Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We got a new canister filter this week and since using it the water is alot clearer of poo but now it is very cloudy, despite having done a 1/3 water change. We made sure the filtration media was cleansed of all dust before using it so we have no idea what might be causing this.

If anyone has any suggestions they would be gratefully received.

did you put some of the old media into the new filter to seed other wise you should go to a fish shop and get some bacteria this should help clear the h20

There was no old media to put there as we had an undergravel filter before. We used the original water from the tank to start things off...do we need extra bacteria?

The cloudiness is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a normal part of cycling a tank.

Your best bet would have been to add the cannister WITH the UGF still in place and run them both for a while together, then if you really wanted to, remove the UGF. Personally I find the most amazing filtration is achieved by using a good "polisher" like a cannister, to suck up poop and debris, and a UGF, for the huge bio filtration it adds (with the other filter used with it, the ugf gets very little junk sucked into it). The two work as a team, and you rarely will need to vaccuum the gravel or clean the cannister, the sum of the parts seems to be greater than the value of each.

Overlapping the filters, though, lets biological filtration begin in the cannister before taking it away with the removal of the UGF.

If you are beyond return, you can always just bear with the cannister while it gets cycled. Don't waste money on bacteria. Just run your tank and do not do the partial changes for a while, just wait it out, it will eventually cycle and begin working well (it will bloom a couple of ways first, before it balances)

The undergravel filter is still in place. We haven't physically lifted it out yet, although we removed the tubes and the powerheads, mainly because the powerheads were completely broken. So, I conclude there should be enough stuff in there to help things along. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. It is dying down a little now, as long as it doesn't damage the fish (and hurtle) I don't mind, I am happy to wait it out.