Keeping your aquarium water crystal clear without expensive UV ..
Photo provided by Flickr
Biological filtration is a very important key to remember when attempting to maintain a crystal-clear aquarium. You must ensure that a strong supply of "good" bacteria remains in your tank in order to avoid cloudy water. Do not scrub your tank or your filter clean unless absolutely necessary. Instead, keep a plecostomus in your tank to eat excess algae. If you do not yet have an established aquarium (if everything is brand new and squeaky-clean), use a biological filtration booster, such as Stress Zyme, to help get the process started.
Photo provided by Flickr Yet another possibility is to install an undergravel filter (or any other form of biological filtration). Many of the bacteria that live in the gravel utilize enough of the nutrients in the water to starve algae. For example, I have goldfish aquariums that get several hours daily of direct sunlight and they are crystal clear even though they lack live plants. Without the undergravel filters, the water in these aquariums will become green.
Photo provided by Flickr
Photo provided by Flickr
Photo provided by Flickr
Everybody uses a crystal clear marine aquarium to display their saltwater fish. But there are times that the opposite happens as the water seems cloudy and dirty. More often than not you can trace much debris in the water. This could happen for various reasons; however, the common causes are the following:Why does everyone else have crystal clear aquarium water and you don’t? There are several reasons for water, whether it’s a fresh water tank or a saltwater aquarium, to appear cloudy, milky or just not quite as clear as you think it should be. It could be that you are experiencing an algae bloom (greenish), a bacterial bloom (milky), over feeding, or perhaps your filtration needs to be cleaned or even upgraded. There are several liquid and powder products on the market that can help with some of these problems but it is always better to find out the underlying cause and correct it rather than just throw medications and conditioners at the issue.Most of the time, the cloudiness will be reduced or disappear by itself and you’ll not need to do much to have your marine tank crystal clear again. But sometimes dirt is not the cause of the cloudy look to the aquarium water. Sometimes it’s really a microbial bloom within the water which was caused by a multitude of reasons.Finally, one of the best ways to combat a cloudy tank is to do regular water changes, filter cleaning, and carbon replacement. Carbon, in particular, can adsorb many of the medications, odors or impurities by “polishing” the water and removing organics. If you have a saltwater tank with a protein skimmer, make sure it is running efficiently and not putting all the fine bubbles back into the tank. Another problem can arise when using fine substrate like sand that tends to get kicked up easily by fish and currents and seems to always be floating around the tank. One way to guarantee crystal clear aquarium water is to make sure to remove anything that dies in the tank immediately so that it doesn’t break down and cause a huge fluctuation in waste, this includes any over feeding. Also, eliminate unnecessary light (especially ambient sunlight) that can cause algae blooms. Don’t use water conditioners unless it is absolutely necessary and run well maintained filtration that includes high quality to keep that water sparkling.