Please can anyone help..... I have a 48 litre tropical tank which was set up for 5 day without any live stock, I put a few fish in on sunday and the water is now cloudy. The water has been tested, the levels are slightly up. We have done a 30% water change, added filter aid and fresh start as advised by the shop, it has made no difference. I have had tanks before but never never had this problem. Plaese can anyone help. Thank You
Cloudy Water
- Thread starter tojo
- Start date
gbailey141
Fish Fanatic
Hi there and welcome to the forums. Firstly you should have a read of fish-in and fishless cycling in here: http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/
Most people on here recommend the fishless cycle as you don't do any harm to the fish whereas fish-in is a lot more work and can lead to fish dying if not done properly. Secondly the filter aid and fresh start is a waste of money and is just the shop taking advantage of you. Don't bother with them at all. What fish have you added? What test kit are you using?. As you are doing a fish-in cycle now you will have to test your water everyday for high amounts of ammonia. Also you will have to do a minimum of 50% water changes daily too. This should help with the cloudy water problem.
Gav
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/Most people on here recommend the fishless cycle as you don't do any harm to the fish whereas fish-in is a lot more work and can lead to fish dying if not done properly. Secondly the filter aid and fresh start is a waste of money and is just the shop taking advantage of you. Don't bother with them at all. What fish have you added? What test kit are you using?. As you are doing a fish-in cycle now you will have to test your water everyday for high amounts of ammonia. Also you will have to do a minimum of 50% water changes daily too. This should help with the cloudy water problem.
Gav
Hi, Tojo, as gbaiey says you should be doing a fishless cycle, I know when you start off with your new tank, you want to get your fish in asap, and many including my LFS will tell you put safe start in and come back in 3 days for your fish, what rubbish, your fish will die, you go back thinking you have done something wrong, LFS sells you more fish and chemical to you, and his till is ringing with joy, do a fishless cycle it will take time and a lot of patience, but will be worth it on
your wallet and more important your fish, when your ready to introduce first fish start off with just a few hardy ones like danios, and resist the temptation to buy more until these have been in for a while, but above all what ever advice your LFS tells you, check it out here first, there is no way you should be adding chemicals to a new tank, ( except ammonia to start cycle, without fish ) your just making your LFShops till happy.
your wallet and more important your fish, when your ready to introduce first fish start off with just a few hardy ones like danios, and resist the temptation to buy more until these have been in for a while, but above all what ever advice your LFS tells you, check it out here first, there is no way you should be adding chemicals to a new tank, ( except ammonia to start cycle, without fish ) your just making your LFShops till happy.
This is traditional shop advice - get the tank filled, make you wait a few days, tell you to buy a few products to put in your water and magically, they say your tank is ready for fish.
Basically, what happens in a fish tank that is left to stand for a few days before adding fish is . . . nothing. The water goes around, but that's about it. They make you wait partly through a misconception that having your tank set up for 3/5/7 days actually does something and partly because it makes you feel better about getting the fish, because you this this does something.
When you actually get fish into the tank, the following happens:
They start eating and breathing. Like with all forms of life, this produces waste products. The number 1 waste product fish produce is ammonia. This comes from their gills and from their wee and poo. It also comes from any food that doesn't get eaten and starts to rot in the tank, as well as dying plants or dead fish.
When this ammonia comes into the tank, it will just sit there. In a newly set up tank, there are no ways of getting rid of it. The shop may tell you that filter aid chemicals will get rid of it for you, or will make your filter get rid of it but this is very, very rarely true. Most bottled 'filter aid' products contain a mix of dead bacteria, the wrong bacteria and other dead organic matter. No 'filter aid' products get consistently good reviews from knowledgeable fishkeepers. However, the shops still sell them because it's all £££.
So, how do we get rid of the ammonia? You see, ammonia is very, very toxic and must not be present in a fish tank. The way to get rid of it is to have your filter build up a natural supply of the right kind of bacteria. These bacteria use the ammonia and form what is known as the nitrogen cycle in your tank. However, this process of building the bacteria takes a long time - often many weeks - and in that time there is a very high risk of the fish dying or getting sick. This is more £££ for the shop as you then come back for more fish and to buy medicines and other products. Essentially, the worse a time you have has a fishkeeper, the more £££ the shop makes! Sadly, a lot of people accept that "fish die a lot" and so can have many, many fish tanks and have been keeping fish for years and years until they learn about the cycle!
The way many fishkeepers get around this problem of poisoning the fish at the beginning is to do a fishless cycle. This is a method of using bottled ammonia or another ammonia source to grow the bacteria, so when the fish are added they already have a working 'toilet'.
However, as you have already added your fish too early as a result of bad advice, you need a different method to keep the fish safe and build up those good bacteria. This method is calld a fish-in cycle. What you need to do to keep your fish safe is to gt a liquid test kit for ammonia and nitrite (another toxic component of the cycle) and test your watr twice a day - morning and night. Any time the ammonia or nitrite is above zero, even by a tiny bit, you need to do a largewater change of at least 50%. I say at least 50% because taking out 50% of the water takes out 50% of the ammonia. We want to take out 100% of the ammonia, or as close to it as we can! It is not uncommon to ned to do two 80% water changes back to back to remove enough ammonia and nitrite!
If you can't get a test kit right away, start doing daily 75% water changes to help the fish along.
The cloudiness is called a bacterial bloom. This happens when bacteria in the water find something they can eat - namely fish food, wee, poo and anything else organic in the tank. It happens a lot in new tanks and there isn't much you can do about it. Water changes will not help as the bacteria grow too fast. These bacteria do not directly harm you or your fish so there isn't a problem. They are different to the bacteria in the filter that help the nitrogen cycle along, but they both need each other because the bacteria that cause the bloom are the bacteria that break food and fish poo down into ammonia. A healthy tank has these bacteria, just not quite as many as are in a bacterial bloom.
So, don't worry about the cloudy water and DO get your water tested ASAP and also do some water changes. Here is a great information link to get you going - it will answer a LOT of questions.
Btw - you DO want to add chemicals to treat the water. These chemicals remove chlorine, heavy metals and chloramine. You just don't need the 'filter aid' products.
Basically, what happens in a fish tank that is left to stand for a few days before adding fish is . . . nothing. The water goes around, but that's about it. They make you wait partly through a misconception that having your tank set up for 3/5/7 days actually does something and partly because it makes you feel better about getting the fish, because you this this does something.
When you actually get fish into the tank, the following happens:
They start eating and breathing. Like with all forms of life, this produces waste products. The number 1 waste product fish produce is ammonia. This comes from their gills and from their wee and poo. It also comes from any food that doesn't get eaten and starts to rot in the tank, as well as dying plants or dead fish.
When this ammonia comes into the tank, it will just sit there. In a newly set up tank, there are no ways of getting rid of it. The shop may tell you that filter aid chemicals will get rid of it for you, or will make your filter get rid of it but this is very, very rarely true. Most bottled 'filter aid' products contain a mix of dead bacteria, the wrong bacteria and other dead organic matter. No 'filter aid' products get consistently good reviews from knowledgeable fishkeepers. However, the shops still sell them because it's all £££.
So, how do we get rid of the ammonia? You see, ammonia is very, very toxic and must not be present in a fish tank. The way to get rid of it is to have your filter build up a natural supply of the right kind of bacteria. These bacteria use the ammonia and form what is known as the nitrogen cycle in your tank. However, this process of building the bacteria takes a long time - often many weeks - and in that time there is a very high risk of the fish dying or getting sick. This is more £££ for the shop as you then come back for more fish and to buy medicines and other products. Essentially, the worse a time you have has a fishkeeper, the more £££ the shop makes! Sadly, a lot of people accept that "fish die a lot" and so can have many, many fish tanks and have been keeping fish for years and years until they learn about the cycle!
The way many fishkeepers get around this problem of poisoning the fish at the beginning is to do a fishless cycle. This is a method of using bottled ammonia or another ammonia source to grow the bacteria, so when the fish are added they already have a working 'toilet'.
However, as you have already added your fish too early as a result of bad advice, you need a different method to keep the fish safe and build up those good bacteria. This method is calld a fish-in cycle. What you need to do to keep your fish safe is to gt a liquid test kit for ammonia and nitrite (another toxic component of the cycle) and test your watr twice a day - morning and night. Any time the ammonia or nitrite is above zero, even by a tiny bit, you need to do a largewater change of at least 50%. I say at least 50% because taking out 50% of the water takes out 50% of the ammonia. We want to take out 100% of the ammonia, or as close to it as we can! It is not uncommon to ned to do two 80% water changes back to back to remove enough ammonia and nitrite!
If you can't get a test kit right away, start doing daily 75% water changes to help the fish along.
The cloudiness is called a bacterial bloom. This happens when bacteria in the water find something they can eat - namely fish food, wee, poo and anything else organic in the tank. It happens a lot in new tanks and there isn't much you can do about it. Water changes will not help as the bacteria grow too fast. These bacteria do not directly harm you or your fish so there isn't a problem. They are different to the bacteria in the filter that help the nitrogen cycle along, but they both need each other because the bacteria that cause the bloom are the bacteria that break food and fish poo down into ammonia. A healthy tank has these bacteria, just not quite as many as are in a bacterial bloom.
So, don't worry about the cloudy water and DO get your water tested ASAP and also do some water changes. Here is a great information link to get you going - it will answer a LOT of questions.
Btw - you DO want to add chemicals to treat the water. These chemicals remove chlorine, heavy metals and chloramine. You just don't need the 'filter aid' products.
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