cloudy water

[farmhand]

55 Gal tank fully cycled for over a month. 7 young cichlids. Ammonia and Nitate are 0. Natrate around 40 PPM. Sand base put in 3 weeks ago. Cloudy ever since. I cleaned it very well! Have used API Accu-Clear twice and it did not do anything. I do not believe it is algae bloom. I would like to have a clear tank for this weekend company coming. Yesterday changed to a better filter. Suggestions????

[LabTest57]

Your best bet would be to do a 20% to 50% water change. Water changes lower your TDS and improves redox. as well. Colored water can become clear with water changes, while cloudy water is a sign of high organic waste and and other impurities. Better mechanical filtration or a good protein skimmer should help, but water changes make the most improvement in a short amount of time. Note: You will have to balance your GH, KH and PH after large water changes.

Also, a temporary PH fluctuation can be estimated by subtracting the PH of your source water from your aquarium water and multiplying the result by X% water change (e.g. a 25% water change would be 0.25 in place of "X"). The final result is the PH change in you water "temporarily" depending on GH and KH factors - it's more accurate for aquariums with a PH of 7.2 and below. For example, if your PH is 6.8 to 7.0 and you do a 20% water change with a source water PH of 8.4 the result would be a 0.35 to 0.4 PH rise. Although, a high KH and/or GH (especially in saltwater aquariums), would combat that rise/fall in PH.

[Tech Support JS]

farmhand,

In addition to water changes I would suggest using Clarity (http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Clarity.html) which will clear all types of clouding. You will need to use this in conjunction with a fine mechanical filter, and I would recommend going to a craft store or walmart and buying common pillow stuffing to use temporarily to help. After dosing Clarity, change the pillow stuffing out every so often to ensure you clear your tank up as quickly as possible (though depending on your filter still may take a number of hours). Pillow stuffing is cheap and is the best thing I have found to work with Clarity. I hope this helps, and I hope I replied before you company got there!