water is a bit cloudy

[dvs]

Hi everyone!

I am hoping to find some good advice as to how I might get my water more clear. I have a 46 gallon bow front that is being filtered by an AC 70 and an emperor 260. I am considering getting rid of the emperor 260 to get an AC 110 to go with my AC 70 in hopes of getting rid of the cloudiness. Is this a logical choice or should I be doing something else. I have 2 baby oscars Im growing out, and a synodontis for bottom feeding. The substrate is black gravel so no sand issues. I am doing 20% water changes weekly as well.

 

[brianjh]

do you use carbon? If not, this will most likely clear it up.
I dont use carbon at all....I do 30 % 2 times a week. And my water is very clear.
20% should be good for now, but once those oscars get bigger I would go to either 50% weekly or 25% twice a week.
I think the filtration you have now is good, for what you are keeping.

 

[ronald021]

I had cloudy water problems for about 3 weeks. What I did to fix the problem was did a 25% water change twice a week for 3 weeks and now it is clear. Oh yeah, I did a water change by vaccumming the gravel. I think this is a must! I find that my filter cannot suck all the poop from the gravel and so it decays and rots (which prevents me from seeing it) under the gravel making my water cloudy. However, my 125g tank doesnt have this problem and i hardly clean the gravel (once every 1-2months). Maybe because it is an established tank for like 20 years...

edit: i also fed it less... from 3x a day to 1x per day to cut down on poop