I discovered what was making my water cloudy.

[KRAKEN]

I put a rock in from my stream in my back yard, it was a black rock, shiny and perfectly black, I have had it in the aquarium for a long time and the water was always cloudy, In my bedroom I have a 20 gallon long with a gold fish in it, the tank was looking a bit boring so I took the black rock out of the 55gal and put it in the 20 gal, I woke up to discover my 20 gal was terribly cloudy and my Oscar tank was crystal clear... It was a dramatic change once I removed the rock

 

[KRAKEN]

The rock...

 

[KRAKEN]

Before I removed the rock

 

[KRAKEN]

I also got these rocks from the stream, and they are doing fine

 

[Malawi Freak]

How did you clean the rock prior to putting it in your tank? Did you boil and scrub or bleach and scrub?

 

[KRAKEN]

I scrubbed with a rough sponge and then sat it in the sun for a couple days out side, should I boil the rocks next time?

 

[Malawi Freak]

You can either boil them (makes the house a little stinky) or you can soak them in a 40:1 mixture of bleach and water for 24 hours then 24 hours in air. When you no longer smell bleach they should be good.

 

[KRAKEN]

I put the rock back where I found it, and got more rocks and boiled them, made my house smell like a crick! Lol it was gone after I grilled chicken.. But I noticed lots of stuff that I didn't notice on the rock where floating, I boiled for about a hour and a half then let them cool on a old shirt, then siliconed them together to make a little under water sculpture, looks nice, I could add a picture if you would like?

 

[Malawi Freak]

Sure, always nice to see pics. Yeah, boiling gets in through any pores and releases the nasty stuff.

 

[KRAKEN]

My gold fish loves this! He's by himself in a 20 gal tank with two 15 gallon filters , and a 3 gallon undergravel filter, the tank takes minimal maintenance, I love it! And my oscars are very happy now, they ate their first lizard today, and they are very active

 

[KRAKEN]

And now mossy oak camo background that matches my room walls

 

[Malawi Freak]

I'm not too crazy on feeding oscars live food. I prefer high quality pellets and occasional blood worms for them.

 

[Malawi Freak]

Tanks are looking good.

 

[KRAKEN]

Again.

 

[KRAKEN]

Do you have accsess to YouTube? I have a video of my oscars on there, and my tank set up, maybe you could watch it and give me a couple pointers?

 

[KRAKEN]

 

[Malawi Freak]

Interesting setup there. I don't really understand why you have plastic over the top. If you are concerned about splashing why don't you just make sure the water stays at a high enough level to avoid that. What is causing it?

 

[KRAKEN]

Even with the water levels high, the DIY bio filter still splashes a lot, it should be safe until I can afford my next tank, right?

 

[Malawi Freak]

Have you thought of trying to make something with PVC to enter across the top of the water.

 

[KRAKEN]

Ohhhh! You gave me a great idea! What I'd I silicone the holes up, fit PVC in it and bring it down close to the water and drill lots of small holes in it, there would be no splashing... Does that sound good?