Urgent Help Needed!!! Fishie Lives At Stake Here!!!!

[viachinski]

HELP! My water is super super merky/cloudy. I just did a cleaning yesturday, it was a fairly major cleaning.. but still, is this normal??!
I am worried... the tank is really really couldy!
Please help me!!!!

[jediinthedark]

Cloudy water due to sediment stir-up will not hurt your fish.
But we need to figure out what's going on. Here are a lot of questions that would be helpful to have the answers to.

How long has your tank been up and running?
When you did your major cleaning how did you clean your filter?
What were the steps in your major cleaning?
Does the cloudy water look like mud or milk?
How quickly did it cloud?
Did you heavily stir up the gravel while cleaning?
What kind of gravel do you have? If it's an aquarium soil did you rinse it before adding it to the tank?

[nrstype]

I'm guessing since it was a "Major Cleaning", you are now experiencing a normal bacterial bloom, a whitish, cloudy or murky appearance, that normally goes away after about 2 - 3 days.

This happens when a I'm guessing since it was a "Major Cleaning", you are experiencing now experiencing a normal bacterial bloom, a whitish murky appearance, that normally goes away after about 2 - 3 days.

This happens when a significant amount of the good bacteria are removed/exported or destroyed, due to a "major cleaning".

HINTS TO AVOID THIS FROM HAPPENING: Be careful of cleaning everything, in detail, at the same time. You want to maintain your biological colonies that are good for the tank, which are everywhere, on surfaces and more.

IF>> You 'HAVE' to do a highly detailed cleaning (because the filth is just bad everywhere), the BEST way to clean, is in portions, especially when your cleaning EVERYTHING. This will help avoid a bacterial bloom, and a mini cycle from occurring.

Vac out the gravel and do a water change, then a few days later, clean the filter (don't touch the biological media, if any... keep that in the aquarium water until your filter is set up again after the cleaning and running, then replace). If you have to clean out anything artificial (driftwood, plastic plants, etc.) then do it after that. Or whatever combination floats the boat.

This is normal, just the tanks way of getting back into sync.

It would be wise to check your ammonia and nitrite levels if you see this happening after a cleaning. Your fish could become stressed, but luckily, tanks tend to bounce back quicker with a mini~cycle than a full blown REBOOT of the tank cycle process. Hopefully, your tank will recover quick. Relax a bit, and let the tank do its thing. As long as your fish are swimming and acting normal/eating, then you will notice an improvement in the cloudiness in about 2 - 3 days.

Good luck.

[sphenta]

What I do is clean half the tank one water change and the other half of the tank the next water change. I clean my filter on a whole seperate day. It works well for me.

[viachinski]

Thanks everyone...
I think we are ok now...
The last two replies seemed to be dead on....
I over-cleaned!!
I won't do it again... I promiss!!!!