Habitat - Indoor :: Cloudy Water

[emma]

My water in the 55 gallon tank seems to be getting a bit cloudy. Not like super bad but just a little. I have the new xp3 running too. I have 4 fish in the tank and 4 turts. What could be causing cloudy water? I have had the tank up and running for 3 weeks now. I just did some water tests today and these where the results-
ph- 8.0
amonia- 0 ppm
nitrates- NO3- 0 ppm
nitrates- NO2- 0 ppm

And I can also see little tiny pieces of things floating around in parts of the water.

[mikee]

EM – I know what you mean. It seems like when I get an entire new set up it just doesn’t fall in line like I want. With reading like that the only thing you can do is 50% water changes until you get it working. Another thing I would do is if it doesn’t clear up, with the next water change or two, I would change out all of the carbon. There may be some substance that the carbon will clear up.

[Cramer]

Mikee may be on to something with the carbon. But it sounds like typical 'new tank syndrome.'

Otherwise, particularly dusty carbon or under-rinsed can cause the same white/grey cloudyness.
I just experienced it with my mature tank and mature filter by adding a 2nd new filter with a lot of new carbon. And I never add new carbon right before I have company expected. Seems like if it's not the dust clouding the water it's the tiny air bubbles it intially releases causing noise.