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Mystery asked in PetsFish · 10 years ago

Murky 60 gal aquarium, tried less food, have live plants.Water change frequently.?

It is a freshwater aquarium with a large Plecostomus , and 4 medium Jack Dempsey's. A 60% water change at least every 2 weeks, sometimes I wait 3 weeks, why is it so cloudy?? The test strips says all is good. I have the recommended 40 pounds of gravel and for the amount of fish it is a perfect size even for their adult size when they get bigger. I feed brine shrimp, frozen cube 1 daily, half in the am and half in the pm, and a couple pinches dried blood worm, occasionally live red wrigglers and for the sucker fish he get an algae wafer 2 times a day, I keep the lights off, have never seen algae growth, no slime just murky water. Filters are barely even dirty at all. I really want a healthy clear aquarium.

7 Answers

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  • PeeTee
    Lv 7
    10 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes bacterial bloom. Good thing? Not so much. The presence of a bloom indicates that your tank has lost its colonies of attached nitrifying bacteria. Watch the ammonia numbers for a few weeks. Cut back on feeding even more. Do a 20% water change every week, no more than 20%,accompanied by careful gravel vacuuming. Treat the "make up" water for chlorine before putting it in the tank and also be careful to match the new water temperature to the tank temp.

    Source(s): 60 years of fishkeeping.
  • 10 years ago

    You might be doing too much when you change the water, you should change 20-25% of the water a week., ^0 % water changes change too much. The temperature, the salinity... These changes can shock your fish and evan kill them, but what is really at risk is the bacteria keeping the fish tank cycled. These bacteria are not has hardy as the fish, so anything bad for fish, is worse for the bacteria. Cloudy water is often from a bacterial bloom, "new healthy bacteria trying to establish itself."

    It also sounds like you may be giving them too much food. leftover food will rot and could cause more bacteria to bloom.

    Test strips are notoriously useless. they often give false readings, they go bad easilly if its a little humid, a little hot, or a little cold. Invest in some test tube kits and check ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    if this tank is less than 2 months old it's just new

    otherwise maybe you overclean your filter or don't have enough biologic filtration.

    you have large fish and the fish are diggers so it's possible that they're messing with the bottom

    when you do water changes make sure to wipe the interior of the tank walls some and use your siphon gravel cleaner properly.

    murkiness is from either filth/debris or from bacteria, either way, too much fish and food or not enough bacterial filtration is the usual answer.

  • Anonymous
    10 years ago

    The kind of fish you have are kind of like goldfish as they are pretty messy. I would recommend a canister filter rated for a t least 75 gallons since they are better able to handle large amounts of waste more so then the regular kinds that hang on the back. And i would cut back on the frozen food to only a few times a week.

    Source(s): fish breeder
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  • ?
    Lv 7
    10 years ago

    It could not be the amount of food but the gravel needs to be washed out several times before putting it in the tank but another reason could be the filter needs to be cleaned out regularly or it will blow out what it sucks in.

    Source(s): Tropical fish hobbyist.
  • 10 years ago

    We'll its not clean for some reason.

    If you don't see algae growth, then maybe they aren't eating all the food you put in there.

    Try feeding just once in the afternoon for a week and see what happens.

  • 10 years ago

    I think you have a bacteria bloom dont worry, its not a bad thing its actually kinda good.

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