Gravel Change?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

follicle

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 29, 2009
Messages
98
Well, after numerous treatments and a few weeks worth of water changes, my water is still mildly cloudy. It's not horrible, but it's still annoying to look at. I know for a fact that it isn't algae bloom or anything like that, because it has no color. I've even filled a glass with the tank water and it looks fine. I've determined that I think a gravel change will do the trick, as my gravel has been in the tank for close to four years now.

Heres are my questions:

  • To avoid recycling the tank, should I leave some of the old gravel in the tank (like 25% or so)?
  • When changing the gravel, how much water should I remove? I have a 55 gallon, so would it be all right to remove about 50-75% of the water, or do I have to completely empty the tank?
  • Any other pointers?

Thanks for any replies!
 
i had this problem at one time for about a weak and half i tried everything i even did the glass thing to and sure enough it looked fine. i finaly found some stuff that takes all those little particles and clumps them together so the filter can ketch them i think its called clear water or some thing.
just wondering if you have tried some thing like that?
 
i had this problem at one time for about a weak and half i tried everything i even did the glass thing to and sure enough it looked fine. i finaly found some stuff that takes all those little particles and clumps them together so the filter can ketch them i think its called clear water or some thing.
just wondering if you have tried some thing like that?

Well, at first I thought it was algae, so I got these little packets by Al-Gone that you place in your filter weekly. I've been doing that now for close to a month with no results, so I'm sure it's not algae.

I also been using Tank Buddies "Water Clear" for about a week now. It seems to do something for the first hour or so, but then it coulds right back up, so I'm thinking it's stuff rising up from the gravel.
 
The water clear products just clump the particles together so your filter can catch it. Some people think that the chemical might clump & clog fish's gills as well.

To avoid recycling the tank, you might want to take out maybe a 1/4 of the gravel every week. Since it is old gravel, there might be a lot of muck in it. You might stir up anoxic pockets & release poisonous gases if the gravel is deep & had not been vacuumed regularly. At the very least, doing a change will really stir up the dirt & create a big mess in the tank.

To prevent problems, I would suggest taking out all your fish & a good portion of tank water. <Put in clean buckets or rubbermaid containers.> After you redo the portion of the gravel, drain off the now mucky water from the tank, then refill with clean water & the saved tank water & fish.

That is a lot of work to go through. You might be better off if you can borrow a diatom filter (or a Magnum with the water polishing cartridge). These do a great job of removing suspended particles. And if you do through gravel vacs weekly, you might keep it clean enough to prevent more clouding.
 
place a genuine polyester filter medium to your filter but dont leave it in for no longer than a week 2 weeks max then discard it, i had same problem with my gravel and this did the trick has it will trap the very fine particles which are clouding your water
 
load your filter with fresh carbon

I mean LOAD it.

That should do the trick.
Carbon is safe, makes water quality better, and is cheap.

my 2 cents.
 
Back
Top Bottom