General Care Discussion :: Water quality

[CRUSHH]

I have a Aquaclear 500 for my 30Gallon tank and its been only 2 days and the water is cloudy? Is somthing wrong with my fiter? What should i do???

[Turtleboy]

sometimes it takes a while for filters to "mature" for a lack of better word, once the good bacterias start to develop it should be fine

[marisa]

Was the media put in new? Did you rinse off the Biomax and carbon before putting it in? If so, it could just be that the tank is cycling...

[CRUSHH]

Yea i rinsed thr carbon b4 putting it in...i'll wait one week see how it turns out...i know tetra have this solution to make the water clear and to clean up the odour...might check that out..

[marisa]

If the tank is cycling, you could do some partial water changes and see if that doesn't help.

Your tank has an odor? It shouldn't, and you shouldn't need to use anything to "clean it up." Do you have gravel or other fine substrate in the tank?

[CRUSHH]

I did a partial tank change about 50% of the total amount and that helped and it also got rid of the odour. Marisa you asked me if the media i put in was new and that the tank is cycling. I dont know what media is and what 'cycling' is can you explain it to me please?

[marisa]

Media is what is put in the filter to maintain water quality. In the Aquaclear 500/110, when you buy the filter, it comes with biomedia (Biomax), mechanical media (the sponge), and chemical media (the carbon).

Very briefly, cycling is the process of establishing bacterial colonies in the filter that will break down and convert ammonia (caused by nitrogenous waste products and which is harmful at high levels) into other less harmful/relatively harmless nitrogen compounds---first to nitrite and then to nitrate.

This may help you understand cycling and cloudy water better: http://www.honors.montana.edu/~weif/fir ... ater.phtml

[CRUSHH]

ok thanks a lot for the clarification Marisa...that site helps a lot...added it to my favs =)