Okay so today I went ahead and changed the water in my O's tank, Vacuumed the gravel and changed the filter. Put new water in made sure to put the right amounts of chemicals needed for the change, but my water still looks dirty..... what can I do to remedy this terrible color of brownish water to make it look clearer and cleaner?

My Filter is working fine, the gravel is clean I dont know what to do.please offer up any help you can. Thanks!

Make sure your tank is not near any direct sunlight this promotes large amounts of what is called algae bloom within your water.

If its not algae then you might benefit from adding a fine pad to your filter to remove the smaller debris

When did you last clean the gravel. Did the brownish colour come after doing the gravel clean -did you disturb the muck in the gravel, if this is the case the dirty colour will go as the muck settles.

Did you clean the filter in tank water?

Also so we can rule things out, can you test the water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate please

How long has the tank been running for?

The tank has been running for a while, Like i said I cleaned out the gravel and changed the filter when i changed the water,The tank isnt by a window or any other direct sunlight. Its been about 3 hours since i did the water change. I think it might be my lighting hood that is causing it to look dirty, I have an incandescent light hood which gives off a dull yellow light.

your tank will get dirty fast with that lighting... do you have driftwood in the tank? what % water change did you do? what so call "chemicals" did you use?

Lets start from the bottom and work up.
How big is your tank and how big is your Oscar? What filter are you running and what is its turnover rate? A filter needs to turn over at least twice the amount of water that ur tank holds.
When you say you changed the filter did you completely replace it? Your filter carries all the Beneficial Bacteria (BB's) that destroys the nitrites.
Check your water for Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates and PH and post the results.....
Keep us posted...

Nick24 wrote:


I dont like the change the filter when u cleaned the water... u replaced the filter?? remember the filter contains ur beneficial bacteria.

Lol seems i have some worried people lol. Okay so the tanks 15-20 gallons im pretty sure its 15 though, anyways the oscar is just over 2 inches so not quite time for a 55 gallon yet but im going to get one soon, anyways the chemicals I use are Stress reliever and Aquasafe(which rids the polutants from normal tap water). See i work at Petsmart and I work directly in the fish department and deal directly with the maintenence of the tanks so I know about all the levels and BB and stuff. We have Flourescent light hoods above all of our tanks at work so the tank water looks clear and clean so i think its the lighting i have at home that is making it look dirty since its just incandescent lighting.

The filtration unit is fine, I didnt change all of it just the charcoal(blue)Filter, I left the Bio bristle filter in, it was time for a filter change anyways its been about 3 weeks since ive changed it, and normally a filter is supposed to be changed out once every 2-3 weeks depending on tank size and amount of fish. And I went with a 20% water change.

Like i said i dont know everything but i know a good amount since i work there but there are still things i can learn from long time fish owners, even better that they are Oscar owners, since im still fairly new to owning an oscar.

have you tried to scrub the inner wall of the glass. those slimy materials
inside the glass wall sometimes make the tank look dirty even if it is clear.

The filter in my tank I dont do nothing to it until it starts to show signs of slowing down. That way I know it is needing some of the debris removed.
When I do this I always rinse and squeeze it in TANK water and NEVER under the tap or u will destroy ur BB's. The Bio media, some people never touch it, some may give it a gentle shake again in TANK water.
What is ur turnover rate for your filter?

Keep us posted.... Jamie

well first off my vacuming the gravel you made it alot worse witch is natural and will go down within the day but for your main problem you can go to petsmart or pet co and go to the medicine isle and theres crap that makes ur water clear works everytime just be sure to test your ph nitrates nitrites hardness and all that other stuff

Make sure that you check your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and PH. If your ammonia nitrite are both zero, and your nitrate isn't exceeding 40 ppm then you really don't need to panic because there isn't anything in the tank that is going to put your fish at great risk. Obviously if this is an algae problem then you need to be cautious, especially in warm weather because algae depletes oxygen.

Sometimes it can take a while for water to clear if you have released some debris into it when cleaning. Remember that that will get trapped in the substrate and under rocks. Have you got any wood in your tank? Wood can released tanning into the water wars will make it look dirty in some cases.

Like I said, the absolutely sure that your ammonia and nitrite are at zero, if you have to repeat the test then please do it. Other than that, maybe just leave it for a couple of days and you should find that the water will clear.