Habitat - Indoor :: Cloudy Water

[daredevilgirl013]

I've noticed lately that for the first time my turtle's water in his tank is cloudy and I can't get it to go away.

The only thing different is that his tank is to the right of a window, and usually I keep the curtains closed, well I opened them because I have flowers in my room and I wanted them to have sunlight. So that might be why his water is cloudy.

He is in a 20 gallon tank with 15 gallons of water. He has his uvb and uva. The tank temp is 78 basking is 89. His filter is a Tetra Whisper Filter for a 30-60 gallon tank. I did change the filters inside Saturday hoping it would clear it up but it hasn't yet.

Is there anything I can do to clear it up? I add at least a half gallon of water everyday due to evaporation. So I figured maybe that would have stopped it but nope and I've used Aquatize about once a week for the water.

[steve]

When you changed the filter media, was it replaced with new media and did you change the water afterwards?

[marisa]

What's Aquatize?

[fishandcandy]

Have you tried changing all the water?

[daredevilgirl013]

I don't want to change all the water as I just did that two weeks ago and it shouldn't do that as usually I can go about 6 weeks before I have to do a full water change (granted I have to change the filter two times inbetween there but it's worth it)

When I changed the filter media I put in all new filter cartridges, and then cleaned out the filter foam parts really well as algae likes to grow on those. Then I added fresh water to the filter and added half a gallon of water to the tank as some had evaporated. It's still fairly cloudy today.

Aquatize is a water conditioner, it's made by exo-terra.

[robm]

When I changed the filter media I put in all new filter cartridges, and then cleaned out the filter foam parts really well as algae likes to grow on those.

This can cause the problem. You killed all the bacteria in the filter. Now the bacteria are all over the aquarium. This is called bacteria bloom and it is causing the cloudy water.
You should try not to change/clean the entire filter at once so you don't remove all the bacteria.
Note that the stuff you call algae are probably the bacteria. Algae need light, I don't think there is enough light in the filter for algae to grow in there.

6 weeks between water changes is probably far too long.

Is there enough oxygen in the water? You don't need an air pump, it is enough if the water outlet is 2 inches above the water surface.
Not enough oxygen in the water for the bacteria can also be causing the cloudy water.

I don't think the cloudy water comes from the light.

[sarah]

I feed my turtles corn and it causes their water to get extremely couldy...which I'm doubting is the problem. lol

Also, I have a python filtration sys. thing and I change the water once a week, the python is a little expensive, but way worth it. That way you can change the water more often.

(I don't have regular filter, which is why I have to change it sooo often, but it's worth it to not have to drag the tank around and dump it and refill it with buckets and all that great stuff. lol)