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after thoroughly cleaning the tank with the gravel vacuum and a large water change the water in my 2.5 gallon tank is still cloudy. is there anything i can do to clear it up aside from removing the fish and starting over completely? side by side with the betta tank you can see how cloudy the water is.

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Hi,
In a tank that has cycled, white cloudy water, such as what we see in your tank is usually a symptom of bacteria in the water.

In a newly set up tank, it is normal and should clear up over time with filtration, circulation, and partial water changes.

You have probably disrupted the balance ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate in the tank.

Read this:
http://fishprofiles.com/faq/begin-cycling.php

Don't worry, you are going through what every new fishkeeper goes through as they learn some of the finner points of fish keeping.

Stick with skimpy feedings remembering that a fish's stomach is roughly the size of its eye! Don't over feed. They can be like dogs...eat anything that they can, and as much as they can.

Stick with regular water changes. They eliminate urine and solid waste and, they live in it. In nature, their "tanks" have regular "water changes" through rains, melting snow, and any feeding streams or springs. In the home, we have to do it with regular water changes. 10 to 50% water change is fine. Just be sure to match the water temperatures. In between water changes you can top off for evaporation. But... Remember that all you are doing is replacing the evaporated water. The waste products and other toxins DO NOT evaorate. Instead they become more and more concentrated until you actually CHANGE the water.

When you clean a tank so throughly as you just have you kill of much of the bacteria in the tank that maintains the Nitrogen Cycle. That means that the tank has to recycle back to normal. From the beginning, establishing the Nitrogen Cycle in a new tank can take 4-6 weeks. In an established tank, it can take just a couple of weeks.

Your tanks look quite nice. That is an interesting contrast between the colors of the plants and gravel. The eye is immediately drawn to the bright gravel and then notices the reds, pinks, and greens of the plants. Unless they move, the fish are sort of lost in all the rest of the colors.

This is an absolutely fascinating hobby where we learn geology, chemistry, botany, biology, and even interior decorating! Have fun.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

thanks for the advice. im afraid i panicked today as youll see or already have seen in my other post asking if my guppy was sick. hopefully i didnt do any permanent harm. thanks for the complement about my tanks. i made a small modification to the undergravel filter by snipping off that corner so that it isnt poking up out of the gravel. i was going for the effect of having a pretty decoration to sit next to my desk so thats why i went with the bright, contrasting colors. and the guppies, being as active as they are, also keep the neons active. now that i know not to panic again in the future i think this will be a very healthy, active and pleasing tank to look at.

Hi,
I'm not sure what you are saying about snipping off the undergravel filter so it is not projecting above the gravel.
If you are talking about the "riser" which is the plastic tube that the bubbles travel up from under the UGF toward the surface. That modification will affect the whole filter and how it works. The bubble(s) travel up the tube and create a slight vacuum causing the water to travel down through the gravel and across the tank under the plate, and then up the riser to escape back into the tank. The tube is a specific length to provide the necessary difference in pressure to cause the water to travel down through the gravel into the space below the filter plate and then up the tube back into the tank. It sounds like you have drastically altered its length and reduced it's "lift."

Most folks just hide the heater and filter tubes with plants or some ornament(s).

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

look in the bottom left corner closest to the camera in the 2.5 gallon dome face. youll see the corner of the black panel of the under gravel filter popping up.

after ive established a nitrogen cycle will water changes still be necessary?

Hi,
Unfortunately, Yes, the water changes remain necessary. Live plants will help control the nitrate, but the point remains that the fish are trapped in a container with no way to refresh the water. Depending upon your bioload ( how many fish are in the container) you should do a 10-50% water change weekly.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

ok thats no big deal. unfortunately the guppy that wasnt eating died overnight so at the moment i have 4 small fish in the tank. once i have a few bucks ill get 2 more guppies so they can school. with 6 small fish in a 2.5 gal tank would 30% changes be about right? also i want to get 2 cherry shrimp to help keep the bottom of the tank clean. that should help with how much nitrite is released due to decomposing food.

Hi,
Guppies are not the "Hardy" fish that many folks think they are. They actually have very narrow requirements for them to thrive in. Among them, they are livebearers, and prefer water that is has a pH above 7.0.. On the other hand, Neons are also not all that hardy, and come from the Amazon River where the water's pH should be below 7.0.....See a problem?

What is good for one species, will shorten the lifespan of the other. It's time to look at "Compatibly" as one of the things that determines what fish should be kept with others before purchasing them.

I'd stick with the neons. A nice small school of them would provide plenty of color, and activity. The cherry shrimp are good as well, but I'd probably have three to five in the tank. Again, check on the requirements of the shrimp before you make an expensive mistake. Be sure the pH, and temperature requirements overlap those of the centeral focus of the tank, the neons.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

once i have some money ill get a test kit and test the water and research their water parameters. so far they seem to be healthy and active. ill also research the water parameters of the shrimp before i buy any. could i keep the Ph at 7 for a good happy middle?

just tested my water in the 2.5 gal tank. general hardness is 60 ppm, carbonate hardness is 120 ph, is a perfect 7, nitrite is .5, and nitrate is 20.it didnt test for ammonia but considering how low the nitrite level is im sure the ammonia level is also very low. this makes me feel very good about my tank. i feel like im doing something right,

with the ph being exactly where i wanted it, and the nitrite and nitrate levels being very low, i had absolutely no problem with adding that last 2 fish to my tank that ive been wanting. a beautiful sunset orange guppy, and a blue and white tuxedo guppy with a red tail. i absolutely love the way the way they stand out among the other colors in the tank. in the betta tank i also added a golden apple snail.

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i do have one question concerning the apple snail. after testing the water in the betta tank to find that it is very similar to the 2.5 gal tank, i found that the ph was 6. i know that a betta will adapt to pretty much any ph so i need to get the ph to 7.5 or 8 for the snail. would it be ok to use baking soda to do this? if not then its going to be about a week before i can buy a product to help me out.

HI,
Go to your local fish store where you have been buying the fish and tanks, and ask for some crushed coral. When you get it, put it in the tank with your betta. The crushed coral is Calcium Carbonate and will take care of your pH and hardness. It will bring your hardness up and your pH will approach or hit an 8. Since the tank is so small, the dealer may even give you a handful or two for free.

Go back and read about the nitrogen cycle. Your tank is not cycled until your Ammonia is 0, and your nitrite is 0.
In some townships, an ammonia reading of .25 is acceptable
and the reading is because of the chemicals that they use to process the water. BUT, the nitrite should always be 0.
A nitrate reading 20 is "sky high" for a tank with no live plants in it. In a tank with live plants, we try to maintain a nitrate reading around 10. For any other tank the reading should be nearly zero to 5. High nitrate readings are caused by over feeding, something dead in the tank, not enough water changes or not a high enough percentage of water changed out per change, and dead decaying food in the gravel.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

there is a live plant in the tank. i have a cyperus helferi in it. but ok. ill start doing some larger water changes. i change 20% every 3rd or 4th day. how much larger and how more frequent should the water changes be?

Hi,
Here's the problem, you have what is called a "Nano" tank. It's not a real bad, insurmountable problem, but it does pose difficulities that larger tanks don't. Mainly, anything that goes wrong in a nano tank is "a crisis," where in a much larger tank it is just "a problem."

For instance, lets say you have a 30G tank, and a couple of neon tetras die and the currents move the bodies in among the plants. Let's say you are busy and the next day when you feed the fish, you are in a rush, you feed them and go about your business. You don't notice that you are missing a fish or two for a couple of days. Even then you figure they may be swimming behind the plants or an ornament. Meanwhile the bodies are rotting in the tank. In a 30G tank, the increase in toxins and the changes in the water chemistry can negligible. You go hunting for the missing fish, and depending upon its tankmates, you may or may not find it. You do a 10 or 20% water change and the problem is resolved.
In your nano tank, in 24 hours, your water can turn white cloudy from the bacteria bloom caused by the rotting fish, and the tank is poluted. You have to find what is left of the dead fish and remove it, and do a major water change immediately. You have to dilute the "poisons" in the water before the other fish, who are already suffering the effects, become sick and they too start to die. But, when you do a major water change, you have to match the temperatures within 2 degrees, and you may have to remove the fish (net them) to place them in another container while you clean out the gravel, the sides of the tank, and replace the filter material. Then reassemble everything. Then the next day another water change, and the next day, and perhaps the next. Every time you net and/or move the fish from one container to another you run the very real possibility of the fish becoming infected with the parasite, Ich. The net will abrade some of the mucus coating from the body of the fish leaving the possibility of Ich. Every time you remove a fish from one container to another it stresses the fish, and again, you run the possibility of an Ich breakout.

This is why, whenever you read any book on starting up an aquarium, virtually every author says something like, "Buy the largest aquarium you can" Or "the largest aquarium that fits where you want to have one." Many recommend a minimum of 30G for the "first tank." Large aquariums are very forgiving of the mistakes of newcomers, and even oldtimers to the hobby. Nano's are not. You can do alot with a nano tank. You would be amazed to see some of the award winning tanks that will cause you to stare stunned at them. You just have to not cram them with fish, and stay "on top" them when it comes to cleaning, and the balance between "just enough, and too much."

Click on the link and then "roll" your cursor over the pictures, and dream.

http://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=beautiful+freshwater+nano+aquarium+pictures&v_t=keyword_rollover

Now, all that being said (I pulled a Dennis Miller on you)
lets see what we can do. First, we need to get that water cleared up, and in the process, we need to get that nitrogen down as well. When I said a nitrate of 5-10 for a planted tank. I meant a "planted tank" like a jungle so to speak, not "A" plant. The plant will get plenty of nutrients from your tank with even a nitrate reading of zero, but trying to maintain that will be a daily chore and that's not always practical. So, we can shoot for a 5-10.

Now, you already said that you have removed and cleaned the gravel. So that part is done. When you did that you scrubbed most of the nitrifying bacteria off of the surfaces of each grain of gravel. If you cleaned the insides if the tank, you cleaned off the nitrifying bacteria that was growing there. If you cleaned the filter and replaced the filter material you threw away even more of the nitrifying bacteria. The result is that the tank will need to recycle. If it were already cycled, and the Ammonia read zero, and the Nitrite read zero, and the nitrate read something above zero, then the tank was cycled. In my last post, I mentioned that if the ammonia reads something low, like .25, as long as the nitrite is zero, and the nitrate is above zero, the tank is cycled. The reason I say that is that the test kits read all forms of ammonia. The water treatment plant treats the water with chlorine, and chloramine. When you add chlorine remover, it neutralizes both by changing the chlorine compound to another compound of chlorine that is not toxic to the fish. When you test for ammonia it will "read" the chloramine (a compound of chlorine and ammonia) and give you a false ammonia reading. If you don't realize this you drive yourself nuts trying to get rid of that last .25 Ammonia reading thinking that the tank is not yet fully cycled, when in fact, IF the nitrite reading is zero AND the nitrate reading is above zero, the tank is cycled.

With all that cleaning, and the "White" cloudy water, I think your tank is going through a "mini cycle." I'd feed spareingly(sp) and continue the water changes, say twice a week, until it clears up.

I know this is a large post, but I wanted put alot of information into it so you would learn some stuff and not become dejected as you seemed to go from one problem to another.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

thank you very much for the help. when i broke down my tank to get it cleared up the only thing i did to get rid of the bacteria was clean the gravel. i did not replace or clean the filter material, nor did i clean the inside of the tank. i kept about a liter of the old water and added it back to the new water as a starter culture. ever since i did that i havent had a single problem with keeping the water clear just by performing the 20% changes every few days. i actually just filed for my tax return a few days ago so hopefully in a week or so ill have about 200 dollars to spend on a big tank. i think the major problem i was having with the tank before i disassembled it was that i was over feeding the fish. neons and guppies are both active fish, and i knew beforehand that active fish need to be fed a little more. i went from 4 moderate feedings before to 3 smaller feedings. not nearly as much food is on the bottom of the tank now and after a week since the breakdown of the tank. once i have a few shrimp and possibly a snail in the 2.5 gal tank they should clear up anything else thats on the gravel before it even has a chance to start decomposing. yesterday when you told me that the nitrates were way too high i did an immediate water change in both tanks. i changed 4 liters in the 2.5 and 2 liters in the 1.5 betta tank. unfortunately one of the 2 guppies i bought yesterday died i really dont know what happened unless it was just stress. he only swam at the surface of the water, he wouldnt eat and his mouth was constantly hanging slightly open. after that he began to corkscrew through the water and thats when i knew he was dying. i did all the research i could to see if there was anything at all i could have done for him only to find out that there wasnt. at that point i decided to euthanize him. with some research i found that a very common and seemingly painless way to euthanize a fish is by putting him in a bag with water in the freezer. once the temperature gets low enough he slips into a coma and dies painlessly in his sleep.it was a hard decision to make and i hated doing it but i hated watching him suffer in the cup i had him quarantined in.

instead of constantly having to buy test kits for my aquarium, are there any kind of electronic tools i can use that will give me a constant digital readout of the current tank parameters? if there are, are they worth the money it would take to buy them?

Hi,
You can test for almost anything electronically, but few budgets, save for a lab, can afford it.

I have a "Pinpoint" pH monitor but I purchased it because I was injecting gaseous CO2 into the tank to promote plant growth and that can affect the pH of the tank nearly instantly.

I'd check the ads in the trade magazines such as Tropical Fish Hobbyist (THF) or go to one of the online vendors such as DrsFosterSmith.com

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

excellent. thank you