Q&A for How to Keep Aquarium Water Clear

Your best bet is to avoid overfeeding your fish and do partial water changes at least once a week.

Choose decorations that are made for fish tanks. It's best to get them from a quality pet store. Be sure to wash the decorations before you put them into your tank because they can dirty the water if they're not clean.

Your fish tank water may get cloudy. If you overfeed fish, the excess food will disintegrate in the water.

Try to replace your activated carbon or add some in the layers of your filter.

This is normal, especially if you added driftwood or other decorations like it. Do regular water changes, focusing on about 1/3 every two days. If you do too much, it will be problematic.

0.15(50) = 7.5 gallons. But be aware that gravel and other decorations take up space too.

Yes, aquarium filters most definitely keep the water clean. It will keep it clean always, but every two weeks, clean and change the filter, and take out 15-20% of the water and replace it with room temperature tap water.

Were the fish actually compatible? Unfortunately, stores will sell you fish without proper guidance and it may be that you housed a range of territorial fish together that inevitably killed each other off. Definitely do some research if you plan to get more fish.

It is better to mix the conditioner with the tap water and then add it to the tank, but keeping the fish in the tank is okay.

Most bubbles are from the extra air coming up from the fish's food. Don't worry.

That's not really a cause; cloudy water is from bacteria. But if the temperature drop is significant, the good bacteria might have been negatively affected, giving the cloudy-water bacteria a chance to grow. Check your nitrate/nitrite/ammonia levels.

Tropical fishes such as molly and guppy create much waste that cloud water. Instead of having different fish, add live aquatic plants that prevent cloudy water and keep fish stress free. Tropical fishes such as molly platy and guppy won't harm plants and do very well.

It filters the water because good bacteria lives on it and conditions the water.

You should feed them once or twice per day so that you can ensure that you are not over-feeding them.

It depends on the size of the fish. Also, if be aware that most fish that you buy from the shop or supplier will be young and may grow much bigger. Do lots of research before you put fish in a tank, as you don't want an overcrowded tank, or even worse, a tank full of dead fish and one survivor.

Before you even get fish, you should get a biological filter and cycle it to build up beneficial bacteria.

If you have the money, real plants are better as they absorb nitrates and release oxygen into the water.

It varies with the filter. Check the instructions that came with the filter you bought, and if you still can't figure it out, try calling the company or going online.

Purchase a gravel-cleaning siphon tube at a pet store or online; use this to remove waste from the tank. You should only feed your fish as much as they'll eat in a minute or two, as any remaining food just becomes waste matter. Once a week, use the vacuum to clean the gravel and remove about 1/4 of the water and replace with conditioned water. Once a month, you should replace about half the water. You might also consider a fish who would help consume the detritus at the tank's bottom, such as a pleco or small species of catfish.

You should add something like AquaSafe™. Follow the instructions on the bottle for how much you should add.

Males will have slimmer bodies and big, rippling vibrant tails. The females on the other hand will have fuller bodies and a smaller tail. You can compare them in images online.

Some fish are simply top dwelling. If they are swimming fine, then they could just prefer to dwell up there. Or, several other things could be the cause, like wanting food, avoiding aggressive companions at the bottom of tank and staying away from/near heat or water movement. You can adjust these things accordingly.

Make sure you have an adequate filter and heater in as well, then add ammonia through the form of fish food, or liquid ammonia such as Dr. Tim's. Purchase a test kit for testing the water and let the cycle happen (this can take a while). Once you have some nitrates, you can add fish.

Give them appropriate water quality (meaning cycled, appropriate temperature and hardness, with filter, water changes, etc.) and docile companions, places to hide like plants, and the proper amount of food.

You can use Aquaclear HOB filters. These use carbon as one of their filter medias but it can simply not be purchased/added. If this is a new tank being set up, run the filter in an already set up tank for a few weeks, then transfer to the new 10g and leave in for at least a week and it will instant cycle in less time. If these fish are already in your display tank without a filter, try getting one as soon as possible. This bad water quality likely caused the disease and means that your tank isn't cycled yet.

It would be stressful and could lead to death, unless you mean simply transferring to a new container of tank water temporarily (this is a fine idea and sometimes needs to be done). Try using the latter method instead of taking them out of the water again and again.

Your filter tends to make noise when the water level drops. If your water level is low, the filter has a harder time sucking it up, thus it tends to become louder. Add more water to your tank and this should fix the problem.

Siphon/vacuum it off. Turn off the filter when you do this and if it seems too stressful to fish, temporarily put them in a separate container of tank water during the process.

Yes, water changes will often help a lot, as long as they are spaced out enough. To help with this, you could get some live plants to eat the nitrates up.

Avoid flakes since they tend to make the water cloudy. Vacation feeder blocks that you get in the pet store will make the water white, cloudy, and murky. I tend to like pellets more, just make sure you don't overfeed, as the excess will rot at the bottom of the tank and cause more cloudiness.