STUPID STUPID CLOUDY WATER!

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A

arowanaryan

Piranha
MFK Member
Aug 30, 2011
1,388
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81
North Attleboro
I have been having trouble with cloudy water changes for about a week. I have a 180 gallon tank with an fx5 and an emperor 400 running on it and I do 3 25-50% water changes per-week. yet the water is not clear. My tank is in the basement and does not get exposed to light at all other then the tank lights. I do feed pretty heavily is that it? I just changed my filter media this weekend. Any ideas? Should I get another filter? My stock right now is as follows just so you know what I'm dealing with bio-load wise.

1x Gold Clown Knifefish 8-10 inches
1x RTC 9.5 inches
1x RTCxTSN hydbrid 6 inches
1x Silver arowana 12-14 inches
1x Red Oscar 7 inches
1x Florida gar 12 inches
1x Spotted gar 10 inches

They eat pellets,feeders,beef heart,silver sides, earth worms, bloods worms, freeze dried krill, and on Thanksgiving... Turkey! Please no "bigger tank" or "those fish aren't compatible!" comments either, its not helpful and I know they won't live forever in a damn 180 I'm not an idiot.
 
Im no expert, but i would check water paramaters and that will probably reveal the problem. without knowing for sure whats causing the cloudy water (other than a massive bio-load from cats and oscar) its impossible to recommend a solution.
I would check ammonia, nitate/nitrite.
Then go from there to fix the cause of the problem.
Im guessing that its just the massive bioload causing paramaters to go outta whack which may be able to be fixed with some added bio filtration. but check water first.
 
I've been having the same problems with cloudy tank also. MY tank was super clear about 2 months ago, it got cloudy when I added some medication into the tank because my Dat was sick. Everything is better now but the water is semi-cloudy. Currently I have 2 FX5 and 2 fluval 4. The next time I clean one of MY FX5, I am going to add some carbon and hopefully that will clear it up. If not, I am thinking about adding the spare 405 I have with UV filter but I have been super lazy with setting it up.
 
You'll need to vacuum the gravel on a regular basis and alternate on the cleaning of the filter. When I vacuum the gravel to change the water, I do not clean the filter. I clean the filter a few days later to let the water stabilize. Since you have 2 filters, I would suggest you clean one at a time. Don't clean both on the same day. You want the filter to reestablish before taking the other one apart. You should be feeding every other day too. Fishes are cold blooded and they do not need to eat everyday. You can't humanize them. That will make a big difference. My water is really clear, and I have more fishes than you. Good Luck.
 
Cant get pics up right now... Come to think of it this all kinda started after I put in some ick meds... Ill get my params up on here asap btw to let you guys know.
 
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