Water Quality

[Nicfish36]

My Betta is in a 1-gallon tank, is active, bright, and spunky. I've had him for several months and when I do a water change (even 20%) the water is clear for about 3 hours then all of a sudden becomes so cloudy you can barely see through it. Eventually after a few days, the cloudiness decreases and it becomes somewhat clear again. Then it is time to do a partial water change again, and we're back to a cloudy tank.
Am I doing something wrong?

 

[llamalord305]

I believe those are bacterial blooms. Do you have a filter? A heater? Is the tank cycled? How often are the water changes? How do you clean the filter rduring water changes?
A 1 gallon cup is not very suitable for a betta. A 3 gallon would be the minimum, and a 5 gal would be good.

 

[lilacamy931]

I go with llamalord305. They sound like bacterial blooms. You can get away without a filter as long as do frequent water changes to keep ontop of the ammonia building up as waste. Heater wise these are tropical fish and need to be heated which unsure if you can get anything for a one gallon. We do generally recommended 3gallon minimum on here (some say 5gallons). I would guess the bacteria is trying to create adequate numbers at a fast pace after every water change as has no where real to settle properly (as usually a large store would be in the filter)

 

[loraxchick]

when you do a water change you stir up the substrate which causes poo fishfood, etc., to be kicked up into the water column. usually a filter would suck this stuff in and the ammonia from the wastes is converted inside the filter (the stuff gets trapped inside the filter instead of hanging in the water). but with no filter (or for folks that see this happen even when running a filter) the stuff just hangs in the water column where it is consumed by bacteria, hence the cloudy water. a good way to avoid this is to get a bigger tank with adequate filter, vacuum the substrate better during water changes to get rid of debris and to feed less food.. even folks with filters can see this happen if they dont do regular substrate maintenance and allow waste to build up in the substrate.
cheers