Cloudy tank water?

Hello everyone. I have been having problems with my tank water recently. It's been getting very foggy and brown colored. The pet store people told me it was a bacteria bloom and it would go away in a few days, but after leaving it for a few weeks it just got worse. I've done 100% water changes, 50% water changes, etc. but every time I clear it up with new water, it comes back a few days later. I have washed all the tank accessories and cleaned the filter but it hasn't changed anything yet. What do you guys suggest? Should I buy a new filter? My tank is 29 gallons, but not filled to the top. Here are some pictures of my water.

What do you have in your tank? A sand substrate can do this if not washed properly, or dark coloured woods can too.
Also careful cleaning tank accessories and filter media, you don't want to lose all of your beneficial bacteria!

I removed my sand a while ago when it first started getting foggy. I don't have any wood in my tank, just some caves and plastic plants. I'm thinking of feeding my axies separate from the tank and see if it helps at all. I also found a product called algone and I was wondering if it is safe for axolotls? It's supossed to be all natural and chemical free, but I don't want anything to happen to my axolotls so I wanted to check if it was safe first. It is for clearing up the water. And yes, I have been carful in washing as to not to lose my bacteria

Could just be a bacterial bloom then. Keeping temps low should help or maybe try some live plants? I'm always wary of adding bottled things to the tank so wait until someone else says yay or nay
What are your water parameters? Your cycle could be crashing?

It certainly looks like a bacterial bloom...I had something similar when I was keeping fish a few years back. The fish were unperturbed. ...that being said, it went away a lot faster than this.



How are the little guys doing with it?

So I did a 100% water change today which helped a lot... my axies were not at all happy with my cloudy water. The weird thing is that it looks just like a bacteria bloom when it starts, but as it progresses it becomes so cloudy I can't even see my axolotls. And if I leave it more than a week it makes the walls, decor and filter super slimy. I can't seem to figure it out. I could try changing the filter but it was working perfectly before. I spent quite a few hours these past few weeks looking up the different reasons it could be happening. It also seems that when it happens, the oxygen levels in the water decrees because my axies will come up for big gulps of air. The also float quite a bit, which I know is not from constipation because they are pooping regularly, and they won't float when the water is clear. It's so unusual. Everything in my tank is clean. My ph and ammonia are fine at the moment, but I will test them again when the water gets foggy which I know will happen in a few days.

Maybe try a sponge filter in addition to your normal filter to get more oxygen in the water?

Ok I could try that. The oxygen levels seem to be fine though when the water is clear.

How's the water now?

I changed some of the water so it's fine now, and feeding them outside of the tank seems to help. I'll wait and see if it gets cloudy again.

In case you want to know more information about this kind of bacterial bloom, there's a really interesting (lengthy and in-depth) article about it here. It's really long, but there's a ton of really good information about causes and treatment and prevention and the general sciences behind bacterial balances. It's for fish tanks, so the treatment and prevention section may or may not be useful for axolotls, but the biological information on bacteria and life cycles and stuff is relevant.

Hope your water stays cleared up

Hi Isabella,
What type of filter do you have running? I had cloudy water for about a day with no signs of it clearing- until I made the filter flow faster. I have a control valve on a DIY filter I made for my axolotls that helps me change the flow for these situations. A day passed and it cleared the water with the help of a 30% water change and spot cleaning. I hope this helps! How are they doing now?