Hi everyone. I'm quite new to taking care of goldies. Anyway, I have a 10g tank w/ 3 small goldfish. (yea, I know...too many). I've had this tank for about 2 months. Tank should be cycled by now. All readings are normal,7.0 Ph, 0 nitrites, nitrates read 20ppm. I feed my fish 1x per day, sinking mini pellets. However, the water is so couldy. I do 20% changes 2x per week, and that does not seem to help. I have just noticed brown algae on decorations and stone. Fish are doing just fine, t hough. Any recommendations to clear water?? THank you

Welcome!

First off, what kind of filtration do you have in your tank? Do you have an airstone or bubble wall? I would suspect that the amount of waste in your tank is too much for your filtration to handle...

Also, do you have gravel in your tank? If so, when is the last time you vacuumed it? Gravel can store all kinds of nasty stuff that can end up clouding your tank.

Laura

Thank you for replying. THe filter is a power filter, a Whisper I think the filtates 90gpm. I have one 6" air stone also. I just vacuumed the gravel this afternoon, as I always do when doing a partial water change. Do you think a larger filter would do the trick. I do notice that the filter media gets filthy very quickly. I just changed the filter 6 days ago.

Could the cloudy water be a bacterial bloom? ANy other suggestions would be very helpful. Thank you!!

If your tank is cycled which it sounds like, the filter isn't big enough to take on this amount of fish waste Hun. Like you know you have to many fish in there and the filtration isn't able to pick it all up most goldfish tanks should have a filter that will filter the water 10 times an hour. so a ten gal tank should have a filter rate of at least 100 gals a hour.

Brown algae in a tank means that your nitrates and phosphates are on the higher end. This can be helped out by bigger water changes and a bigger filter....

Did you say you changed your filter pad?
Until it totally clogs up, just rinse it well in the discarded water from partial water change rather than putting in a new one. That's where most of your biobugs hang out that convert ammonia to nirtAte. Those bacteria like to live on highly oxygenated surfaces. When it gets gunked up like that, there's a lot of other heterotrophic bacteria that eat the gunk use up oxygen and produce ammonia and carbon dioxide that build up. (on a side note, those heterotrophs reproduce fast and are the same bacteria that are clouding up your water) It's good to keep the gunk rinsed off of the filter pad. You may need to step up your vacuuming/partial water changes if it's getting that gunked up until you can get a larger tank and filter. A turkey baster works well to remove poop etc between partial water changes.

How many pads does your filter have in it?

I just bought a bigger filter, one that can filter a 30g tank easily. Hopefully this will do the trick. Since I will be replacing the filter, will the tank start to cycle again?

Yes - unless you can re-use some of the media from the old filter (I would try to do this if at all possible)

The extent to which the tank will cycle will depend upon how many good bacteria have colonized everything else in the tank.

Good Luck

Jenn

Just put the old filter media/pad in the tank for a while until you are sure everything is established in the new filter. You can put it in a piece of pantyhose so it doesn't create a mess.

Laura