Cloudy Water

[newtofish]

New to fish just recently got my tank (55 Gallon). filled it up with black top fin rocks (rinsed before putting in). 2 peices of drift wood (rinsed before putting in). All plants are fake but were rinsed as well. Currently I have a marineland penguin 350 bio-wheel filter. my water was crystal clear that day. Then yesterday I bought some fish. 2 bala sharks maybe 3" and 2 rainbow sharks maybe just 1". fed them before i went to sleep and they ate most of the food. went to sleep and woke up this morning and the water was cloudy and I have no idea as to why. the filters were brand new not even run for a full day. so i took them out and rinsed them off and put them back in. someone help.

[Sniperelite8243]

im assuming by your name this is your first tank so lets start from the beggining

-DON'T ADD MORE FISH
with that said did you cycle your tank, if not look at the sticky cycling your tank. the water could be cloudy because you just filled it but also because there is driftwood. you should soak driftwood in a bucket for a week or more to make sure it doesnt cloud the water. very rarely you add fish to a brand new tank. you already put to many fish in your tank

-never rinse off your filter when your cycling your tank,
it just takes that much longer to cycle. so does doing water changes to your tank. but you no longer have that choice because there are fish in there. do a 30% water change a week to keep the ammonia down. also to keep the nitrItes and nitrAtes down.

-if any of the fish die do not run out and replace them, your just making the fishes enviroment alot worse. even if you mean well. it just makes the fish more stressed out.

sharks are tropical fish. do you have the right equipment to keep tropical fish. airstone, airpump. heater. water

do you have the required testing kits
ammonia
nitrates
nitrites
ph
ect
all these test kits will tell you how your fish are doing. are they on the edge of death or are they thriving and having a happy healthy life.

within the 1rst week ammonia should be your biggest problem. but as time progresses nitrates and nitrites will start to show. all these are lethal to fish. so is to high ph. to cold or to warm water. unless your water paramiters a perfect for your fish 3 things could happen to them

-they could ultimatly die
-they could live a stressfull life and leave them open to dieseses. ick for example is very popular in tropical freshwater aquariums. so on and so on. desieses could take a heavy toll on your fish and even with this option in the end they will most likely die.

im not trying to talk you out of the hobby, on the contrary im just trying to make this a easier and smoother experience for you and the fish.

-with the right water conditions your fish will thrive and so will your plants if you decide to get live plants sooner or later, maybe never. most people are discouraged and quit the hobby because they do not know about the cycling process and all there fish die. when you follow the right rules and keep your aquariums paremiters right this is a very fun hobby.

Fish keeping is a very fun and intertaining hobby to have, but in order to have this hobby you need to have alot of patience, well...most of the patience is to get through the cycling process. but once the cycling process is over its just pure fun. untill cleaning day, even then its worth it. cycling takes at the minimum of a month. don't worry you only have to cycle it once unless you completely take apart the tank.

welcome to the forums, good luck
&
don't forget to have fun

[Tommy Gun]

Welcome to the forum! It is really good to meet you and I hope that we can help you out as much as possible! This forum is chalk full of very experienced and knowledgeable people who will do their best to help you out! Keep in mind that you can get FREE information here, so it is usually given with the best of intentions and no one is seeking money from you...which in my opinion, makes it all that much more trustworthy!

I bring this up because, like Sniper points out as judging from your name and the description of your situation, you probrably got all the info from an LFS, correct? While I would not say that ALL stores are bad, or that every employee is going to tell you half-truths to get you to buy something, they are also looking at you as a source of income and, in my opinion right now, they have set you up to become a repeat customer without you even knowing it.

Sniper is right about the wood...you should soak it in a bucket for a period of time and keep changing the water until it remains absolutely clear. Wood will leach a lot of 'tannins" (sp?) into your water, which can lead to a cloudy water situation...which could be one of your problems.

Another thing could be the lack of having the proper benificial bacteria in your tank to remove the wastes your newly aquired fish are putting into the water. The wastes are going to break down into ammonia, and one type of benificial bacteria is going to 'eat' the ammonia and make nitrItes from that. As your tank progresses, another benificial bacteria will 'eat' the nitrItes and make nitrAtes...these you can take out of the water via a water change. At any rate, the ammonia and nitrItes are very toxic to your fish, even in small amounts and so it is imperative that you test the water for them as soon as you can before your fish die or get sick! For the long term, I would get all the tests that Sniper points out. They are relatively cheap for as helpful as they are, I think anyone would agree with that on this site or any other.

I wanted to chime in not to just repeat what Sniper has said...all of his advice is sound in my opinion...however, I wanted to bring up another point and that is both of the two types of fish you have are really not the best to cycle a tank with...they are not very hardy, or at least not enough to withstand a cycling period...but also because #1, the bala sharks are going to get way too large for your tank (they top out at over a foot long, believe it or not) and #2, it is always best to keep only ONE rainbow shark in a tank because they are territorial and aggressive to their own species as well as other fish that are very similar looking such as the red-tailed black shark (RTBS). I think that depending on how you much learn from the cycling 'sticky' that is located in this forum here: http://www.fishtankforums.com/5-fres...-aquarium.html , you may have a good situation in which you can just return the fish you added recently and go with a fishless cycle, or at very least get some more appropriate fish that are much more hardy and suitable in size for your tank. Of course, all of us on this forum, and most any other forum as well, are pretty familiar with the 'shock' that most new aquarists go through once they realize that keeping fish is a bit more complicated than it was first thought to be, but trust me, no one here would lead you astray and things are really not overly hard to understand nor is keeping a fish tank too much work. It is just a little bit harder to start a tank up than just filling it with water and decorating it.

If you have ANY questions, feel free to ask and I am sure that you will get your answers or at least get pointed in the right direction!

[BJP]

Welcome, you have a lot of good advice already that I agree with from Tommy and Sniper. I do have to point out one small point I disagree with.

-never rinse off your filter when your cycling your tank,

I want my bacteria to develop in places that are going to be permanent homes for them. If your filter cartidge is designed to be rinsed or replcaed eventually then rinse it when needed or replace it when needed. Especially if your ammonia and or nitrite get out of hand and some reduction is needed to the source. If I allow a portion of my bacteria to develop on nasty cartridges or the food and waste particles trapped in it then remove it later on to rinse or replace I'm taking that much bacteria away and the tank will have to replace it to once again be fully cycled. I've talked to a lot of people who never touched their tanks until after they thought the cycle was complete just to have a spike after the first servicing.

[newtofish]

ok, so i read through the sticky about cylcling. but now im torn by decisions. do i leave my fish in the tank and cycle and have the high chances of them dieing. or should i do somthing i really dont want to do and that is stop feeding them and let them die off and then cycle with house hold ammonia? and im not sure if this matters or not but it might just be because there used to the tank. but last night (the night they were added) really only 1 bala was really active the other 3 fish were kind of claiming territory in plants and what not. but now all of them are swimming around extremely fast just back and forth and riding the currents from my filter, swimming up walls and then darting back down to the bottom and swimming back up them again. are they sick?

[Tommy Gun]

stop feeding them and let them die off and then cycle with house hold ammonia

This is not the only option...you can always return them to the store that you bought them at or even another. All the stores in my area will take fish either for store credit, or just as a 'donation', which either case would be better than even if you tried to cycle the tank with these fish, in my opinion, and I think a lot of others would agree with me here.

The household ammonia needs to be "pure" ammonia, dont forget that part! You can usually find it at a drugstore, like Walgreens (I notice you are in illinios, and since they are all over Wisconsin, I would think they would be there as well, if they are not a national store...which I never thought to ask about!). If you shake up the bottle and there is no foam or bubbles, then you know it is pure. Ammonia Hydroxide is exactly what you are looking for in fact. Usually a good LFS will also carry it or you can buy it online.

[newtofish]

well i just went out to petsmart and got some salt, some cycle, and a test kit for everything. ill keep you guys posted on what goes down in my tank.

[BJP]

I agree that you'd be better off long term taking the time to cycle without fish and having time to learn the basics, research your future fish aquisitions and get some hands on experience with test kits and maintainence even if it means giving a couple fish back to a store for free.

If you do choose to keep the fish you have options.

The fish don't have to starve to death. get the test kits and feed tiny meals once a day until the ammonia and nitrite get out of hand. then don't feed until you have the numbers low and safer. The fish want starve if they're healthy now.

You can also try to aquire aged filter material, aged gravel or such from a friends tank or the store.

You can add live plants. They may bring bacteria in with them and if they grow thet replace some of the bacteria you'll need by removing ammonia.

There's also one "instant" suppliment sold called Bio-Spira that may give you enough of the correct bacteria types now to avoid a disaster. It or any other product in the future that achieves instant or anything close to that can help save fish now but they do nothing to help you develop long term success skills like fishless cycling would.

Good luck with whatever path you choose. I'm sure someone here will be glad to help with any of the options.

[BJP]

If you haven't opened them, Petsmart may take the salt and Cycle back for store credit. The Cycle will give you no real help in my experience and you should already have salt in your kitchen.

[Sniperelite8243]

You can also try to aquire aged filter material, aged gravel or such from a friends tank or the store.

if i may, let me add to that. if you have the choice of this. make sure that whatever you get does not come from a tank that has a desiese in it, or just got over it. then the chances of your fish dieing increases, and also to more fish when you get them.