If you are in the aquarium hobby for any length of time you will probably have to deal with cloudy aquarium water. Usually you will be looking in the aquarium and note that the water is a bit cloudy (either white or green) and over the next day or two it gets worse. This is usually an indication of a problem with your aquarium maintenance. If left untreated, it can result in an unsightly aquarium or dead or dying fish.
-
If left for an extended period of time, it can result in the loss of all your fish.
This is definitely a situation to be avoided or at rectified as soon as possible.
So what do you do? How do you clear cloudy aquarium water?
Here are the steps you need to take:
1. Vacuum your tank to remove excess food or decaying matter.
2. Do a partial water change.
3. Test your tank water and water supply.
4. Cut back on your feeding.
Generally the source of cloudy fish tank water is a bacterial or algae bloom. This is usually caused by too many nutrients being present in the water. Start eliminating this by vacuuming your tank to take out decaying food, plant matter and other organic material.
To help reduce the problem you will need to do a partial water change. When doing the water change, you will want to be sure that you do not change more than about 30-40 percent including the water removed during the vacuuming of your tank.
Continue making water changes of
-
20 to 25 percent every three to four days until your water is clear
. Once your water is clear you can go back to a regular schedule of changes every 2 to 3 weeks.
Test the tank water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate. The values for the
-
first two should be zero
, particularly if your tank has been set up for a while.
-
Nitrate should be below 20 ppm and phosphates should be below 0.1 ppm
.
You will also want to
-
check your supply water, especially for nitrate and phosphate
. If your supply water is high in these nutrients, you will never get your tank levels down. To correct your supply water, you can either mix it with reverse osmosis or distilled water to dilute the levels.
Feeding will add nutrients to your tank. Of course you can’t stop feeding all together, but you can cut back.
Cut back to every other day or every two days for a while.
.
Once your water is clear again, you can resume your regular schedule. When you do this, you should probably reduce the amount you are feeding. Never feed more than your fish can consume in 3 to 5 minutes.
These simple steps will eliminate your cloudy water. If you want more detailed information about cloudy fish tank water and other tank maintenance issues check out this aquarium resource.
antonio said:
Ok I’ve done all the cutting back on feeding,water changes,and it seems my tank water just won’t go back to when it had that nice clear water,I no its not good to take out more than 30 or 40 percent of the water change every other day but I’ve been doing it every day and it still won’t go back,can some one help out please?…
david said:
hey my water in my tureume is cloudy i did a water chang and that didnt work i also add water cleaner into it to remove the ph that didnt work so can it be the rocks or the drift wood that in there
jwgomes said:
What color is the water? I it has a green tint, the problem is algae and an indicator of too many nutrients in the water. Do you have plants in the tank? Have you tested the nitrate levels?
You also might want to test the water you are using for water changes. It could be that it is high in nitrates, in which case doing water changes with it would not help the problem. In that case, you would want to use some form of purified water to make your water changes.
If your cloudy water is white, it is an indication of a bacteria problem. There are products that can help with that.
jwgomes said:
The problem could still be excess nutrients in the water. Have you tested for nitrates? If they are high, I would suggest more water changes and gravel vacuuming. It is possible that the other things you mentioned could be causing problems, but high nutrients are the most likely cause.