by Catherine M. Harris

Created on: October 25, 2008   Last Updated: December 09, 2010

You set up your tank, your fish and swimming happily and a week later you can barely see them. How do you fix this? Well, fixing it depends on on what caused it.

The important thing to remember about an aquarium is that it is a self contained ecosystem and in order for it to work properly everything needs to be in balance.

When you first set up the aquarium, if you don't rinse the gravel, small particulate can enter the water. Even if you do rinse it, there still may be some rock dust so it is important that when you set up the tank, you allow a couple of days for the water to be cleaned by the filter for a few days to remove this particulate, and also to ensure that chemical are also filtered out and the temperate gets set properly.

Once that is done and the fish are introduced, cloudy water is usually a combination of dirty water and temperature. If the water is quite warm algae will grow. For this reason you either need chemicals to keep the water clear or algae eaters like snails and bottom feeding fish. Even with that, the water can still be cloudy.

Regular cleaning of the filter and replacing the charcoal will help. If it doesn't, it's likely that's because there's too much vegetation and rotting food. Plants are essential for oxygenation and providing extra food for the fish, but if they aren't kept trimmed and the dead leaves removed they will start to rot and that will cause a deterioration in water quality.

The number one cause of cloudy water is too much food. If you have a regular cleaning schedule and a filter and algae eaters, then this is likely the cause. Extra food will rot and cloud the water. In warmer temperatures, the more the food will rot and the cloudier the water will be.

So the answer is: regular cleaning of the gravel, watching how much you feed, removing dead vegetation, cleaning the filter, and ensuring there are bottom feeders and snails (nature's filters), making sure the water temperature isn't too hot and the water will stay clear.

Making sure the water is clear and old food and vegetation and waste isn't left in the tank long enough to cloud the water also has a benefit in that it will help keep fish healthy; poor water quality and temperature leads to diseases like ich. It is also important to remember that fish breathe through their gills and cloudy water invariably means that they will be getting insufficient oxygen and may die or not thrive as well as in properly cleaned tanks.

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