Cloudy Water

[robotwizard]

I just set up a 10 gallon aquarium with a young needle fish ( I intend to get a larger tank soon). I bought a TopFin filter and ran it for three days before introducing the fish- the water was somewhat cloudy at first but then cleared up. After 10 days the water got cloudy again, and I mean really cloudy, I took out the filter cartridge and removed some tank water in which to clean it. Its been two days since I did that and the water isn't really clearing at all. What should I do, just buy a new cartridge, or is there some other problem?
Thanks for any info

 

[Allivymar]

Sounds like your tank is cycling. By that I mean the bacteria that will take care of the toxic nitrogen waste (ammonia) your fish is putting out are starting to colonize the tank.

I strongly suggest reading this article: http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html . It explains what the cycle is, why you need to know about it and what you need to do. I also suggest buying an ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test as you DON'T want ammonia or nitrite build-up in the tank as its deadly to fish.

The only thing you should be removing right now is tank water (and adding fresh conditioned water to dilute the ammonia). Let the test results guide how much water you should remove (although I suggest no more then 50% at a time). Don't remove the filter; thats a main area of colonisation for the nitrifying bacteria.