Ok, we've had our 29 gallon tank set up for about 4 weeks. We let it cycle for one week before putting in one glass catfish and our pleco. two days later, we added two small tinfoil barbs, and two days later added our small oscar. Since then, we've also added a raphael catfish and a pictus cat. The cloudiness went away for a time but then came back and has stayed cloudy. We have a Penguin 200 bio wheel filter and have done one 15% water change.

It seems like nothing we do will make the cloudiness go away. Our other tanks have all been crystal clear, but this is the first we've had problems with. I don't believe it has anything to do with over feeding.

We feed them frozen bloodworms in the morning (all of which get eaten right away) and then the occasional freeze dried blood worms or vitamin enriched flakes (mainly for the tinfoils and cats) in the afternoon/night.

Anyone have an idea of what's going on?

Cloudy water is caused by a bacteria explosion in the tank. These bacteria are potentially dangerous to the fish as they consume lots of oxygen. That's why you often see fish gasping at the surface in poorly filtered and polluted tanks. This is down to either overfeeding, inadequate biological filtration, or both. It takes at least a month for a biological filter to become stable enough to cope with the waste products of the fishes and any uneaten food, so i would say your filter system is struggling. I would say it's now trying to catch up and process all the waste, so as long as you keep feeding the fish twice a day, your filter is struggling to keep up. Test the nitrite (NO2) in the water - anything over 0.3 mg/L is not good news for your fish. If you have a nitrite reading, i would do daily water changes, between 10 and 25% i would say, to dilute the toxins down and feed VERY VERY LIGHTLY every few days or so. Remember to use dechlorinator! You will need to monitor the water conditions closely until it settles down. I think you will have more problems to deal with in the near future with the fish you have as well. When your Oscar and Tinfoils start to out grow the tank, which will be very soon, then you will have to either move them on or get a bigger tank. Your bio wheel filter will not be able to cope at all with the waste generated by these fish - especially the Oscar, and watch he dosen't eat the glass catfish!

Hi, just joined this forum. I have recently had the same problem with my 32 gallon aquarium. But first, is the cloudiness milky, or is it green? If it's a milky cloudiness, you can go to an aquarium store and buy Pro-Clear, that should get rid of the white cloudiness. If it's a green, like I had, you have water-born algea causing the problem. There's two ways to fix this. The first way, is to go to the fish store and buy an ultra-violet light, which will kill the algea. This will cost you at least $150. The second way, is to cover your tank completely for one week, blocking out all light. As algea needs light to produce, you're cutting off its food source. You must give the fish NO MORE than one hour of light each day, for feeding and what not. Half-way through the week, do a 50% water change, making sure you adjust the ph accordingly. Then, at the end of the week, do another 50% water change. Your tank should be crystal clear by then. It's more work than buying the light, but you won't be out $150. My tank turned out crystal clear. I hope this works for you. Good luck!