Why is my water filthy?

[BIGgourami]

You have too many, too large, too messy, carnivorous, predatory fish in a tank that's way too small. You say you have enough filtration to turn the tank over 13-15 times, is that per hour? What kind of bio-filtration are you using, ie. media? You need a larger tank for those fish, yesterday. I can't believe that no one else has brought this up.

we have a winner!!!

i was about to write that

 

[dmed]

stop bathing in it!

j/k, j/k, j/k, sorry, i had to.

How did I miss that before???

 

[zerelli]

You say the tank was cycled, but are you sure you understand what that means? If you cycled the tank with one or two tiny fish then switched over to the list mentioned then you definitely started the cycle all over again. Monitor the nitrite level (not nitrate), if it is rising then the tank is cycling most likely. You would have to watch over a couple of days. Forget aquarium salt, there is no help from that in this case it would make the problem worse since it will tend to increase the pH and make the ammonia more toxic (balance of nh3/nh4 is dependant on pH and THAT is what determines how bad of a problem the ammonia is). I would add some ammonia remover media to one of your filters. It has been demonstrated to lower the cycling time of an aquarium by up to 30% (study by Dr. Tim Hovanec). And like everyone says, those fish just don't belong in that tank; but I bet you got that by now

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

You say the tank was cycled, but are you sure you understand what that means? If you cycled the tank with one or two tiny fish then switched over to the list mentioned then you definitely started the cycle all over again. Monitor the nitrite level (not nitrate), if it is rising then the tank is cycling most likely. You would have to watch over a couple of days. Forget aquarium salt, there is no help from that in this case it would make the problem worse since it will tend to increase the pH and make the ammonia more toxic (balance of nh3/nh4 is dependant on pH and THAT is what determines how bad of a problem the ammonia is). I would add some ammonia remover media to one of your filters. It has been demonstrated to lower the cycling time of an aquarium by up to 30% (study by Dr. Tim Hovanec). And like everyone says, those fish just don't belong in that tank; but I bet you got that by now

You've got that backwards. Higher pH results in higher alkalinity, making ammonia and nitrite less toxic.

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

Actually, after doing more research on this, I've found that most data on this shows that ammonia (NH3) exists in higher concentration and in higher toxicity at elevated pH levels. There are data that suggests ammonia can be lethal in lower concentrations at lower pH. There seems to be a balance between pH and buffering capacity that seems to neutralize the effects of ammonia to a certain degree. I believe I was thinking of water hardness in relation to ammonia toxicity when I posted that. My apologies! Elevated kH will buffer the water and reduce the toxicity of ammonia and nitrites.

 

[niblit]

your tank is too small.i know you have "future plans"but right now,today,your fish are suffering