Cloudy Water

[Fantail_John]

Being a learner i put my fish in the tank without being cycled so i'm doing it the hard way and trying to keep my fish alive, been doing 25 - 40 % water change every day to keep the ammonia and nitrate down, but been doing this now for a week and water is still white cloud? how long will if be before it picks up and start to clear

John

 

[kelly528]

Being a learner i put my fish in the tank without being cycled so i'm doing it the hard way and trying to keep my fish alive, been doing 25 - 40 % water change every day to keep the ammonia and nitrate down, but been doing this now for a week and water is still white cloud? how long will if be before it picks up and start to clear

John

Its normal for a tank to take up to about 4-8 weeks to cycle so you will be doing this for a while.

Goldfish however need twice the filtration that normal tropicals do, you will want at least 100 GPH (gallons per hour) for every 10 U.S. gallons of water. Without adequate filtration there will not be enough physical space for the beneficial bacteria to live on, resulting in inadequate biological filtration.

 

[Fantail_John]

Being a learner i put my fish in the tank without being cycled so i'm doing it the hard way and trying to keep my fish alive, been doing 25 - 40 % water change every day to keep the ammonia and nitrate down, but been doing this now for a week and water is still white cloud? how long will if be before it picks up and start to clear

John

Its normal for a tank to take up to about 4-8 weeks to cycle so you will be doing this for a while.

Goldfish however need twice the filtration that normal tropicals do, you will want at least 100 GPH (gallons per hour) for every 10 U.S. gallons of water. Without adequate filtration there will not be enough physical space for the beneficial bacteria to live on, resulting in inadequate biological filtration.

Thank you for your information the last water change done tonight at 50% as made it a little clearer for the first time for a week, i have been doing 50 % water changes for four days as i was told do this as goldfish are dirty fish so 25 - 40 % will not do until the last stages? then i will able to do 25 % once a week. the filter i think if good to do the job. The fish are in a small tank only 20inch but will be moving to a 3ft tank when it as been cycled. In the 3ft tank, it as a aqua-flow 200 recommended for 100L - 200L will the filter do the job for my 3ft tank. Now i need to buy myself a testing kit

Thank you
John

 

[kelly528]

That sounds about right, however you might want to kick water changes up to 50% every 2 or 3 days... I kept 1 4" goldfish in a 80L uncycled quarantine and ammonia built up like nuts! I was doing 100% water changes almost daily! Espescially if the goldfish are producing more ammonia than you are removing.

Say your fish produce 1 ppm of ammonia per day.
You change 50%, which brings it to .5 ppm.
The next day its back up to 1.5 ppm.
So you do another 50% water change, bringing it down to .75 ppm.
The next day they produce another 1 ppm, which makes 1.75 ppm.
You change it 50%, bringing it down to .88 ppm.
On day 5 its up to 1.88 ppm.
A 50% water change brings it down to .94 ppm

So on monday you started out with 0 ppm and despite 50% daily water changes it went up to almost 1 ppm by Friday!!!

I think the test kit will help you a lot in bringing your ammonia down to safe levels once you get it.



And to answer your question about the filter... Assuming the 3 foot tank holds 50 US gallons you would need 500GPH or 1893 Litres per hour. Form what I can tell the Aquaflow only does 500 LPH? You can add extra filters to increase your filtration in LPH... the Aquaclear 70 does 1135 LPH which in addition to the Aquaflow should suffice.

 

[Fantail_John]

That sounds about right, however you might want to kick water changes up to 50% every 2 or 3 days... I kept 1 4" goldfish in a 80L uncycled quarantine and ammonia built up like nuts! I was doing 100% water changes almost daily! Espescially if the goldfish are producing more ammonia than you are removing.

Say your fish produce 1 ppm of ammonia per day.
You change 50%, which brings it to .5 ppm.
The next day its back up to 1.5 ppm.
So you do another 50% water change, bringing it down to .75 ppm.
The next day they produce another 1 ppm, which makes 1.75 ppm.
You change it 50%, bringing it down to .88 ppm.
On day 5 its up to 1.88 ppm.
A 50% water change brings it down to .94 ppm

So on monday you started out with 0 ppm and despite 50% daily water changes it went up to almost 1 ppm by Friday!!!

I think the test kit will help you a lot in bringing your ammonia down to safe levels once you get it.



And to answer your question about the filter... Assuming the 3 foot tank holds 50 US gallons you would need 500GPH or 1893 Litres per hour. Form what I can tell the Aquaflow only does 500 LPH? You can add extra filters to increase your filtration in LPH... the Aquaclear 70 does 1135 LPH which in addition to the Aquaflow should suffice.

Thank you so much for your guidance

I have done another 50% water change tonight and now it Cristal clear for the fist time ever i will take you advice and do the 50% change 2 - 3 times a week and the 25 % the rest. and tomorrow i'm off to get a testing kit, i'm not so good with numbers lol so are these kits easy to work out and to follow?

Thank's again
John

 

[Curiosity101]

Very easy to use. They should come with instructions but basically it's a case of 'take x amount of tank water', add x amount of drops of test kits, wait for reaction time to complete and then compare colour to colour chart.

 

[Fantail_John]

Very easy to use. They should come with instructions but basically it's a case of 'take x amount of tank water', add x amount of drops of test kits, wait for reaction time to complete and then compare colour to colour chart.

Thank you

For the information

John

That sounds about right, however you might want to kick water changes up to 50% every 2 or 3 days... I kept 1 4" goldfish in a 80L uncycled quarantine and ammonia built up like nuts! I was doing 100% water changes almost daily! Espescially if the goldfish are producing more ammonia than you are removing.

Say your fish produce 1 ppm of ammonia per day.
You change 50%, which brings it to .5 ppm.
The next day its back up to 1.5 ppm.
So you do another 50% water change, bringing it down to .75 ppm.
The next day they produce another 1 ppm, which makes 1.75 ppm.
You change it 50%, bringing it down to .88 ppm.
On day 5 its up to 1.88 ppm.
A 50% water change brings it down to .94 ppm

So on monday you started out with 0 ppm and despite 50% daily water changes it went up to almost 1 ppm by Friday!!!

I think the test kit will help you a lot in bringing your ammonia down to safe levels once you get it.



And to answer your question about the filter... Assuming the 3 foot tank holds 50 US gallons you would need 500GPH or 1893 Litres per hour. Form what I can tell the Aquaflow only does 500 LPH? You can add extra filters to increase your filtration in LPH... the Aquaclear 70 does 1135 LPH which in addition to the Aquaflow should suffice.

Regarding my filter in my 3ft tank? so the shop where i got my tank and explained what i was keeping given me the wrong pump for the job in hand in a 23 gallon tank, so if you are right i will be taking the filter back soon as possible. As the aquarium shop should of known. Thank for letting me know

John

 

[Curiosity101]

How many gallons is the 3fter? For your goldfish (as explained), you want double the recommended filter to be on the safe side.

 

[Fantail_John]

How many gallons is the 3fter? For your goldfish (as explained), you want double the recommended filter to be on the safe side.

it is 24 imperial gallons so if the filter is made for 50 gallons should be ok ?

John

 

[kelly528]

How many gallons is the 3fter? For your goldfish (as explained), you want double the recommended filter to be on the safe side.

it is 24 imperial gallons so if the filter is made for 50 gallons should be ok ?

John

Going by what a filter's advertised filtration capacity is is not always reliable. As long as the filter will filter all the water in the tank 10 times per hour you're good. Every filter will have gallons-per-hour, litres-per-hour or imperial gallons-per-hour rating on the back of the box, ro you can simply google it.

You will probably want a canister-type filter... they are awesome. Anything requiring a special insert made from carbon and poly-wool is pretty much a money-grab (the filter insert replacements cost a LOT and only work for a few days, even though they are advertised to work for a month). Unfortunately being from Canada I do not know the brands of filter that they sell in AU, however Fluval, Rena, and Aquaclear are very reputable brands. You might want to try asking on the equipment talk section for good filters sold in australia... just mention that its for a goldfish tank and therefore needs to filter 10 x 24 imperial gallons per hour.