How to have clear aquarium water without clearing out your checking account

There are chemicals that can be used to clear up your tank, but it doesn’t mean you have to buy them. 

Accuclear:  The easy road to clear water?

Accuclear is a clumping agent. It makes small particles stick together and become large enough for the filter to catch them. Be sure to clean your filter after using this, as it will eventually break down and release all the junk back into the tank.

If you have to use something like that to keep you water clear, I'd suggest there are other issues that need to be dealt with. Chronic cloudiness suggests maintenance and/or filtration problems that need to be addressed.

Changing water

Weekly water changes of about 20% is the most important thing you can do for the health of your fish and the clarity of your tank.

Temperature changes

Probably the easiest way to change water is to have a bucket full of water that sits in a room. This will allow the water to become room temperature.  If the water in the room is 65 and the tank is 79, you should be ok to pour it directly in the tank.   Obviously the closer the match the better and you may want to check the profiles if your species is delicate.  for many, many fish, a temperature fluctuations is not a problem and can spur spawning activity in many species

You really can’t do too many water changes. You can change too much water at one time, however.  If the water you're adding has a different ph than what's in the tank or if the temp is really different. For instance, changing 80% of the water at once when there's a 12 degree temp difference or a big ph difference could be bad. Too much of a shock.

However, do remember that fish in the wild will experience a swing in temperature of at least a few degrees during the course of a day.

It is probably best to fill the bucket from the cold water faucet.  Your hot water lines in your house travel a different path than the cold. In many cases it leads to a hot water tank which can have scale and mineral deposits and who knows what else in it. You can use a heater to heat the water in the bucket if you wish.

How often to feed?

The worst thing to do - and it's easy - is to overfeed your fish.

Small amounts twice a day or a normal amount once per day is perfect.  Your fish should eat almost all of the food in under five minutes.

If the food isn't settling to the bottom and going to waste then you are doing it right. If you do overfeed then make sure to get a gravel vacuum to do a good cleaning each week.

One rule of thumb: it is VERY hard to starve a fish.

Also, keep in mind, many fish will eat algae and plants.

The more food you have, the more waste, the more ammonia and you get into a vicious cycle.

When you do feed them, it's more fun to watch them get excited rather than swimming around in brown cloudy water like "ehh...more food, big deal." Another thing you can do is vary their diet with live foods, freeze dried tubifex, frozen brine shrimp, and only feed high quality flake foods. It all helps.

Is it ok to vacuum gravel?

In short, yes.

Cleaning the filter

Remember to clean hoses of a canister filter, such as Fluval canister filter.  You can use a long bottle cleaning brush.  What will come out will make you feel sick to your stomach.

When you take out your media to rinse it (weekly), be sure to siphon out the container as best as you can to get rid of the bits floating there. Maybe about twice a year you can actually take the whole thing off and scrub the chamber and tubes and clean out the filter impeller chamber.

 

Other reasons for cloudy tanks  

See article on Carbon Products and Phosphates

There are a few reasons you may have a cloudy tank other than dirty water:

Most new tanks go through periods of cloudiness as the microorganisms develop into a mature system.

1. New tank cloudiness from gravel and such
2. Bacteria blooms
3. Plankton blooms

These blooms are not really blooms of the bacteria that run the nitrogen cycle but other types you find in aquarium water. As long as your ammonia and nitrite level is all right, you defeat yourself to try to end them with water changes. They will eventually end and the water will clear. Some people seem to be able to assist clearing the water by inoculating with mature aquarium water from another tank.