What color is the water in my fish tank supposed to be?
Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at
8:03 am
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Tagged with: 10 gallon tank • amp • bacteria • fish • google • petco • proccess • script type • text javascript • water conditioner
Filed under: Water Filter System
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Its a bacterial bloom and your tank won’t be ready for fish by Friday! You need to test your water, it will only be safe for fish once it’s turning 5ppm of ammonia to 0 within 12 hours, THAT’s how you know a tank is cycled!
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/The_Nitrogen_Cycle
clear
its most likely a bacteria bloom which means the cycling is still going. go to the pet store and buy a test kit and when ammonia and nitrites are at zero you are done cycling. you could start a little early if you plan on buying hardy fish. don’t worry about the bloom. its very normal when starting new tanks and will go away with time.
It should be crystal clear unless you added some kind of vitamins to the water (some people do to keep fish healthy)
If you are on day 4 of "cycling" (it doesn’t sound like you are ACTUALLY cycling, because simply letting the tank run by no means causes it to cycle) why are you buying fish on Friday?
Cycling is a 1-2 month process in most cases. Where did you hear that word? Letting your tank run with nothing in it is not cycling. Do some research; google for "fishless cycling" and find an article on it. You need to add ammonia so that the bacteria have something to eat and will grow into a proper colony that will digest the fish waste in the water. This takes far longer than 1 week unless you have mature media from another fish tank. (No, the "bacteria in a bottle" doesn’t work, there’s nothing living in there since they’ve had no food to eat, they will simply all be dead if there were any there in the first place.)
The water should be clear when the tank is running properly, but it’s quite common for the water to go cloudy during the initial cycling of the tank. You are trying to grow bacteria in the filter, and the nutrient levels are all out of whack. This lets bacteria, algae and diatoms multiply in the water, as well as the filter bacteria that you want.
Leave the tank a bit longer and things should settle down.
Ian
Ok, so the water should be cloudy while it is cycling and once it is done, the water should be clear. I would also purchase an ammonia and nitrite testing kit to test your water. I personally would go to Petco on friday and buy the kit and this product called Stress Zyme, buy the big bottle and fish food and other supplies like nets etc.. So, when you get home on friday, add three pinchfulls of fish food. The next morning, test the water, the ammonia and nitrites should be at zero, if they are not higher than 0 but lower than 1 ppm add 3 capfuls of stress zyme. If it is over 1 ppm then let the tank cycle for 3 more days, adding one pinch of food each day and test the water until the ammonia and nitrite are at zero. Then buy half of the fish that you want unless they are schooling fish then buy all of them. Float them for 20 min then add them to the tank. Once they are in add 4 capfuls of stress zyme. Keep testing your water and if it gets over 1 ppm add stress zyme.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask me.
clear
It is OK for the water to be cloudy during cycling.Those bottles for beneficial bacteria don’t work because bacteria needs air to survive. Only the ones that are stored in refrigerators work. If you want fish by Friday, then get hardy fish that will not die while your tank is cycling. I am positive that if you get weak fish they will die. You will have to wait until the cycling process is done to put non- hardy fish in. Cycling can take anywhere from a few days to 8 weeks but it all depends on your filtration. I recommend some zebra Danios while the tank is cycling. Good Luck
I never put fish in my tanks until the tank has matured for at least 12 weeks.
clear water.
my brother used to keep fish.
as soon as the water went cloudy, he cleaned it.