Can't keep Clear water

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Rolance

Rolance

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
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450
Location
Louisiana
My bro has been having a 29 gallon african cichlid tank with 7 cichlids and a chinese algae eater in it and it has been set up for about 10 months. He is running two AC 50's with purigen in them and does PWC's about every week or two. He also alternates squeezing out and cleaning out filter media in the filters once a month. We just cant get his water to stay clean.

I know 29 gallons is probably too small for cichlids but he is only 12 and really wanted cichlids but he couldnt get bigger. I am thinking about helping him out and replacing one of his AC 50's with an AC 110 so he would have a 110 and a 50, but i dont want to do that if it is just gonna keep staying murky and not clear. I'd like to help him get a Canister filter but they are too pricey. Think an AC 110 would do the trick or does it need more. Heres a pic of the tank right after a water change which is very clean for this tank. It looks pretty good when it is clean and we are thinking about switching to a sand substrate. The second pic is of it when it gets murky
 

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My tank used to get like that from the side view, but not so much the front, it was air bubbles all over the place. Really little ones.

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Rolance said:
My bro has been having a 29 gallon african cichlid tank with 7 cichlids and a chinese algae eater in it and it has been set up for about 10 months. He is running two AC 50's with purigen in them and does PWC's about every week or two. He also alternates squeezing out and cleaning out filter media in the filters once a month. We just cant get his water to stay clean.



I know 29 gallons is probably too small for cichlids but he is only 12 and really wanted cichlids but he couldnt get bigger. I am thinking about helping him out and replacing one of his AC 50's with an AC 110 so he would have a 110 and a 50, but i dont want to do that if it is just gonna keep staying murky and not clear. I'd like to help him get a Canister filter but they are too pricey. Think an AC 110 would do the trick or does it need more. Heres a pic of the tank right after a water change which is very clean for this tank. It looks pretty good when it is clean and we are thinking about switching to a sand substrate. The second pic is of it when it gets murky
Click to expand...


It definitely is too small for cichlids unfortunately. What are they? They may be ok now whilst they are small but as the get bigger they will become more aggressive.

Cichlids are quite messy and I'll bet there's a whole load of fish waste under those rocks that needs hoovering out.

Other than that. How does your brother clean his filter pads? Tap water will destroy the bacteria causing a bacterial bloom every time he puts them back in. This could also wreak havoc with you water parameters. Have you checked parameters?

Try using a floss pad in the filter.
Floss traps much smaller particles and is said to 'polish' the water.

Let's us know how you get on.
 
We always use tap water to clean out the filter pads. Maybe that's what we are doing wrong.

He has an Afra, cobalt zebra, 2 bumblebees, and 2 yellow labs.
They are still small. Maybe about 3 inches at the most.

Every couple months we take all the rocks out and do a good vacuuming where the rocks were. During regular PWC's we vacuum the gravel that is possible to get to.
 
Rolance said:
We always use tap water to clean out the filter pads. Maybe that's what we are doing wrong.



He has an Afra, cobalt zebra, 2 bumblebees, and 2 yellow labs.

They are still small. Maybe about 3 inches at the most.



Every couple months we take all the rocks out and do a good vacuuming where the rocks were. During regular PWC's we vacuum the gravel that is possible to get to.
Click to expand...


When you siphon the water in to a bucket you should swill the filter pads on the tank water. Filter pads don't need to be cleaned every week. Every 2-3 depending on how messy the tank is. I suspect that you are killing your bacteria with the chlorine in the tap water. So the filter pads have to be colonised again resulting in a bacteria bloom. This makes the water look cloudy or milky. Are you dechlorinating the freshly added water? You should be.

If you are gravel vaccuming, washing filter media in tap water and not dechlorinating water them your water will never be clear. Also chlorine can harm fish and the biological filter which will subsequently lead to high levels of ammonia, nitrite.

Read up on the nitrogen cycle to fully understand.
 
It's one of life strange anomalies - clean rock, gravel and filters do not make for clean water.
Follow advice above for Chrystal clear water. Good luck.
 
Don't use tap water to rinse the filter media, use aquarium water and "lightly" rinse, you always want to see the filter a little dirty, you don't want to wash away that beneficial bacteria.
Your cloudiness could also be not enough filtration and or over feeding.
Water changes are very important with those fish in a 29g.
BTW, nice tank!
 
Ok We definitely won't use tap water again to wash filter media. But we used to swish it in a bucket when we used buckets but now we use a water changer that hooks up to the sink.
 
Rolance said:
Ok We definitely won't use tap water again to wash filter media. But we used to swish it in a bucket when we used buckets but now we use a water changer that hooks up to the sink.
Click to expand...

Those water changers are nice, beats carrying buckets!
 
They are nice but what I'm saying is We don't have a bucket of tank water to swish the filter media around in because the tank water goes down the sink but it's got tap water mixed because you gotta have the sink running. I guess we could still pour some water in a bucket just to clean the media once a month or so.

I think he needs an AC 110 because the 50's get so stopped up with nastiness so fast. Way faster than my community 55 gallon.
 
What are the different smaller cichlids that could be kept in a 29 gallon? And how many?
 
You could keep a pair of rams, kribs, apistos or other shell dweller type, but not much more than that unless you don't mind giant daily changes and special filters :-(

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Using floss in lieu of carbon

Agree with above about the mistake of chlorinated tap water to rinse sponges causing bacterial bloom. Also, the AquaClear sponge is not a polishing pad and does not trap fine particles. Most people delete the carbon and use tightly packed floss to get clear water. Also, be aware of the aquaclear bypass issue:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f60/aquaclear-bypass-issues-292796.html

Purigen is excellent stuff and should help once other problems are corrected.
 
The king of diy on YouTube shows you how to make a simple and very effective water polisher, I made one and use it for once every week for about 10 hours
 
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