General Care Discussion :: Cloudy and smelly water

[Kschaaf]

About 3 weeks ago, I did a full water change and cleaned out my whole turtle tank, cleaned and replaced everything inside my Fluval U4 filter and the tank looked great for a couple weeks. Then the water started to get really cloudy and looked really dirty so I did another 3/4 water change and cleaned the filter again. This made the water slightly less cloudy, but overall didn’t rely change anything. Then yesterday the tank started to smell horribly of dirty turtle water and stinks up the entire room.

My filter is running, but I’m not sure that it’s actually filtering anything. Is that possible? Has anyone else experienced that with their Fluval filter?

I just did a pH level test today and it’s sitting at about 7.5, so I don’t think that’s the problem.

I’m not really sure what else to do. I don’t want to buy a new filter if that’s not the problem, but I can hardly see my turtle through the water and the smell is horrible.

Thanks for any help!

[steve]

Sounds like the tank was trying to cycle. If you have any bio media, you are not supposed to replace that.

[Kschaaf]

I only replaced the carbon cartridges, foam pads and then I replaced the biomax stones because they hadn’t been changed for a couple years.

[steve]

The biomax allows some beneficial nitrifying bacteria to colonize on them and they help break down ammonia. So replacing the media, you lost those colonies. Most of us just use existing tank water to rinse them out when doing filter maintenance. I would continue with partial water changes, and if you can, feed the turtle outside of the main tank. It'll take some time for the tank to cycle.

[Kschaaf]

Okay thanks for the help! How often should I do partial water changes until it finishes cycling?

[steve]

How often and how much is up to you. Also depends on how bad it is. How much water is in the tank? For a regular sized tank, I do around 25% every other day.

[Kschaaf]

It’s a 60 gallon tank and it’s about 3/4 of the way full. I did a quarter water change yesterday and already it’s starting to look and smell a lot better, so maybe I’ll continue with every other day. Thank you!

[steve]

OK, great. Should be back to normal in no time