Habitat - Indoor :: Cloudy Water and junk in tubes

[TomGirl]

I have cloudy water in my tank and this brownish/orange crud in the tubes of my filter. The tank doesn't smell, it's just gross to look at.

I've read other posts on cloudy water and people have said that it's new tank syndrome. I don't think my tank is so new, though.

I have an XP3 that's been going since late November. The water was pretty clear until about two weeks ago, so I cleaned the filter since it's been over a month, anyway. But the water is still cloudy.

The filter media I use is what came with the filter. I haven't added anything.

How do I get it clear? And is cloudy water harmful?[/img]

[wezeles]

Did you do a partial water change? take out like 25-50% of the water and replace it?

you have to constantly do this, the water even with a filter will build up with chemicals and toxins from the animals...

i do a 25% change every week and a 100% change every month including a filter clean down/replacement to keep the water clean..

the filter itself wont keep the water clean forever...

[mikee]

T-girl – Evidently you let the bacteria got out of whack. You need to state how many turtles you have, how big they are, temperatures, how large your tank is and such. The solution that most of us have had to do, is 50% water changes until it clears up.

[TomGirl]

I have one turtle in a 75 gallon.

I guess my problem stemmed from not doing the water changes often enough.

I'll do that, thanks everyone.

But do I have to clean out the tubes?

[wezeles]

ya unfortunatley the tubes will fill with crud over time aswell... the easiest way to clean them is when you clean your filter take the tubes off, place one side agenst the faucet and the otehr side down the drain... just blow the stuff out with water pressure... this will really slow down how well you filter works i found that out the hard way...

Really the best thing to do is just trial and error, you gotta figure out how messy they tank gets, how fast and then figure out your own schedual. Eventually it will become so much habbit you dont even think about it...

[steve]

A few people don't bother with cleaning the crud in those tubes. When I do a full cleaning, I use a wooden dowel and shove a damp piece of paper towel through it. Real effective but a bit gross.

[jkw]

REALLY??!! UUUGH, that DOES sound GROSS...and the tubing is a good, what, three feet?!!! Is it any easier getting the tubing on and off??!! It took me so long to get the tubing ON for the first time, I'm really reluctant to pull them off....
I'm currently using an xp2....

[SpotsMama]

Hi Tomgirl,

If you're using the filter media that came with the XP3 - and nothing else - then you're missing one of the biggies - ceramic rings or stars, the bio media. Do you have any of these in the filter? If not, that's probably why you're having some water quality issues. The XPs don't come with bio media - you have to buy it separately.

jkw, don't dispair about having to pull the tubing off then get it back on. It was MUCH easier for me to get the tubing back on than it was the first time - I guess the rubber had stretched. And cleaning the tubes is kind of gross - but it feels so good to have them nice and clean again that it's worth it!

[marisa]

I'm one of the people who sometimes lets the junk in the tubing collect until the force of the water itself actually starts to remove it (it becomes self-cleaning). But if you don't want to look at it (or wait for it to come off), with a little practice cleaning the tubes can be fairly quick.

I've never removed the tubing from the intake and outflow pieces---it was on too tight to fight with it, and I decided to leave it be and just disconnected the tubes from the canister side. You can get a flexible brush that has a 48" handle to push up the tubing. I had one but it broke, so I took the brush and tied it to a thin rope and used a wooden dowel (available at Walmart) to push it up to the other and and pull it back with the line. After doing this a few times, I let water run through the tubing to rinse it. Any small brush that will fit into the tubing would work.

[SpotsMama]

I used a tomato stake (a long thin stick you use to prop up tomato plants) to push a wadded up piece of paper towel through the tubes.

[TomGirl]

My filter came with ceramic rings and biomedia. Do I need anything else?

[TomGirl]

I mean it came with ceramic rings and bio-chem zorb.

[marisa]

It came with the ceramic rings (they usually don't)? In that case you need to get the 20ppm and 30ppm sponges, which go in the bottom basket. The coarse sponge goes on the bottom and the finer sponge on top of that. You might want to get some extra carbon if you're ordering online. (If you also got the sponges in the package, then you should be all set).

[Sally's Mom]

I set up a new XP3 filter last Saturday and got a bacteria bloom, I think, where the water turned very cloudy. I read posts about new tank syndrome and made a 50% change a few days ago and another one this morning. Should the tank be clear by now or do I need to be patient a little while longer? Should I be changing out half the water daily? Sally's 6" in a 30 gallon tank filled with about 20 gallons of water. I have all the required media in the set up.

[Cramer]

Well, water changes speed it up. But if you have a big enough filter and media bed within it, it'll clear up by itself as the bacteria attach themselves to surfaces. As soon as they do, any ammonia level will fall and the rest will starve and die. The amount of nitrifying bacteria will try to stay proportionate to the amount of available ammonia (and OXYGEN!) and will start a modulating population of growth and fall as food and O2 are available. This is the 'balance' we talk about.

As for the tubes; Meh. I have tube brushes that I never use. You don't really need to clean them. I notice silicon/clear tubing grows it much more and it is released into the tank upon re-start more often than a ribbed tube, like Fluval. But the turtles will just eat the pieces.