Hi,

We have one 7 inch tiger oscar in 36 gallon tank, he is 1 year old and is doing fine healthwise, but suddenly his tank has turned cloudy and is not clearing up, we do 10-20% water change weekly and feed him hikari pellets.

We went to the local pet store and they suggested that we use water clarifier but that also has'nt helped and the clousiness is still there.

Can anyone please suggest what can be dine to get the water clear again, this is the first time in 1 year that this has happened.

Thanks

Have you done anything to the filter or changed anything in the tank like gravel maybe?

hi, there.
A 36Gl tank may be a bit small now your Oscar is starting to grow.
You may be pushing the bioload at the moment.
10-20% waterchanges are too small imo.
I think it's best to do a nitrate test and see what those results tell us.

I change 50% of my water weekly, allthough i have a large tank.
What kinda filter do you have and what's the flowrate?

Sounds a bit like a bacterial bloom to me. Have you cleaned your filter, or left it turned off for any period of time?

We changed 40% water and cleaned the gravel with vaccum 7 days before this cloudiness appeared, apart from this we have'nt done anything new recently.

This cloudiness appeared suddendly last week before that tank was very clear.

I'm wondering whether you released on lot of nutrients into the water when you cleaned the gravel, this can sometimes create a bacterial bloom. This often happens when you lose some bacteria due to actions such as turning your filters are for too long. Have you been using a water condition that when you are doing what the changes? I would suggest that you cast your water for ammonia and nitrite. If you don't get any readings than don't worry about it, the cloudiness should disappear. If you do detect some ammonia present then reduce feeding and carry out water changes accordingly until the ammonia completely disappears. And this is white cloudy water, it's not green is it?

a few questions.. wat type of filter are u using? wat do u mean by cloudy? green water, white/grayish water, or lots of particles in ur water? if its green water, theres too much sun light. white/grayish means bacterial bloom(correct me if wrong). if theres too much waste particles means its time to clean ur filter.

Yes we use water condistioner whan we do water change and yes the cloudiness is green in colour. What does this green colour signify and what action can I take to remove it?

Thanks

We use Aqueon power filter and the clodiness is light green in colour. We do 15-20% water change every week and also do vaccum to clean the gravel.

Is your tank in direct sunlight for any part of the day?

as Ofl pointed out, i would first test your tank water for ammonia,nitRITE. this will put us on the right track as to if its a bloom or filter related.

I am thinking like some of the others its to much light or a bloom, maybe cos the nitRATES are very high. so a nitRATE test will give us the answer to that. with such a small take you are not changing enough water per wk. i would look at 20% twice a wk and test to see how it looks after that.


i repeated what ofl said cos I noticed he made a small mistake(cast should have read test) and you may not have understood this.

I checked the water for ammonia/nitrites and they look fine but the nitrates test shows that its on the higher side. We use API test strips to test Ammonia/Nitrtite and Nitrates.
Our tank is kept at some distance from the window, it gets some natural light but no direct sunlight falls on the tank at any hr of the day. Can u please suggest what steps we need to take to remove this cloudiness.

Thanks