Who Here Has Crystal Clear Water?

[DennisP]

I am sick of it. When I first set up a tank it is usually very very clear, but after that whenever I clean the tank it turns disgusting with debris everywhere.

Does anyone have crystal clear water?

If you do, please let me know what to do. Admittedly I do have a small filter in the tank but it only has 2 fish in it. (60L tank)

Or is clean water just a myth?

PS: My juwel filter always sends out HEAPS of carp after I turn it off for cleaning. What should I do?

[phoenix44]

I do!

In all my tanks. All are planted. All are well filtered. There will never be so much as a speck of any thing in the water.

Plants usually solve all the problems.

I used carbon in my African tank. Then I used plants. :lol:

[spoon]

more mechanical filtration and higher flow through filter then try finer filter material, there is stuff out there finer than filter wool but will clog easily so more maintianance then if its still not clear enough use carbon as well or even purigen

[MarkLB]

PS: My juwel filter always sends out HEAPS of carp after I turn it off for cleaning. What should I do?

Put a net over the filter outlet when you switch it on to catch the worst of whatever crud comes out.

[Carlos & Siran]

We do, high filtration(AR850 filter + Eheim 2215) and heavily planted. The fishes colours are so bright too, GAE almost glows.

[DennisP]

Interesting. I'll put some filterwool in my crappy little filter.

Depending on the funds I may buy another filter for the juwel.

I find that when the leaves die or break, they crumble and go everywhere! Very annoying!

[henward]

In one tank, i have about 40 fish. Large fish

in another i have 30 fish.

All are crystal clear

No carbon

i do however, in a system of 2500 Litres

have

2x Sump filtration from overflow

1x fluval 404

3x fx5

1x fluval 4 internal

.... so its very clear

its your filtration.

get a canister. Guaranteed will fix it, unless its an algae problem.

[hovmoller]

I agree with you on the juwel filter.. I used one as well and the same would happen.. with that model there is just no good way of preventing carp from blowing out when you restart it... so that's why I cut it out of there!! Gone burger! takes up so much space too and you can never clean behind it!! very inconvenient. Nice tanks though!

I now use an external canister filter... way better.. quite clear water in general although not as clear as P44's tanks... He sets a new standard in clear!

[firenzenz]

I buy a big bag of the filter wool( heavy grade for furniture). I change it on my trickle stlye filters before crud gets to other side. Not sure what style your is. I'd be thinking trickle style would be best for the sort of tank.

I'd dismantle filter also and wash/scrub it in a bucket of tank water. Soak media in tank water as well and clean out crud.

Try a tank full of panaques and 'woody' plecs - you get about a day after water change/filter clean before the whole crud cycle starts again.

[smidey]

i have it & over feed africans, if you set up enough flow toward the filter pickup it should get most of it. if you can't then when you do a water change gravel vac your tank.

[Dave+Amy]

Ours is always crystal clear, heavily feed our discus but also do 60% waterchanges once every 2 days, siphoning everytime.

We've got two canister filters (one does 1500L/h while the other 400L/h)...no carbon either just plenty of bio noodles and mesh layer in each.

[Morcs]

always have crystal clear water

my juwel is a bit of a challenge as the nature of the filters i have are very gentle flow - whearas i generally like to have all the crud blasted around and sucked up.

[Sophia]

I might be misreading your original comment Dennis, but having crystal clear water is not the same as having crap floating about after you disturb the bottom when cleaning... do you gravel vac? Do you swish all the stuff up? How do you get the water out when doing a change? If the bottom never gets disturbed in cleaning then no you won't see any debris floating around. I have always had clear water, maybe verging on yellowy with the ferts I use, and when I get the siphon going it stirs up the bottom. It calms down again after a while and the debris settles in the corners or wherever.

[foamy]

more mechanical filtration and higher flow through filter then try finer filter material, there is stuff out there finer than filter wool but will clog easily so more maintianance then if its still not clear enough use carbon as well or even purigen

if you want your tank to be crystal clear try purigen from seachem! you will be amaze by its result and is one of a cheat form in getting clear water:) hehe :lol:

[Kipper]

Hi dennisisawesome.

I've got a tank a bit smaller than yours (43L excuding gravel etc) with an undergravel filter and the water is crystal clear....touch wood Sounds corny, but the fish do look like they are swimming in air...just need to get rid of the algae growing on some of the plants.

It is well-planted (and has some nice recent additions thanks to P44 ) and fully stocked (12x dwarf rasboras; 6x cardinals; 2x honey gouramis; 3x otos) with DIY CO2 and CFL lights. Only issues I've had was when I over-fed the fish (led to a bit of algae in conjunction with the lights), or when I had goldfish in there prior to going tropo...got very murky. I do two 20% water changes a week and fish out any leaf material with a net...although crumbling plants is not an issue, they are in jungle mode at the moment Every couple of months I poke a syphon down the UGF uprisers so suck out goo during a water change although that will become less effective as the plant roots build up down there. I NEVER gravel vac but will syphon up uneaten food if I spot any when doing a water change. Gravel vacuuming in the days before plants left the water murky for about a day or so.

So, in short, a low flow UGF is working really nicely in a well-planted tank, and it seems that the plants buffer the whole system really well as the pH of tank has moved from 5 to 6-6.5 after plant growth has gone mad following the addition of lights and CO2.

[David R]

Nature doesn't have crystal clear water. Thats my excuse/reasoning..... :lol:

[supasi]

Nature doesn't have crystal clear water. Thats my excuse/reasoning..... :lol:

Nature does so....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_Waikoropupu_Springs

[David R]

I'm not doing a pupu springs biotope though.

Awesome spot, would love to check it out some day

[hovmoller]

If you do David then bring wetsuit + snorkling gear... You can snorkle down the river there and see lots of things like trout and little crayfish etc.. also just hanging on to an underwater branch while the current is trying to rip you apart is pretty cool!

You used to be able to snorkle in the spring it self as well but I think they have banned that due to risk of introducing new species of algae etc. (probably Didimo)

[burrowssj]

as others have said, I find having plants helps alot, big tall ones are the best...

also try not cleaning your filter for a month or 2.. because if you clean it to often it won't do you much good, but you also don't want it to be clogged. I've got an overstocked 170L tank with a 150L filter an its been doing really well over the last 2 weeks because I haven't cleaned it in quite a while. seems to get better filtration the dirtier it is O_O

[Stella]

PS: My juwel filter always sends out HEAPS of carp after I turn it off for cleaning. What should I do?

Hmm, try removing the pair of breeding adult carp from your filter :lol: :lol:

This is a handy trick:

1: remove a little bit of water, just enough to rinse the filter

2: rinse filter and reconnect, BUT remove the outlet pipe from the tank and aim it into a big bucket

3: turn filter on, all the gungy water out of the filter goes straight into the bucket and becomes a water change.

You shouldn't need to maintain your filter very often though. Over-cleaning limits the amount of bacteria in the filter, which limits filtration capacity.