Water Gets Really Dirty Really Fast

[pulkys]

Hello, I'm pretty much a newbie. I had 2 bettas when I was younger, and the water didn't get dirty nearly this fast.

I just bought my beta last week, and I bought a small aquarium probably like 13" x 18" x 9"
I bought some gravel for the bottom, as well as a fake plant and a little car thing that he can swim through, I cleaned everything very well before putting him in the aquarium. I used mostly bottled spring water, and then some filtered water. This was all on thursday, and today, (monday) the water was already pretty dirty, so i emptied out about half the water and replaced it with the same bottled spring water, then a few hours later the water was even dirtier than before, like really dark and murky! So I cleaned the whole thing again.

There's also this kind of yellowy line around the bottom, that I couldn't wash off the tank very well. It looks like the glass were burnt yellow or something, hard to explain. and there was some orange stuff on some of the gravel.

The fish is really active and doesn't seem to be sick or anything, so I dunno what's going on. Also, I have no filter in the aquarium, and I keep it on my shelf with no direct lighting.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[soritan]

hmm. can't think clearly, too exhausted, so i'll just shoot out a few random ideas and allow someone else to point out how inept they are:

possible algae (diatom) bloom? how long is your light on per day?

your fish might simply be a bit on the dirty side, so that might be causing your tank to cycle a bit, which usually causes some sort of bacterial bloom.

slime disease? is he at a nice, constant temperature, within acceptable betta tolerance? what is it?

what sort of decholr are you using? i've used slime coat before with terrible results -- it causes my water to actually "slime over" in a matter of days, even if the tank is large and cycled (like 20g and etc).

what is your water change schedule like? if you can provide more info, you usually get better replies.

 

[happyannie]

I know I've had weird things happen when I mixed stresscoat with other dechlorinators or others with ...duh! now I can't remember the name.....aquarel? Could that be the case for you??

 

[Synirr]

Was the car specifically made for aquarium use? If not, it might be giving off something that is causing all the problems...

 

[fawnmodel]

The orange on the bottom and the substrate is likely bronw algae. Not a problem as long as it stays under control. I would stay away from bottled water it lacks important elements, try using tap whater that has been appropriately treated - can't do too many waterchanges on the betta tank so clean it as often as you need to keep yourself happy with it

 

[pulkys]

Was the car specifically made for aquarium use? If not, it might be giving off something that is causing all the problems...

Yea the car was made for aquarium use, that's definitley not the problem.

As I said, there's no direct light above the aquarium, and its on my shelf, so the only lighting it gets is the lights on the ceiling in my room, which are on for a few hours a day.

what sort of decholr are you using? i've used slime coat before with terrible results -- it causes my water to actually "slime over" in a matter of days, even if the tank is large and cycled (like 20g and etc).

what is your water change schedule like? if you can provide more info, you usually get better replies.

sorry but what's decholr?...

Well my water change schedule was going to be like 50% change after like 4 or 5 days then full change after another 4 days, but I think it's getting too dirty too fast to do that.

 

[love cichlids]

How many gallons is that, do you have a filter on the tank or is it a very small tank. Maybe change a little water each day and see what happens.

 

[TammyLiz]

sorry but what's decholr?...

I would think it was a typo on shortening the word 'dechlorinator'. They wanted to know what type you use.

 

[soritan]

Yeah, my "L" simply migrated over one space.