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Aquarium looking a bit grubby?

To get the maximum enjoyment from your aquarium you need to keep it looking crystal clear and sparkly.

There are three main offenders that can challenge your aquarium’s beauty:

Cloudy water often occurs when you first set up your aquarium.

Top Tip: Making sure you give your gravel substrate a really good wash before you start, will help minimise this.

Cloudy water can be caused by any particle too fine to be trapped in your aquarium’s filter such as:

  • Fine particles of dust or dirt
  • Bacterial blooms
  • Algae blooms

Using a treatment such as Quick Clear will clump these fine particles together so that they settle in the base or are trapped by your filter.

Your filter will remove dirt particles from the water. Cleaning you filter every month removes the dirt to keep things running smoothly.

The best ways to help prevent cloudy water are:

The most common types of hair algae are Cladophora, Oedogonium, Vaucheria and Spirogyra and these will range in colour from green or brown to black, in some cases.

There are several factors that can cause excessive growth of algae and although our Anti-Hair Algae treatment will remove the algae, the causing factors must be addressed to prevent further outbreaks.

Major influencing factors are:

  • Over exposure to any light (especially natural sun light). It is important to control lighting levels and consider the positioning of your tank as aquariums should never be positioned in direct sunlight (try using one of our lighting timers on your aquarium bulbs to mimic natural day/night cycle)
  • Excess nutrients in the tank can be controlled by introducing live plants which will use up some of that. As always, regular water changes further clean the water of algae food

 

Other areas to consider that help prevent further outbreaks and aid treatment:

Sludge is the build-up of organic waste – often fish poo, excess food and dead plants – in your aquarium. Not only is sludge ugly, but it is also unhealthy and can encourage disease causing bacteria.

To help prevent the build-up of sludge:

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