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Ok so I have a 20 gallon tank for now and a Fluval 404 (for 100 gallon tank size) I have tried everything without any success to have the water look and smell ok. I change it and after couple of days it becomes cloudy and starts smelling really bad. My filter works, I have tried water treatments, AND I do change media in the filter. So Any suggestions from anyone on how to remedy this? Any suggestions on how the media should be stacked (what order)??? Any answers are extremely appreciated.

Zoryana

i've got the 304 (3 chambers instead of 4). i think the box it came with had suggestions. for me the bottom chamber gets carbon. this helps the mechanical filtration process. the middle gets ceramic rings, which slow the speed of water movement in the filter and the top chamber gets Bio-Max Rings, which helps in the biological filtration.

what helps is not to feed your turtles in their tank but rather a seperate container. this should greatly help your water quality.

you do not to completely change the water and filter media when you clean.

Try and let your filter work for a few days. With a new filter or tank setup you may be getting unbalanced amounts of chemicals and bacteria in your tank. This is also why as Steve said, do not change all of the water at once.

Yup.. if an exceptional amount of bacteria is removed from the water like with a full water change, your tank needs time to "cycle" and build up the beneficial bacteria that your turtle and or fish need to be happy. this bacteria helps break down waste and toxic levels of ammonia and nitrate. If you remove all the bacteria.. it can't handle the waste produced by your turt.. which is why it smells so foul.

once you get into a rythm, it wont stink anymore. Since your filter is sufficient, you might want to lessen your water changes.. or if you don't already have it, get some bio rings or something suitable that will hold all the bacteria you need when you do big water changes.

to increase the cycling process you can buy bacteria supplements too... like "Cycle" or "Waste Control"..

I have a filter that uses angelhair along with a regular filter. It seems to catch the larger debris such as shedding skin. I just change the angelhair once a week or so. It works as a great added suppliment to other filters, and they are rather inexpensive.

we just upgraded the size of our RES tank to a 55 gallon on sat. it smells terrible but after reading the posts i hope this will go away once the water has a chance to get back to normal. it does smell like ammonia. any suggestions as to how long it will take for the process to complete? also should we put brand new filters in now or wait until the water is okay?

i wouldn't say it smells like ammonia.. it's more like a rotting seaweed smell..