Cloudy Water, Filter Dirty, Tank Running 4 Days

Hi--Just set up a ten gallon tank. No fish in it as of yet. Has been running since Friday. Today I got the LED light on the filter to change the filter, pulled it out and it was incredibly dirty. The water is very cloudy, even though we put conditioner in it (came with the aquarium). I changed out the filter and it's running, but still cloudy. I'm not sure what to do, and my local store isn't a lot of help. Any ideas or thoughts? I read the water can go cloudy as the tank cycles, but four days seems like a very short period to have to replace a filter.

 

Hi--Just set up a ten gallon tank. No fish in it as of yet. Has been running since Friday. Today I got the LED light on the filter to change the filter, pulled it out and it was incredibly dirty. The water is very cloudy, even though we put conditioner in it (came with the aquarium). I changed out the filter and it's running, but still cloudy. I'm not sure what to do, and my local store isn't a lot of help. Any ideas or thoughts? I read the water can go cloudy as the tank cycles, but four days seems like a very short period to have to replace a filter.

what kind of substrate are you using?

 

Did you dirt the tank? What is the filter media, and does it have carbon in it? Personally, I've had to deal with cloudy water for a few days in newly set up tanks, but I've never had that sort of issue with a filter.

 

Did you dirt the tank? What is the filter media, and does it have carbon in it? Personally, I've had to deal with cloudy water for a few days in newly set up tanks, but I've never had that sort of issue with a filter.

Yes, the filter issue is strange. I've never had that happen before either (this isn't my first tank). It does have carbon in it. I have this filter:

what kind of substrate are you using?

Rocks from Petco.

 

the only substrate ive bought is sand, so I don't know if you have to wash rocks but I would assume so. I do know that if you don't wash the sand all the dirt etc gets stired up and stays a while. luckily I washed the out of it.

 

the only substrate ive bought is sand, so I don't know if you have to wash rocks but I would assume so. I do know that if you don't wash the sand all the dirt etc gets stired up and stays a while. luckily I washed the out of it.

Yep, I washed them until the water ran clear and all the dust/dirt was gone.

Here's a not so great pic to show you all what I'm talking about.

 

Yep, I washed them until the water ran clear and all the dust/dirt was gone.

that's strange. did you check the filter media? perhaps you should wash them out in a bucket since you are just starting out it probably wouldnt be a problem since you probably haven't or just started your cycle and wouldnt have much of a set back should any beneficial bacteria be living in your media

 

Thanks. I'm going to read up further on this tomorrow and see what I can do.