is my water dirty?

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jarnism

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jun 14, 2006
Messages
16
I added some salt and some water condiitoner which might have made it blurry. I also changed about 25% of the water and moved around the ornaments inside the tank. All this at once pretty much.

All in all it looks like the water is rather blurry/foggy. Especially compared to previous state.

Also, I've onily had the fishes and the water in that tank for 3 days if that helps.
 
Are you cycling the tank, or has it been cycled already?

If you move stuff around this will stir up some particulate matter that may make it temporarily cloudy.

I would test the water to see how your levels are doing. After you test, post the results here and that will be of further help in trying to figure out what is going on.
 
Also how much salt, what kind of conditioner and is the blurriness white,brown, green? and what size tank?
 
Yes I'm trying to cycle the tank which is why are removed the water, however the cloudy water has been there for almost two days now.

Levels seem okay, I'm still working on balancing them out

Conditioner is the "wardley 3 in 1 7.0 PH water conditioner" - brings water to 7ph and neutrelizes amonia aswell as gets rid of the chlorine (used about 5 spoons)

I added salt because I read in one of my threads that I made that it would help by making the fish less stressed. Also it would help create more oxygen. I added about 5-6 spoons of freshwater aquarium salt.

The tank size is 29 gallons with the aquafilter 50.
 
Yeah, I did that too when I had a new tank, later I found out that it they will get used to it and it might stress them even more when you take it away.

The label does say that it is good for their breathing. You're not alone.
 
When you first set up a tank ,the water can be cloudy for a week or two (or maybe even longer), especially if you didn't give your gravel a good rinsing before you put it in.

However, I recommend first you switch to a different water conditioner: you need ammonia in your tank for the tank to cycle, so any product that "loks up" ammonia will not be helping you. Also, you should never use chemicals to alter your pH. Even if your tap water's natural pH is a little low, don't sweat it--your fish will adjust to the lower pH and they will do better at an unnatrual pH than they would at an artificially raised pH (which is bound to fluctuate and stress them). Remember, stable is better than ideal!

Also, I assume you are cycling your tank with the ammonia your fish produce. This is not the recommended way to do this, as it is very hard for the fish, but since you already have the fish and I doubt have another tank to put them in why the tank cycles, I advise you to do a minimal 30% PWC's very regularly--even as much as every other day to every day. This will slow your cycle, since the PWC's will remove ammonia, but you need to keep your ammonia levels low for the survival of your fish.

If you have a test kit (and I recommend going and getting a liquid test kit--the strip ones are junk) then you readings should eventually be 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and <20 nitrates ppm. Right now, your ammonia will likely be up, with 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. In a couple of weeks, it should begin to fall, and your nitrites will rise. After a bit more time, your nitrites will fall, and your nitrates will rise. The last thing means the tank is almost done cycling. Until that happens, you need to keep doing very regular PWC's.

In the meantime, you should go to the articles section of this site, and read the ones on the nitrogen cycle.

Good luck!
 
Yes you will definitely want a liquid test kit.

What kind and how many fish did you add? Since you have only had them a fewdays you may want to try to bring them back and do a fishless cycle- much easier for you and your fish.
 
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