What am I missing?!

[Illbuyourcatfish]

I have a 72 gallon freshwater tank with sand substrate well planted with driftwood as decor. For residents there are two 4-5" parrots and a 7 inch bichir and a handfull of barbs. It's running fluval 305 and 405 giving over 10x turnover.Tank is of course cycled and water parameters are perfect. But the water is still CLOUDY!!!! Its full of little particles that the filters must not be picking up. Both filters are filled with biomax with pollywool on the bottom trays and both are running filter floss on top, but still water is full of junk!

The fish are fed very sparingly (i literally see every piece eaten) any floating plant matter is removed. Gravel vacced every 3 days along with 10% water changes. The tank gets ideal lighting with no windows and the only chemicals added to the water are chlorine remover and ferts.

So what am i missing? Does anyone have tips for these filters to maximize there effectiveness? Im running out of ideas here.


Also one last question, recently set up a new tank, everything brand spanking out of the box new. Filled it up and let it run for a few days, just water. And on day 3 the tank had planaria. NOTHING was added to the tank whatsoever, and i was always told they showed up from too much feeding/dirty substrate? Theres no mistaking these were 100% planaria, any ideas on that one?

 

[RedDwarf]

I would say have your water supply tested. There shouldn't be any planaria in your newly setup tank.

 

[zennzzo]

cross contamination ?
as easy as using the same hose to fill with...

 

[dawnmarie]

I encountered a situation once where no matter what I did my tank appeared cloudy. Turned out to be microbubbles created by a minute leak on the supply line to the pump. It looked for all the world like particulate and water flow would move them around the tank, up and down.
This probably won't help, but, I thought I'd throw it out there.