My fresh water fish tank is starting to get a bit cloudy does that mean it is time to clean it?
Orange asked:
I just set the tank up a week and a half ago. I am a first time fish owner. I actually got the fish that are in it with the tank from someone else. When I got it I had to take absolutely everything out of it and scrub it. With only water of course. It was covered in algae it was a quarter of an inch thick on absolutely everything. So I’ve been told that you should siphon out approx. 5 gallons but I forget how often. Thanks!
FOREST
I just set the tank up a week and a half ago. I am a first time fish owner. I actually got the fish that are in it with the tank from someone else. When I got it I had to take absolutely everything out of it and scrub it. With only water of course. It was covered in algae it was a quarter of an inch thick on absolutely everything. So I’ve been told that you should siphon out approx. 5 gallons but I forget how often. Thanks!
FOREST
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
on December 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
BEATRIX
Well, if it is getting cloudy I think it’s a good idea to clean it, before you forget about it and it gets worse.
on December 24th, 2008 at 9:00 am
REVELIN
could clean it might help.. but you can get stuff that gets rid of cloudy water. sometimes it really isn’t dirty. just go to the fish store and it’s in a dropper bottle.. it’s a liquid.. read the directions. should clear it up.
on December 27th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
GAUTIER
You are supposed to do about a 20% water change weekly. We do ours weekly and our water is cloudy as well. You can pick up some stuff at walmart or your pet store to help minimize the cloudiness. If you empty the tank to clean it for any reason keep as much water as possible because you can cause stress to your fish and also loose alot of the “healthy” bacteria that the fish thrive off of. Don’t overfeed your fish either because that can cause cloudiness and unsafe conditions as well.
on December 30th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
DUDLEY
I would think that the water being cloudy is a bacteria boom since your tank is pretty new (and washed / scrubbed).
I think that when you scrubbed the tank, you also scrubbed out all the beneficial bacteria that was there before so that when you added the fish in again, the bacteria had to quickly multiply once more in order to break down the fish waste and the other chemicals created by the waste.
You usually want to “cycle” your tank for about 6-8 weeks, which means letting beneficial bacteria grow and multiply before you add fish in.
These beneficial bacterias break down toxic chemicals in your water that would otherwise kill your fish.
Also, you should siphon out 25% of the tank water every week (if you want to be good about it).
5 gallons per week would be good if your tank holds 20 gallons, but you’re going to need to siphon more water if your tank is bigger.