New owner advice

Justask

My son got a 45 L tank and we have done everything by the book.

He has it 4 weeks now and has 6 fish (think they are calle Terra? not sure though) Anyway, we left it fish free for 10 days then added 3 and a week later added another 3.

has filter and all the treatments. We have taken the 20% water out added fresh.

But the water look cloudy

Any ideas why?

Silverfish

Sounds like the tank wasn't cycled before adding the fish - takes about 6 weeks to cycle, and just leaving the water for 10 days won't do anything.

Have a read of the sticky at the top of the forum about cycling, you should also pick up a testing kit (get the drops, not the strips!) and test the water yourself, so you can monitor your ammonia / nitrite levels, until the tank is cycled and safe for the fish.

Justask

Silverfish wrote: »

Sounds like the tank wasn't cycled before adding the fish - takes about 6 weeks to cycle, and just leaving the water for 10 days won't do anything.

Have a read of the sticky at the top of the forum about cycling, you should also pick up a testing kit (get the drops, not the strips!) and test the water yourself, so you can monitor your ammonia / nitrite levels, until the tank is cycled and safe for the fish.

Thans a mill We were told ten days :rolleyes:

chris139ryan

i would say its over feeding, every person thats new to fish will over feed at the start, this results in cloudy matter due to the tiny particles floating around the water.
How many times do you feed them

Silverfish

Justask wrote: »

Thans a mill We were told ten days :rolleyes:

Yeah, unfortunately it does take longer than that, the fish will produce waste which will cause ammonia levels to rise, which will make the water cloudy.

Bacteria will then convert the ammonia to nitrite, which will in turn then be converted to nitrates, which are less toxic.

Unfortunately the ammonia and nitrites are extremely toxic to fish so you'll need to do water changes quite frequently to reduce the levels of ammonia and nitrites until the filter bacteria catch up with the waste.

It's important to know that even though it's recommended to change the filter sponges every few weeks, you will not actually need to replace them ever until they're actually falling apart, as this is where the bacteria live, just give the sponges a swish in the tank water you've taken out when you do a water change.

paul71

I have a lot of people saying that they have been advised cycling a new tank only takes between 10 days and 2 weeks (mainly in order to sell a particular brand of bacterial supplement), I was told the same when I started and found to my cost that it is simply not true.

There is no good substitute to the correct method of cycling a new tank as described in the sticky here and unfortunately some pet shops are giving advice to the contrary.

Justask

Feeding them once a day, fish seem healthy though. No goig to add any more fish for a couple of month

Thanks for the advice

Sleepy

Dropped into the pet store in Swords and was dissapointed to see that they not only had an Oranda and some minnows in an 8l Betta Cube, they were also offering 2 free goldfish with a 20 litre tank.

The standard of advice being offered in pet stores is seriously sub-par.

chris139ryan

Justask wrote: »

Feeding them once a day, fish seem healthy though. No goig to add any more fish for a couple of month

Thanks for the advice

good to hear they are healthy iv cut down to feeding my fish once every 2 days, since then iv never had a problem with cloudy water and the fish are perfect.
best of luck with the tank