GRR!! I've had my 55 gallon up for over 6 months now and the last few weeks its been cloudy. I cleaned both filters and today I took out all the water and refilled it. STILL cloudy. Should I replace my filter media and start over? Its really frustrating when you cant see out the other side of the tank.

Does the water look cloudy when the lights are turned off? It it is clear when the lights are off, then the light is reflecting off of something.

I discovered that a combination of crud on the glass lens that the light sits on and a thin coat of algae on the aquarium glass was making the water look cloudy. (in all 3 of my tanks) When the lights were off the water looked crystal clear. I also had been using Equilibrium mineral supplement which is a powder that never seems to dissolve completely. I switched to Kent Goldfish Essentials - a liquid mineral supplement, cleaned the light lens and glass, and voila! Crystal Clear Water!

(My two filters in my 55 constantly splatter water droplets on the lens, so I clean it every time I do a water change.)

Thanks for the idea! I went over and checked. Turned the lights out but still cloudy. I can see some stuff floating around too. Seems like the filters arent doing the job or theyre severely dirty?

Oh can I please see a picture of Smokey? I just love Huskies

what food are you using? I had moved from floating food, to the sinking tretrafin gold japan, sinking pellets. but found this heavy food made a realmess of my tank in a really short time. making it really cloudy with quite large particles.

I went back to the previous food, cleaned the filters, did 30% water change, but this didn't do it all and so also swashed my fish net through the water to sieve it and took out loads of the crud. Since then its never come back.

I did recently switch to Omega One sinking pellets. Think this could be it?

It may be the cause of your cloudly water. When I changed my brand of pellets awhile ago it made my tanks go cloudy. It baffled me for ages. I was only feeding my fish in the 55gal the new pellets and the 40gal with the older pellets. That's when the 55 gal started to get cloudy. Once the older pellets ran out I used the newer ones on the 40ga as well which were of a disfferent brand and that tank started to get cloudy too, which is how I made the connection

How did you get the cloudiness to go away? Just stopping the feeding of these pellets wont help alone will it? Thank you for the info!

There are two methods I have used to cure cloudy water in the past:

50% water change, which will help but not eliminate cloudy water all together but I follow the water change with either:

1. Placing carbon in the filter and let it run overnight

or

2. Using a product called Aqua clear



Some people don't like using this product. If your not sure about using it, try the carbon idea first and if that doesn't work try the Magic Clear.

I have used Magic Clear a couple of times and my fish have been fine. Just follow the instructions on the bottle.

I hope this helps

Im sure the pellets sound like you problem. I would do a 40% water change and clean your filter. But the thing that made the biggest difference is using the fish net to remove the largest waste. Just get a normanl fish net and swish it in larges strokes through the water then rince in clean water. after the food messed my tank i spent about half an hour siving the water and hey presto crystal clear. Personally with this problem manually cleaning the water feeld safer than using products.

Thank you both. I think I have some carbon lying around so Ill try that before products. Tank looks a lot better today but not 100% clear. I have 2 filters on the tank which I already cleaned but Ill do it again.

THANK YOU!

i use omega one pellets and i dont have a cloudy water problem. i feed my fish 6 different kinds of food just to switch things around so they wont get bored. and i dont have a problem with cloudy water.

what made my water cloudy is when i add in gravel to my tank. it was barebottom at first, but turned it into gravel because it just looks better to me. and my plant will stay planted instead of tipping on its side when i do water changes.

i rinsed out the gravel the best i can. i at least rinsed out the gravel 10 times already in a bucket. sloshing around the gravel trying to get most of the loose stuff off. and put it into my tank. but it still turned my water cloudy...i thought the settlements will sink and my water would clear, but didnt. i cleaned out my filters and everything, but it still havent cleared up.

im hoping that doing water changes would clear up my water.

I dont have gravel in the tank. Just some large river stones scattered around and some glass shells. I thought the food might have done it because it seems like about the time I started to feed it, the water went cloudy? I feed 3-4 different kinds of foods.

The cloudy water is frustrating, no?

yea, they are annoying. especially you know your water is perfectly fine and cant find the cause for the problem