Photo: Not sure whats going on with my Axie's water!

I'm getting a little frustrated as I cannot figure out what is going on with my axolotl's tank. Its so cloudy we can barely see him. We have been doing a 50% water change everyday, under the assumption it's a bacterial bloom but it's still not clearing up. We have had our little guy for well over 6 months at this point and we have never experienced this before. I have attached an image of his cloudy water as well as the results of a water test we did with API Aquarium water test strips. I really hope someone can help me figure out what the problem is, I love to watch him while he walks and swims around and it's almost impossible to feed him. We keep his water temperature around 18 degrees and he eats pellets and blood worms. Any suggestions will be of help at this point as I am stumped!

Is that sand in your tank? I was having the exact same issues with cloudy water. I do a larger water change weekly and every 2-3 day the tank would get all digusting and cloudy again.

I had purchased sand about 6 months ago and never cleaned under it. I'd just sift it around and that was all. So last cleaning I decided to clean the sand itself and omgshhhhhhh let me tell you how brown that water was! It was a very dark brown and had a disgusting rotten smell. I rinsed the sand out until most of the brown water ran clear-ish as I could get it.

Now it's been four days since my last cleaning and my water looks not crystal clear but decent!

ladygodiva35 said:

Is that sand in your tank? I was having the exact same issues with cloudy water. I do a larger water change weekly and every 2-3 day the tank would get all digusting and cloudy again.

I had purchased sand about 6 months ago and never cleaned under it. I'd just sift it around and that was all. So last cleaning I decided to clean the sand itself and omgshhhhhhh let me tell you how brown that water was! It was a very dark brown and had a disgusting rotten smell. I rinsed the sand out until most of the brown water ran clear-ish as I could get it.

Now it's been four days since my last cleaning and my water looks not crystal clear but decent!

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No there is no sand in my tank. We use large river rocks because when we did have sand, it created a huge mess. We dont know why the water is so cloudy. Its really frustrating though.

Have you made sure that there isn't any left-over food or wastes between or under the river rocks? I would take the axie out and do a good cleaning: move everything and rinse it in dechlorinated water and do maybe even a 100% water change.

Britty said:

No there is no sand in my tank. We use large river rocks because when we did have sand, it created a huge mess. We dont know why the water is so cloudy. Its really frustrating though.

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Wow then that is a mystery! I hope you find a solution because I know how annoying cloudy water is. I hate not being able to enjoy my axolotls.

One of my two tanks has gotten this cloudy problem now. I believe it's caused by excess nutrients in the water because the only difference between both tanks is the other tank has water hyacinth growing. They both had them and were fine before but the light died and I haven't had time to replace it yet so I moved the plants to the one tank. Your nitrates do look a tad high. The only way I deal with it is by doing large water changes every few days until I get a new light.


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Feeding pellets and bloodworms could be the problem, leftover food will get stuck under the rocks ect and will feed any bacteria in the tank causing them to overproduce.
Is your filter strong enough for your tank? Your filter needs to turn over 4X your tanks volume of water every hour i.e a 100L tank will need a 400L/PH filter.

I would remove all substrate (but keep a few plants or hides in there, so your axie can hide)
Id switch to feeding earthworms as these are nutritionaly best anyway and you can keep an eye on where the worms go!
Check on your filter and you may find your tank may magically start to clear up