Cloudy Water

After 2-3 weeks the charcoal (carbon) is useless, so if it is the original from a year ago, maybe it is breaking down and giving off some sort of cloudiness. There are natural ways to raise your ph, do a search on here or google, it might be something you want to try (sorry, I always forget, its either peat or driftwood I think?). Most fish can adapt, but I think 5.8/6 is on the low end of what they can easily adapt to.

As long as you can insert a new carbon bag without replacing all of the filter media in your filter I would do that and ditch ALL of the chemicals for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Your ammonia should read 0 all the time, unless the tank is recycling for some reason, you are overfeeding, overstocked, not cleaning enough (gravel vacs.), not doing regular water changes, etc. Are all of your maintenance routines good? What do you do?
 
nlmadison said:
Have you tried adding some charcoal to your filter? I have a 29 gal that does the same thing sometimes so I just add a little more charcoal to my filter cartridge and the water clears in less than 1 day.

N.
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Agreed

Also:
-If you are cleaning your AC filters, make sure you are cleaning them with water from the tank. ...at least clean them with dechlorinated water (ie, Aquasafe)(edit: oops, just read above, looks like you are good with the filter cleanings)

-Be sure to dechlorinate water before adding to tank (for all water changes) If you have ammonia present at all, your nitrogen cycle is not stable.
 
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Holly9937 said:
After 2-3 weeks the charcoal (carbon) is useless, so if it is the original from a year ago, maybe it is breaking down and giving off some sort of cloudiness. There are natural ways to raise your ph, do a search on here or google, it might be something you want to try (sorry, I always forget, its either peat or driftwood I think?). Most fish can adapt, but I think 5.8/6 is on the low end of what they can easily adapt to.
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Peat/Driftwood will lower the Ph. You need to add a buffering element to raise Ph. Here's a good article on Water Chemistry.

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-chem.html

But Ph shouldn't be change more that .2 or .3 per day. Actually, Ph stability is much more important that level. Most fish can adjust to Ph if its stable.
 
Awesome info, thanks for all the input, i'll get a new bag of charcoal tonight. As for how i clean, i use a gravel vac to lightly vaccuum some of the gravel and then use that water to clean my filter media, as to not kill all my bacteria, otherwise, i do weekly water changes, usually 10 or 15% whatever a inch or two down from the waterline would be in a 30 gal. I only feed once a day due to this problem, they told me to stop feeding monring and night and just try morning, so i do this all the time lately. As for overstocked, i asked the fish guy at my LFS and he said i wasnt, in the 30 i have 4 irridescents, one silvertip (2 of the irr. sharks are about 4" the other two are no more than 3" max) and the silvertip is about 4 inches as well, then i have a blue lobster at the bottom that is about 3 inches long. Do you think thats too much for a 30 gal? This is pretty much all routine now otherwise, i'm going to give it a shot w/ the carbon idea, and then i'm going to start removing my decorations, as someone mentioned its possible the cave material is breaking down and keeping cloudy, a latest discovery is when the tank light is on, you can notice hair thing strands about 1/4" lenth floating all over the tank, that are the same color as the cave (a deep red color) So i'm thinking maybe the cave material is breaking down into the water (although i have the same colored cave in my 10 gal.) but its worth a shot i guess. Thanks again for all this info and help...any other ideas or suggestions i'm still all ears.
 
Just got home and added the new bag of charcoal, just to make sure, i ran it through some water first and a ton of black stuff washed into the water, im assuming this is a good thing b/c it didnt go into my tank, once it looked clean i put it into my filter. Otherwise i check for ingredients in the acurel, nothing. It doesnt list ingredients, and no list of where i can go to find out more info. Just says Acurel F...use daily to ensure crystal clear tank water. And then it says made in England by acurel international limited. So i'll stop using it but wow did it do a nice job, hopefully i wont have any cloudyness after this. Thanks again everyone.
 
A note about the charcoal, always rinse it with water before putting it ino your tank. All the dust and fine pieces need to be cleaned out of it so that it does not get into your tank and cloud the water. Always rinse everything before youput it inot your tank or filter unless the directions tell ou not to. Have a great day!!
 
FishNthings said:
As for overstocked, i asked the fish guy at my LFS and he said i wasnt, in the 30 i have 4 irridescents, one silvertip (2 of the irr. sharks are about 4" the other two are no more than 3" max) and the silvertip is about 4 inches as well, then i have a blue lobster at the bottom that is about 3 inches long. Do you think thats too much for a 30 gal?
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Yep, the guy at the fish store is AN IDIOT!!! irridescents can get to be like many FEET long!! And the lobster could very well eat the fish if and when the mood strikes him!!! Larger water changes wouldn't hurt either, go for 20-25% a week, since you are having issues with the water. Sorry if I missed it, what all do you have in the 10g?

Also, not sure how "lightly" you are doing the gravel vac., but what you want to do is push the end of the vac. down into the gravel and let it siphon water until it runs clear, you might have to only do 1/2 the gravel at a time if it is taking too long.
 
Here is the species profile on this site for the irridescent... Have room for a
3 1/2 foot fish in that 30g ;)


Iridescent Shark
AKA: Pangasius Shark
Pangasius hypophthalmus (Sauvage, 1878)


Min. Tank
200 gallons

Formerly P. sutchi, the Iridescent Shark is one of the worst fish for beginners, yet is commonly seen in just about every fish shop in North America. Young specimens must be kept in groups; older ones don't need the company of their own kind as much. These fish must have very fast-flowing water and quick, schooling tankmates such as Tinfoil Barbs or Bala Sharks to help make the fish feel more at home. Subdue light levels and provide plenty of open swimming space. These fish will accept most floating foods, and have a real taste for earth worms. They startle easily and it's rare to see a mature specimen without a damaged snout to some degree. They are passive and non-aggressive. It would be a good idea to put some sort of foam padding on the inside ends of the aquarium when the fish reaches a length of more than 8 inches. Iridescent Sharks don't usually grow to more than 18 inches in home aquariums (still WAY too big for the average home tank). As they mature, they lose their horizontal stripes.
 
Thats interesting info about the sharks, i guess they steered me wrong when they said any fish will only grow to what the tank lets it, should i bring them back to the LFS?? As for vaccuming the gravel that well, isnt that bad b/c then its going to suck up all my beneficial bacteria in the gravel? Thanks again for this info.
 
Yikes!!!

Uhmm...so i got my test kit in the other day, and i tested everything....all seems normal except ammonia....i read the directions so i'm pretty sure i'm not doing it wrong, but the LFS when they tested it said my ammonia was less than .25....when i tested it tonight (a week later) the first few minutes its yellow, which is 0ppm, w/in the 5 minutes the kit tells me to wait...it turns light to darker green which reads 4-8 ppm which is HORRIBLE...i did a water change immediatly again...after doing one this past weekend and then every other weekend before that for the past 8 months. Whats going on!?
 
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