cured my leaking problem now cloudy water?

by Fran
(New Jersey)

My leaking problem was because the filter was not below the recommended "depth". So now it is approx.30" below the water surface and the tank ran great....for a week. Then it got cloudy, very cloudy. Just cleaned the filter again last night, reading about the turtle tank setups on here, I have an XP1 and putting 20ppi, then 30 ppi, then 10 stars and then the Zorb. The water is still cloudy this morning.What did I do wrong? I am using the spray bar, should I be using the other attachment or that will not make a difference? Or is the XP1 not good for turtles?
It is a 20 gallon tank but only 1/2 full.

A: Any filter will work as long as it has enough capacity. Turtles are extraordinary polluters. So, unless you know what pollutants are causing the cloudy water there is no way to offer a fix. You might do some water tests to find out what is in the water. It could be the tank will have to "cycle" again meaning you need more bacteria and more pollution for the bacteria to process in order to achieve clear water. It is not uncommon for this to happen in aquariums when they are moved or a filter system is changed.

Give the tank time to mature, 4 - 6 weeks is good, then do some water testing to find out what is in the water. From there you can tweak the setup. I will say that the XP1 does not have much room for tweaking due the limited size of the filter chamber. But turtles are not complicated you just have to have enough bio-load capacity to process the waste.