My Tank Wont Clear Up

[medwards86]

hi guys i am a new member but long time aquarium owner..i have just recently bought a 3 ft tank and i have 10 neons 5 rummy noses 2 clown loaches ghost knife 3 discuss and a cory i have 2 small pieces of drift wood and one rock..it has a cloudy kind of tinge to it..i went and spoke to the local guy and they all say it tanin in the tank so i have purigen in the filter..and i have tried bio chem zorb.. they aint working not over feeding water correct it just wont go away ...an suggestions guys.

p.s i did take out the purigen carbon and chem zorb as i had white spot in the tank an water went clearer but had more of a tea colour to it as a result of the tain i put media back in and no result???????????????? really confused

[wombat1100]

Try some water changes, If its tannins from your driftwood you could try boiling the wood to get the bulk of the tannins out of it.
Is the wood old or new? was it bought from a fish shop or collected locally?
Dazz

[medwards86]

yeah it was bought from a fish shop....but dont worry guys i just got home and i went and bought a small internal fi;ter to put the bio chem in to filter buy it self and it is improving rapidly now thanks for ur help

[matt_Frontosa]

a trick to crystal clear water without using chemicals is you use alot of filter wool in your filter as it helps clear the water.

[PeteFromTassie]

Carbon works a treat too! ;-) I never used to use carbon at all, now I'm addicted to the stuff! Seems to work wonders!

Cheers,
Pete.

[sharkybubba]

hey guys,

a question with the cloudy water, the other day one of my tanks completely clouded up (water usually crystal clear), it has been set up since december housing 2 silver sharks, 2 dwarf cichlids and a catfish. the only thing i changed is i have now put a timer on the light meaning it has light everyday for around 12 hours, whereas before it was only every few days when i was home. i thought seeing this was the only thing i changed that it was due to this and so cut down the amount of light time 9 hours and did a water change....will this clear it up?

[medwards86]

hey guys,

a question with the cloudy water, the other day one of my tanks completely clouded up (water usually crystal clear), it has been set up since december housing 2 silver sharks, 2 dwarf cichlids and a catfish. the only thing i changed is i have now put a timer on the light meaning it has light everyday for around 12 hours, whereas before it was only every few days when i was home. i thought seeing this was the only thing i changed that it was due to this and so cut down the amount of light time 9 hours and did a water change....will this clear it up?[/b]
hey dude ..um well this would not make it go cloudy. though... the light in my opinion is on a little too long even 9 hours. it should be on for no longer than 6-7 hours..i have a timer to i just set it to when i was going to be home is hen the light is on

the problem as far as the cloudy water goes is i think you are over feeding them..if i were you if you dont alredy have one go and buy a a master test kit. when u have it test for nitrite and im guessing..( but hoping that u dont) you might have nitrite in the water. this is deadly and is a build up of decomposing food or can be dead fish that turns into ammonia..which turns into nitrite. if this is the case then what u will hjave to do is buys a filter media to get rid of it called ammo zorb or something like that... and do a water change about every 2 days until it is called and also i would but some stress zyme and pour a cap full in every 2 days as well to build up the biological filter..then you should be on track to having a crystal clear tank again.. this is waht happened to my girl friends tak so this is how i know.
good luck mate

[sharkybubba]

it should be on for no longer than 6-7 hours[/b]

Hey mate,

thanks heaps for yuor advice about the tank, im popping into the aquarium this week so i'll go in and see what i can do!

about your light time, suggested lighting is 8 hours at the least, or so i always thought, especially for a planted tank so you might want to check that out!

thanks again for your advice!

[medwards86]

about your light time, suggested lighting is 8 hours at the least, or so i always thought, especially for a planted tank so you might want to check that out![/b]

hey again yeah i have cheked it out with various people and hey have told me 7 and the very most

[sharkybubba]

hey again yeah i have cheked it out with various people and hey have told me 7 and the very most[/b]

interesting, i'll chuck a post up! :biggrin:

[joz]

Guys also remeber here that we are trying to do what nature does.
Do we get more than 7 hours of daylight??.......I think so!

Of course that is keeping it simple because alot of other factors do come into the equation.Like the type of intensity our artificial lights are generating.
How deep is your tank? The deeper the tank the less light reaches the bottom where the plants live,so leave the lights on longer.
Newer tubes are more efficient than year old ones so don't expect the same performance for them.
Also not all tubes are the same,so for godsake don't try to use coolwhites or tri-phos on plants.For fish only no probs

So many factors to consider,each tank is individual and needs to be treated as such.
but remember also that guidelines are just that and not rules set in stone.
but they are good starting points :)

[33elanora]

Guys also remeber here that we are trying to do what nature does.
Do we get more than 7 hours of daylight??.......I think so!

Of course that is keeping it simple because alot of other factors do come into the equation.Like the type of intensity our artificial lights are generating.
How deep is your tank? The deeper the tank the less light reaches the bottom where the plants live,so leave the lights on longer.
Newer tubes are more efficient than year old ones so don't expect the same performance for them.
Also not all tubes are the same,so for godsake don't try to use coolwhites or tri-phos on plants.For fish only no probs

So many factors to consider,each tank is individual and needs to be treated as such.
but remember also that guidelines are just that and not rules set in stone.




1) For the tannin - one approcah is to paint the wood with clear polyurethane (available at all hardware stores) to stop the leaching of tannin out of the wood.
2) Clioudiness in the ater could be the onset of green algae which from my experinece can best be fixed by ensuring correct water quality and using a UV filer
3) Carbon filters should not be used if you have plants as it extracts nitrients fro the water
:)[/b]