Need Some help please

[igonza08]

I am pretty new to fish and tanks. Anyways for the last six months I have had my cichlids(tiger oscar and a
jack dempsey) in a tank with gravel. Today I tried to change that and I removed the gravel and put in white substrate. It looks pretty cool but the water is all murky/cloudy with the substrate. I basically cleaned my tank fully and when it was dry I put substrate on the bottom and filled up my tank by pouring a giant bowl of water.Its not a huge tank 20gals and I know I will have to upgrade soon thats pretty much y I used the bowl. Idk if there is a specific way you guys put this in or if I just need to give it time to settle down on the bottom. Whats my problem here?

 

[Rodeo one]

Did you rinse the substrate before adding it to your tank?


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[ImACoolguy]

Did you rinse the substrate before adding it to your tank?


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+1 to this. It can take a day or two for the substrate to settle especially if you didn't wash it.

With a Oscar AND a JD your looking at like 100 gallon tank minimum IMO I'd start looking for one ASAP. Both fish grow big and oscars have huge bioloads. In a tank that small it won't take long for your nitrates to shoot up from all his waste. Frequent water changes will be a must multiple times a week to keep the nitrates low.


Caleb

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