Rainwater

[Charlotte]

I am a novice at fish keeping. As I said in the 'newbies' section, my daughter gave me her fish tank and a couple of fish, filter and heater. It's been about 3 months now and all has been well, until now.

I've included 2 pics to give you an idea of the tank.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/joan5075/Fish%20tank%20only/27_June080001.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/joan5075/Fish%20tank%20only/27_June080002.jpg

I've only used rainwater in the tank and have had no problems. Is rainwater okay?

Two days ago my niece bought me an ornament - I call it twin towers as it has two towers and steps, it can be seen in the pics. Being a novice I placed it in the tank. About 2 hours later I was telling my daughter on the phone that my tank has gone cloudy, she said it's probably the ornament and I should have soaked it first. http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s144/joan5075/Smileys/smileyDoh.gif I took it out and scrubbed it and left it soaking. Went off to my local pet shop - told him my problem about the ornament and the tank going cloudy. He recommended "Magic Clear". 20ml required he said and it will go clear immediately. Well after 2 water changes it's still cloudy. Only to read the label myself it says "Do not overdose in very pure or rainwater unless conditioning salts are used". Oh dear what have I done!!!

I just don't know what to do now. I would really appreciate your input.

Many thanks,
Charlotte.

[joz]

Hi Charlotte and welcome to TFT.
Don'y panic yet, but what I would do is do some partial water changes,say 10-15% daily until the water is clear and just do dilute any of those chemicals.
Also rain water is fine but because its so soft you may need to add some conditioning salts for hardness.Slightly harder water would help to stabilize your PH a bit.

Also a handfull of shell grit added to the gravel wouln't hurt either if your not adding conditioning salts,the grit also helps a bit with the ph dropping.

[Woodsy]

Biochemzorb will also pull it out for you :)

[Charlotte]

Hi Joz and Woodsy. Thank you so much for your valued assistance. It is truly appreciated. I will do as advised re water changes and grit and Woodsy will look into Biochemzorb.

Charlotte.