smillermom

Hi! I am having a prob with water in my tanks looking dirty. It has a murky quality to it. I did change the filters a week ago but only because of the water quality. There are a lot of diatoms in one tank and I scrubbed the decor today. Love some help. please! Ph is 7.6, nitrites/ammonia are 0. Do not have a kit to check the ntirates. Both tanks have been up and running fully cycled and filled with fish since Feb, 06.

Gunnie

You probably threw something out of balance when you changed all your filter media. I'm surprised you are not experiencing a mini cycle. The diatoms are ugly but will pass.

Mike

Hi smillermom,

What types of foods are you using?

smillermom

Hi! I am using omega freshwater flakes and have cut the feedings down to once a day. It could be a mini cycle but the water does not have a cloudy look to it, just murky. If it is, how do I alleviate this in the future?

Gunnie

If you have more than one filter running on that tank, only replace filter media when necessary, and only to 1 filter at a time. If possible, continue to clean your filter media by swishing it around in old tank water, and don't replace it until the water can no longer pass through it at an acceptable flow rate.

If you only have 1 filter in the tank, take a piece of the dirty media and either put it in your new media pouch to "seed" the new media, or if this isn't possibly, try and place the new media in front of the old media so the bacteria can transfer to the new media.