New Fish Tank

Question
Hi Karen,
My son has a new fish tank (3 weeks old) and it has been cloudy most of the time.  I can't seem to get rid of it. We have had two water changes of about 50% and due for another one this Friday.  We were told to do them once a week. I know he is not overfeeding his fish, the ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are testing fine (actually they are at the lowest on the test strip).  I changed the filter cartridge because when I would lift the old one slightly  a white cloud of what looked like powder would shoot out into the tank.  This concerned me so I changed the cartridge.  Another problem we seem to have is when we vacuum the bottom of the tank with the syphon vacuum we are sucking up gravel to the point of blocking the suction.  Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?  Thanks so much Karen.

Answer
Hi Kim,
Definitely sounds like your aquarium needs more time to get established or "cycle".... the presence of any ammonia or nitrites indicates that the beneficial bacteria are not yet well-established enough to keep these levels at ZERO. The cloudiness is also a common occurrence with recently setup tanks and is due high nutrient level, dust from insufficiently washed gravel, ect... The best thing to do is what you are doing already, water changes. But they won't be very effective just once a week. It will have more of an impact if you do it at least once a day to every other day.

So keep to what you are doing now. With the water changes and testing. As far as the gravel vacuum problem goes. Just take small amounts of gravel in the siphon tube at a time and work your way through the layer of gravel as much as you can. Shaking the gravel out sometimes is needed if it gets really clogged in the tube. Practice will make perfect.

I hope this helps!
Karen~