reliability, ONCE the bio wheel is "seeded" with the necessary bacteria...happy keeping

ben