too many water changes?

rigsha97

rigsha97

AC Members
Jan 15, 2006
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Have a 125 gallon tank and it seems like everytime I do a weekly 25% water and do a very good vacuuming everytime and my water is always cloudy for a few days. It never seems to clear up. Am I doing too many, why is it clouding up. I understand that bateria boom but why? Should I stop doing the vacuuming so often? Thank you for your help. This has been quite aggravating. Others that don't do near the maintence on there tanks have clearer tanks!
Ph-7.0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-20
 
Before you put your gravel into the tank did you do a wash the gravel?. I washed my gravel throughly before putting it into the tank.
 
I do a 10% every 3 days, 25% weekly, 50% monthly. Your not over doing it. I skipp a the 10% when I get a new fish so as not to stress more then I have to. Most of my fish are used to the constant vacuming/waterchanging and will actualy swimm around my hands (NO STRESS)
 
I'm treating one of the tanks at the moment, and I do 30% to 40% water changes every day. It's always a bit cloudy afterwards, because I have some plant substrate which I cannot really vacuum, but it settles quickly.

My only guesses would be that the filter is clogged and doesn't work properly, or there's lots of phosphate in the tap water that produces algae blooms.
 
Forgot to tell filtration. I have an eheim 2217 with the standard media. A magnumm 350 with just filter floss and a aquaclear surface skimmer and a peguin 300 with filter floss. The gravel is about 5 years old.Tank was upsized from a 55 gallon to a 125 gallon about 2 months ago. It has a oscar, jack dempsey, green severum, black convict, firemouth, and a texas cichlid. All less than 6 inch's at this time. Oh yea, a pleco and 3 cory cats. I had a heater break in the on position and fried all my fish about 6 months ago. So I replaced all my fish about that time. I have another 40 gallon tank with guppies and crayfish and don't have cloudy water problems, but i don't do near the maintance on that tank and it is clear with just a empeor 400 with floss.
 
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Try doing 20% every week to ten days and see if that helps. When you gravel vac, how deep into the substrate do you go? Don't go too deep because you could be upsetting the bacteria bed in the substrate causing an inbalance in your tank which causes a bacterial bloom and the cloudy water. Just vacuum the top layer where all the major gunk is from the fish and the uneaten food. If you think you have a lot of uneaten food you may want to consider a clean up crew such as cories or loaches that scavange and will eat a lot of this for you. It looks like you already have some cories so mabe try adding a few more since they like to be in groups and hang out and play togather. If none of that works I would buy a test kit for phosphates and then test your tap water and the water in your tank for phosphate levels.

Marinemom
 
Thumbs up on the phosphate testing.

I would, and do, gravel vacs as deep as I can always. I do not believe there is any real creedence to it disturbing the bacteria level.

Did you have this cloudy water issue on the 55, or just the last 2 months on the 125?

Did you have any cloudy conditions in the 55 after the heater failure? Just thinking of parafin issues.

Rent or buy a Diatom filter and run it a few hours a week would be another way to get it out.
 
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