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How to clean a freshwater aquarium?
kay185 asked:
I’ve recently acquired a 10-gallon aquarium that was in use before I received it. (Read: it’s not a new tank.) We’ve stocked it with fish, and the water has turned really cloudy. I’ve done a couple of partial (10-20%) water changes, but it hasn’t helped. Is there anything I can do to fix this short of a complete water change? If not, how do I change all the water? What do I do with the fish while I’m replacing the water?
The tank did still have some water in it when I received it, and the filters were all kept immersed when the tank was moved. Can new water and fish cause “New Tank Syndrome”?
I’ve recently acquired a 10-gallon aquarium that was in use before I received it. (Read: it’s not a new tank.) We’ve stocked it with fish, and the water has turned really cloudy. I’ve done a couple of partial (10-20%) water changes, but it hasn’t helped. Is there anything I can do to fix this short of a complete water change? If not, how do I change all the water? What do I do with the fish while I’m replacing the water?
The tank did still have some water in it when I received it, and the filters were all kept immersed when the tank was moved. Can new water and fish cause “New Tank Syndrome”?
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28. December 2008 at 1:36 am :
Leave the fish in the tank. Your tank is cycling. You should cut way back on the food, and siphon out about 2-3 gallons, getting all the crap out of the gravel. Replace the water with dechlorinated water.
This will explain what is going on. You need to learn this more than any other part of fishkeeping.
28. December 2008 at 10:22 am :
clean out your tank with hot water no soap dry an than put the normal water temp for your fish and to keep the water from being cloudy cut back on the food that probaly the reason its cloudy
31. December 2008 at 6:42 am :
Thats because your tank hasn’t completed it’s cycling process. The cloudy water is due to a bacterial bloom. Search the web for cycling of a new tank and nitrogen cycle.
Start here : and here
When you mentioned that “It’s not a new tank” I believe you habour a misconception that, we only need to cycle a new tank. Thats not true.
We need to cycle our tank whenever the bacterial that convert waste gets wipe out, eg. due to medication, due to filter media drying out when moving, due to pH crash, etc, etc. Since you got the tank recently, I believe you got it from someone dry (ie. without water during transportation) and the bio-media in the filter dried up.
As mention in my above links, you need to run your filter(s) for a couple of days for the bacteria to restablished themselves in the filter and then the water should clear. Meanwhile just do partial water change and bare with the cloudiness for awhile, it will go off soon.
Hopes this helps.
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