Water always looks dirty?

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sully

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I have a 10 gallon split in 2 with a juvenile on both sides. i make sure i do frequent water changes and clean out any poop and left over food as soon as i notice it. is there anything i can do that will make the water look cleaner? they eat blood worms, is it maybe colour coming out of the worms into the water?( i plan to upgrade once my axies are a little bit bigger so please dont lecture me about it there still about 2.5 inches and it is plenty of space at the moment., they are on sand and the filter is a sponge filter) any input will be helpful!
 
How deep is your substrate? I had stuff get stuck in/under my sand and get really nasty and cause me this same problem before I transitioned them to their new tank.
 
its only about an inch or so... i was doing a water change and i pulled the thermometer off the glass and on the thermometer was almost fluffy looking light brown stuff.. i assume a type of algae? if not what is it and how do i get rid of it besides water changes and cleaning the glass?
 
I would turn over as much substrate as you can and see if there's any gunk down there that you might need to clean out. My last tank before I switched them to a larger tank had sand about that deep and I had the same issue.

I assume the brown stuff is brown algae which can grow in environments with high silica content, in this case from the sand. If you can post a picture someone might be able to be of more help. I know my last tank had a ton of brown algae growing on the glass.
 
i tried to get a picture but you cant see any algae, i did a water change and cleaned the glass but it seems to look like its just hovering in a layer on top of the sand and little bits in the water after i cleaned it.
 
What kind of lighting are you using? Bright bulbs or by a window? Perhaps this could be what's promoting your algae growth.


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i finally got a picture and maybe this will help. i took it before i cleaned the tank yesterday, its cleaner than that now but still has that dirty look to it. and no there is no light on the tank at all. there is daylight in my room but nothing directly on the tank that could cause excessive algae growth.
 

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My suggestion would be to just clean the filter out daily and see what happens. Don't replace the media, just clean it out in a bit of water from the tank and put it back. I have a feeling your filter just needs to do its job a bit more. If that doesn't work maybe you need to get finer media so it can pick out smaller particulates. I know I'll be looking for some finer media this weekend.
 
yeah i just have a sponge filter so maybe something a little heavier duty with an adjustable flow rate. obviously. pet smart has a 15% off 4 day thing this weekend so perfect time to do it.
 
Just checking in to see if you've had any luck figuring this out yet. I'm curious to see what's working for you or isn't working.
 
the only thing i've been able to do to make it seem cleaner was take everyone out and wash everything, and just buy a bigger tank and a new filter to go with it haha. going to start cycling in a few days. when in doubt just buy more heavy duty equiptment
 
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