What does it mean? Why does it happen? And how can I fix it? The good news is that cloudy water in a new aquarium isn't necessarily an emergency situation. In fact, there are some very simple ways to diagnose and treat cloudy water and each will be discussed below.
Does your brand new aquarium suddenly have cloudy water after being clear for the first few days? Don't worry. A newly set up aquarium is a biological blank slate; there are virtually no life forms present on Day One. Within days, variety of microscopic organisms will begin trying to establish themselves in the tank. The beneficial nitrifying bacteria that filter the water and create stability and balance haven't had a chance to colonize the system yet, so it's kind of a free-for-all for a week or so.
A variety of free-floating bacteria and other microbes take advantage of minerals and nutrients in the water and begin to multiply unchecked - thus causing the cloudiness. A natural reaction is to "do something".
There is obviously something "wrong" with the tank, requiring action on our part. However, taking measures to prevent and avoid cloudy water in advance is a far better approach than attempting to eliminate it once it starts. When you begin to see cloudy water in a new aquarium, it's best to just let it run its course. Continue reading for some additional tips. Beginning aquarists often fear their fish will starve to death, so they feed heavily and often.
Unfortunately, there are few, if any, nitrifying bacteria present to break down the resulting waste or uneaten food, which the cloudy water bacteria take advantage of and continue to multiply. Even worse, harmful ammonia and nitrite levels may begin to rise. Fish in nature don't always eat every day, and some predatory fish may only eat once or twice a week. No fish ever starved to death in three days.
More fish mean more waste and more food for the microbes causing the cloudy water. Generally within 2 weeks. For more info, check out my fish-in cycle guide. I am trying to clear up a bad algae bloom in a 9 gallon Fluval tank. Do I just need to be patient? Should I do a water change in the tank?
I have a 2. Thanks for your guidance! Depending on just how bad the bloom is, a water change can certainly speed up just how quickly you see results! HI, I have just bought two coldwater rosy barbs , 2 days ago and now the water has turned cloudy you can partially see through it from a distance.
I do not know what to do and I think it is because my brother added too much food? Hello, we have well water with a softener, my 50 gallon fish tank water is cloudy even after a water change, new filters the whole nine yards. I have tried clarifying it, but it still will not clear up.
I use a suction hose so I know the gravel is clean. Can you give me some advise on what can help? I had fish tank when living in the city and have never had cloudy water. Is this a new setup? Swapping out filters is going to crash your tank and force it to recycle, which is often followed by cloudiness. If you test your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels, what do they read as this can give you clues as to what is amiss in your tank?
Hi we have a water softener and a 55 gal tank with two filters on it. Maybe about 12 fish on it my tank is cloudy I check my nitrate levels they are 20 and under my ph levels are 6.
Please and Thank you Melisa. When you say you change the filters, are you referring to those disposable ones?
They are somewhat of a scam as your beneficial bacteria lives in your filter and each time you throw away your filter inserts, you are getting rid of this good bacteria. This might be the cause of your constant cloudiness.
Came to this because I have a new aquarium set up 2 weeks ago, and I waited a week to put the fish in. Today my aquarium is cloudy. Should we instead rince them with some water from the aquarium?
Welcome to the hobby! Did you cycle your tank? You are correct that rinsing is preferable but the ideal is not relying on disposable filter cartridges at all! When you say you cleaned the whole tank by emptying and cleaning gravel and filter etc was this all done at the same time. If so you will have killed all your beneficial bacteria and I turn will cause your aquarium to spike in ammonia,nitrates etc.
If you do partial water change then leave filters etc and clean them after few days. Do maintenance gradually to avoid shocking your aquarium. In each filter I have 4 of the Marineland refillabe media cartridges.
Two of the cartridges have matrix and the other two have carbon. I have filter floss first towards the back of the filter then the cartridges with carbon then a micro poly floss then the cartridges with the matrix then the bio-wheels.
This is the setup of both HOB filters. I washed my gravel, decorations well. Most came out of my old 20 gallon tank. At the time that I set up this tank back on the first Saturday in Jan, I only had two goldfish. One is a large fantail and the other one was a red cap oranda.
The Red cap has since died. I waited 3 weeks before I did the first water change. I only did it because the water was turning brown. I did a 20 gallon change. I waited another 2 weeks before I did another change. I add prime to my water before I put it in the tank and add stability as well. My tank has never been crystal clear. I went through a month of changing the water every week from 20 gallons to as much as 50 gallons with the advise from a local fish store.
I check my water once a week. My numbers are always roughly the same. GH You would think after 6 months, the tank would be clear. I am lost. I now have a black moore, a blue oranda and another fantail to go along with the original fantail that is as big as my hand.
Are you able to narrow down the cause? Also, ppm of nitrates seems a tad high. Ideally you want to get it below 10 with it reaching a max of 40 before the weekly water change. Are you doing weekly cleaning and gravel vacuuming?
I always vacuum the gravel. I did a 40 gallon change 2 weeks ago. Even after the 40 gallon change, the water still was not perfectly clear. I checked my filter media and every thing was still clear. There was a little debris around the outer edge of the filter pads.
I did another water change this past weekend, 30 gallons. This helped somewhat, but there is still a white cloud. Not as bad as the previous week. I would if it is the matrix that I have in my filters or my artificial coral insert. I have had it for a year now. It started in my 20 gallon tank. I thought by upgrading to a 75 gallon tank from a 20 gallon tank and having 2 hob filters rated for a 75 gallon tank each, would make it easier.
The 20 gallon tank was fine by only doing a water change once a month. Very frustrating. It sounds like you need to check your water parameters first, to ensure nothing is amiss here. What does your aquarium test kit say? When I test my water weekly, the result are often the same as except for the Nitrate that varies. I am thinking about doing another 30 gallon change this weekend and take out the Matrix and fill with the media cartridge with carbon only.
This would be 4 media cartridges per HOB filters with carbon or should I leave the matrix and take out the coral insert? After talking with a local fish store, they recommended only adding stability with new fish or once every couple months. I have not added any with these two last water changes.
I cover my tank at night before bed with towels to keep the undercounter kitchen lights from shinning in the tank at night. I under cover the tank and turn the lights when I get up to leave for work to check on the fish and feed them once a day, every other day.
I then turn the light off before I leave for work. Then I turn the lights back on when I get home around and leave them on until about at night. Is there a way that I can upload a picture of my tank? Your test kit levels sound like they are fine, although it should be 0 for ammonia. If it creeps up, it could be the cause of your cloudiness. If you are reading your test kit in natural daylight, you should be able to tell the two apart. Filterfloss 50 um is considerably finer than most aquarium sponge, especially those on disposable cartridges — it also can be squashed into place so water has to flow through it rather than around it, resulting in more effective trapping of sediment and gunk.
You can pick a slab up for fairly cheap and cut it to size, a slab can last years. Ian, I just check my water. This is after a 30 gallon change 2 days ago. I did not check the GH or KH this time. I also did not add Stability either. I am a new fish owner. Just bought a 5 gallon tank for my granddaughter. I have a snail, two black mollies, a beta and 3 tetras. They are all doing fine, no problems, just the fuzzy looking water. What should I do to get it clear again??
Read my fish-in cycle guide on more info on how to proceed. My tank has been white hazy for almost two weeks. Nothing major, but definitely not as clear as it used to be. The tank is cycled and all of the levels are within acceptable parameters and have been for at least the last 6 weeks.
I have a 20 gallon long aquarium with 1 betta, 6 small platies, 3 small cory catfish, 1 mystery snail and 2 kuhli loaches. I feed them once every other day and only what they can eat in about 5 minutes. I use well water from the tap that has sat for days before using it in water exchange. Once a week I do a partial water change to keep the nitrates under control.
KH In Between And After That Became Cloudy. White Cloudy Water. Once Become Like Milk. Once Become Green Cloudy. I Added Tetra Crystal Water.
No Crystal Still Cloudy. Jap Mat 2. Bio Foam 2CM 3. White Dacron As Mechanical Filter 4. Zeolites 5. Bio Rings 7. Bio Balls As Biological Filter 8. Carbon Active As Chemical Filter. Also, the fact that your pH swings from 8 to 5 is problematic is this common or was it only after adding Tetra Crystal Water? Thanks Ian this article was very helpful.
I bought a product years ago that is a small nylon mesh pouch filled with about a cup of tiny white plastic beads with microscopic sized pores. I was hoping you might know the name of this product. It needs to be recharged every few months and works similar to what you say.
Be careful which one you buy, purigen is darn fine stuff and can slip through the gaps in coarser media bags. I used to always get white and green cloudy water The green is very light though. After every filter cartridge change or just washing it the water gets white than I realized that the dirty water in the bow flew through into the tank.
I was lucky as I only got fish 10 days later. Thanks for the article. I am stumped. I did a homemade CO2 Sugar, water, yeast, baking powder mix to try and get my plants going.
Came home a few hours after setting it up and tank was milky white! So far I have 1. Tested water — Amonia — 0. Theres a fine mucky looking growth on a lot of plants now, and a film of it on top of substrate 4. Just turned off lights to see if that might diminish this algae bloom? Unfortunately, I do no have a lot of experience with home-made co2.
Is it possible the sugar or yeast contaminated the tank somehow? Also, that readable level of ammonia is troubling. Is it possible your tank is re-cycling and you are seeing a bacterial bloom? None of these are the causes in my tank. I have a 75 gallon with a blood red parrot, a Jack Dempsey, I had two Bala sharks but one died right away so was returned and refunded the money paid, two convicts, and one pictus cat.
I had to move the female convict because she became prego and became very aggressive. I perform weekly water changes as well as testing. All tests are normal and I did a water change in the middle of the week and still no change. I do not have any live plants or driftwood in the tank. The tank was cycled in August I did recently stop a brown algae issue but that was a couple weeks ago. So any ideas what the cause may be? It seems none of the possible reasons in this article are the issue.
I rinsed the bio media sponge when I did a water change, I used the water I removed to clean the bio media. I have test strips and drops. All tests results are the same and all good. Any ideas? Are you reading your test kit in natural day light? Indoor lighting can make it difficult to color match and can really throw off the results. If your results are correct, this should be the starting point of your investigation. Hello Ian, We just took up the hobby and love it, my wife even names all the fish lol.
I just switched the substrate from a rock pebble to sand gravel and rinsed it thoroughly not to get a haze but we now have cloudy water. We have a 20 gallon long, nothing big yet. Thanks, Dave. Welcome to the hobby, I am really happy to hear that you are enjoying it! Your aquarium test kit will tell you what is going on inside your tank. Plus, if ever you want to cycle a second tank, adding the used pre-filter can really speed up the process. I advise using a coarse sponge with a fine sponge behind it sometimes called filter floss to trap all the really find sediment particles — it will keep your water crystal clear.
If you noticed a slight improvement on the small water changes then back to back big ones may be what is needed. If this solves the issue, from here you would do larger weekly water changes to stay on top of it. My parents put a few fish in my tank while I was away they put the water that the were brought in inside my tank and when I got home it was cloudy not as much as it is now. I just recently found out my water filter was not assembled correctly, so I fixed it last night.
This morning I woke up to even cloudier water! Also, I should definitely mention when I had my water tested at Petco yesterday he said my ammonia and nitrites were good but my nitrAtes and ph levels were dangerously high!!!! Please tell me what I need to do so that I can add more fish!!! One last thing, sorry I have a 20 gallon tank, live plants, and zebra fish and guppies. I suggest reading our fish-in cycling guide.
It should help you understand your new aquarium and the steps you need to take:. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sign up with your email for our newsletter and be notified when we publish new blog posts. Close Menu Blog. Aquarium thermometer. Automatic fish feeder. Water changer. FishLab Fact: Some aquarists want their aquarium to turn a brown color, adding untreated driftwood and leaves to darken the water.
These tanks are known as blackwater aquariums , and while they may not appeal to everyone, they are beautiful when designed correctly. Tags Water Quality. Comments Hi Ewan, I agree with you here. Any advice appreciated as my fishie knowledge is limited. Hi Liz, That sounds terrible. Hi Jenna, do you have any wood in your tank perchance? Driftwood, dried leaves and other dry organics are usually the reason why water turns yellow.
First, overfeeding your fish can cloud your water as the uneaten food is allowed to decompose. At each feeding you should feed no more than what your fish can eat in one to two minutes. Overstocking the tank too many fish also can cause cloudy water. Excess waste, like excess food, gives off ammonia and nitrites.
You should have 1 gallon of water per one inch of mature tropical fish.
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